Thanks Steve!
I'll read over those links when I get time. To be honest, i'm not sure where our church is up to as far as doing the site, or who is on the team putting it together. I'm guessing there's a number of capable people involved, given the level of technology we have already (video screens,live video crosses to a mission trip to Fiji etc) so I suppose we will find out soon enough. I've put my hand up to be involved, but haven't heard back yet :)

Hi,
I've had a little experience using CMS's for Church sites - do you think they are really the best thing to use? If so, which CMS and why?

I sort of took on the job of getting a website up and running at our former church. It was then that I started taking an interest in CMS's, and eventually settled on Xoops. It seemed to be the best fit with what we wanted from a site, but it suffered from the problems that a lot of church sites (and sites in general) have: Nobody to regularly update the content. I didn't have the time or access to the information, and every time someone stepped up to volunteer to keep the site updated, they would last a short time and give up for one reason or other. Eventually the task of keeping the core and modules updated became a chore, modules stopped working because the host upgraded to PHP 5, and the whole thing fell in a heap. I ended up doing a basic html site with a PHP news script which was easy enough to update, and although I am no longer a member there, the site seems to be functioning OK. (Time will tell I guess).

Our new church is much larger and already has an existing (Joomla) website, which is OK but lacks some decent content. Our senior pastor is now talking about creating a new "interactive" site, but there doesn't seem to be any idea of what that actually means in practical terms. I think "interactive" could be his way of saying "flashy" (or Flash-y), but I think once people get over the wow factor of something, there needs to be a good reason to come back regularly... any suggestions?