Hello everyone! I wanted to share a little something that I have been working on. Not too long ago I wrote on how you can easily (and cheaply) make a nice looking website for your parish – even if you aren’t a web developer. Well, my parish is in badly need of a new site and I thought that I’d put my money (or lack thereof) where my mouth is. All that being said, here is a quick update on my church website project.
In the Beginning…
Okay so, my initial proposal for updating the St. Bonaventure Catholic Church website was met with a little bit of hesitation. Maybe this is because I took the liberty of bringing it up to the pastor after making a good confession, but I needed a way to talk to the boss – and priests are hard to catch! Anyway, my request was met with, “Yes, we definitely need a better website, but we will have to get it approved by the parish council…” To which I responded, “Come on FATHER, we don’t need no stinkin’ council!” Well, I really didn’t say that, but I was definitely thinking it. So I left the confessional sin-free, but with my ego battered and bruised.
The Value of a Good Network
When I got back home, I immediately let all of my friends on Facebook and Twitter know that I wanted to redo the website. Soon, I had a vast army of awesome church ladies poised to make comments to the pastor about redoing the website, and that they knew just the person to do it. In addition to that, my sister-in-law got another priest from the parish to take a look at the mock-up site that I created, which was another chink in the bureaucratic armor of the parish leadership.
Where is the site now?
Alright, so I still don’t have full approval to change their site, but I wanted to share with you the power that a free WordPress template, and a little time can have on a failing Church website. Here is the St. Bonaventure Church website before its redesign, and here is the mockup of the church website after its redesign. Let me know what you think! Better yet, let the pastor know what you think (be sure to link to the new site in your email to him if you do). His email is at the old site – if you can find it.
church websites, parish leadership, st bonaventure catholic church, st bonaventure church, wordpress template
