Overview

Church123 (C123) is a church website CMS product developed by a small established company based in London. Serving customers across the globe, they are highly recommended by many leading Christian organisations such as The Church of England, The Baptist Union, The Methodist Church of Great Britain and the Evangelical Alliance.

C123 is has been designed very much with the non-technical or novice user in mind and with lots of 'safety nets' to prevent users making mistakes. The 'back-office' system is accessed by your Internet Explorer browser and has a simple wizard to get you up and running. You can choose from the range of 'off the shelf' design templates (which vary in quality from the very good to very mundane) or you can employ a designer to produce a bespoke template (such as the examples below). The main site editing functions will be familiar to anyone who has used a word-processor such as MS Word and it is simple to edit text and add photos. More advanced page layout options can be achieved using the built-in table builder. There are useful options for embedding content from 3rd party websites such as a YouTube movie, An Amazon Product, a scripture from BibleGateway or an RSS feed from another site. (C123 does not produce it's own RSS feeds) There is also a good form builder to create a contact form and email addresses are encoded to help prevent spam. There is support for up to 2 levels of navigation and a built in link-checker which will check for dead links. The system will also prevent you uploading images that are too large for web use (a common mistake by novices) and will re-size them for you.

There is well-implemented support for editing permissions - ie. you can have multiple site editors but restrict individuals to certain pages they can edit. You can also create password protected pages for a 'members-only' area.

Images and other files are managed using the file library. The file library is fairly easy to use if you only have a few files but becomes increasingly awkward if you have to manage large alot of content. However C123 promise a vastly improved file manager arriving in the near future.

It is possible to put podcasts (most commonly sermon downloads) onto a C123 site but this has to be done entirely manually - ie you upload the MP3 file and then add a link to the MP3 file on one of your pages. It is slightly misleading to call this 'podcasting support'. Podcasting support should mean that the MP3s are be managed in their own database which you upload to and then the title, preacher, date, length and even number of downloads are all generated automatically in a list. Ideally there would also be an RSS feed for the podcasts so subscribers can see every time new sermons are added.

From a technical standpoint, the code generated by C123 is rather dependent on the quality of the original template. There are over 100 templates available and at present there is a mix of table and CSS-based templates so it is not true to say that all C123 web pages will be fully disability standards compliant. However as new templates are added this should improve. Their menu system produces easy to navigate accessible menus avoiding hidden scripting, fly-outs or Flash (all of which can cause accessibility issues).

C123 websites produce tidy URLs based on the page names you choose, so a typical URL will look like this "http://www.churchname.org/alpha" This is good from a usability standpoint and helps search engines indexing pages.

For more information about C123 see their website where you can try the system for free. Alternatively call their friendly help desk on 020 8949 6005.

User Experience

The interface is clear, pleasant, generally well-designed and mostly self-explanatory with useful hits & tips that appear alongside some of the editing tools. However some of the interface features are annoying and can really slow you down when initially constructing your site. (For example the user is forced to do regular 'site re-builds' and page 'reloads' ). Pages you are editing appear in pop-up windows and it does feel like there are some unnecessary extra steps to achieve simple tasks. What the system really needs is an 'advanced mode' which would allow confident users to by pass the extra steps put in place to help the novice.

Support

Undoubtedly C123 offer the best support of all the CMS providers. They offer free telephone support to all their customers and you can call them any time and speak to a friendly human straight away who will answer your queries. The simplicity of the C123 system should also mean you probably will not need to ask for help very often as most aspects of the system are easy to master. There is no documentation on their website but they do provide a real goldmine of general advice about church website design.

Pricing

Pricing is very straightforward - £195 per year + VAT for the UK (international pricing is available on their site) and that includes everything - the CMS hosting, email and support. Without doubt this represents great value for money and demonstrates C123 are focused on serving churches ahead of making money.

Example sites:

I have provided bespoke template designs for these clients: (and the churches have subsequently added and amended pages themselves)

Revelation Church (London)
Queens Road Church (Wimbledon)
Andover Vineyard
Sutton Christian Centre
The Well Church (Blyth Valley)

Conclusions

Pros: Simplicity, designed with the non-technical user in mind. Exceptionally good value for money. Provided by a small friendly company who are adding new features (albeit slowly). There are only a few restrictions on template design so a C123 site can look great if you have a good designer. Excellent free telephone support makes customers feel valued and supported.

Cons: Some features are restrictive for experienced users. There is limited built-in extra functionality such as full support for podcasting and many of the features mentioned on their website such as blogs and calendars rely on third party sites and are not actually part of the C123 system. There is only proper support for 2 levels of navigation so if you are planning a large website, C123 will struggle. (You can manually add links for further levels) The system for managing files such as images and movies does not work well if you have a lot of content, although this is being improved. Users have to run Internet Explorer web browser for Windows to use the system. Apple Mac users will either be forced to use a PC or run Windows emulation software. (That said, sites generated with the system can be viewed in any browser)

It's probably not for you if: - You are a large church and need a website with more than 50 pages, want advanced interactive functionality such as e-commerce, need properly integrated support for podcasting, have technically proficient 'power users' who could become frustrated with the restrictions in the system that are designed to help novices, are die-hard Mac users.

It's probably for you if: - You are a small-medium sized church, have a limited budget, need something really easy to use and want to get up and running quickly with a minimal investment in training, want free helpful telephone support.

As promised, I am going to provide an independent review of the 3 leading UK Church website Content Management Systems (CMS). They are Church Insight, Church123 and Church Advance. There are a few other minor UK church CMS players, but I have close working relationship with all 3 of these providers so I can write from experience and offer a balanced first-hand view.

Overview

Church Insight (CI) is a product of a well established company called Endis who are based in Cambridge, UK. With a team of developers and an international customer base, it is by far the largest of the church CMS providers. This is a big advantage as it means Endis have a substantial team and the CI product is actively being developed and upgraded monthly to meet the requests of its customers and all users benefit from these upgrades. It is vital to understand that Church Insight differs significantly from the other offerings in that it is not just a CMS, but a whole church member management system. Each member can have their own log-in and administer their own details and preferences. This allows the church office to send mail-outs to members, saving admin and postage costs. Most importantly the site can be made to show different content for logged-in members than for general visitors. This is important as church websites need to appeal to both potential visitors as well as church members. CI offers a vast amount of additional functionality specifically tailored for churches.

In addition to the basic website CMS, some of the highlight features of CI are; member management- the Church has the ability to send mass emailings to everyone or different groups within the church. There are events calendars integrated into the website - ie. you can set the pages to display a calendar of forthcoming events which update automatically. There is excellent support for uploading and management of podcasts and video. There is support for rotas, email reminders and a booking system for resources such as PA equipment or room hire. It is possible to set up online event registration - people can book and pay for forthcoming events online. There is support for e-commerce - ie. the church can have it's own online shop at take a percentage of revenue from sales.

CI has lots of support for interactivity which can provide channels for feedback and discussion is likely to become more and more important to a generation increasingly used to being part of Facebook and other online social networking sites. There is extensive support for forums, for example general discussion about the Christian life or a place to put all those small ads and save printing that sheet, or simply for blog-like comments on articles - whether church-wide stuff on discussion documents among elders, children's workers or musicians. Consequently, the church can increasingly become a community that's interacting online - not just at meetings. this can really help with a sense of involvement & belonging. This can also really help church members in remote mission situations - they still feel connected to home base.

The CI back-office allows many people to access the system simultaneously and levels of permissions can be set. For example the church secretary might be sending an email out to small group leaders while the children's ministry leader is updating rotas and syllabus information that are viewable only by the logged-in members of the children's worker's team.

CI is unique from the graphic designer's pointer of view. Instead of designing and coding, then supplying the template to them to integrate into the site, the template design is actually constructed in the system via the browser, using the 'Theme Park' area. This has the advantage that changes to the design can be made at anytime without involving help from CI staff. However, the while the Theme Park is fantastically clever, it is hard to use and requires the designer to spend considerable time learning to use it. There are also some limitations (although not a big issue) on what the designer can do, for example there must be a horizontal navigation bar with drop-down menus, and must include standard CI header and footer components. General updates to page content (as opposed to template design) using the layout editor are reasonably easy to achieve using a series of 'components' such as articles, images, calendars etc that you add to your page.

It is not possible to cover the full spectrum of CI features here. There is more information on the (rather lacklustre) CI website and if you contact me I can put you in touch with people who can give you further info.

User Experience

While CI is hugely powerful, the downside is that it is fairly complex to master. Although it is administered using just your Firefox web browser, the interface it not especially user-friendly and is frankly poor in places by modern standards. (eg. multiple pop-up windows, slow re-draws and unnecessary steps to achieve simple tasks) CI has been around for 7 years and it's interface is relatively old technology which makes for a slow and clunky experience. However although slow at times, it does actually work as advertised and it is possible to become proficient with it in time. To learn to use CI properly, church staff will need to attend training courses run by Endis. Although it may seem daunting at first, the investment in staff training will pay off as the power of the system saves time and money in the longer term, particularly as membership grows.

For the technically minded, the CI system produces web pages that are table-based. This is old technology and has been superseded by CSS. Although users see little difference in their browser, CSS-based pages are quicker to load and most importantly, are more disability standards-compliant. (ie work better for blind people using audio screen readers). This is a significant technical issue which CI needs to address. CI does however provide "low graphics" versions of the pages which is a rather crude 'stop-gap' solution to this problem.

Unfortunately CI websites produce untidy page URLs, eg a typical page URL will look like this: "http://www.churchname.org/Group/Group.aspx?id=28574". This is not great from a usability standpoint and is not ideal for search engines indexing pages. However CI will resolve simple URLs so you could type in "www.churchname.org/alpha" and it would go to the Alpha page.

Support

CI provide paid-for training courses as the first stop for those learning to use the system. (Usually 2 days at £200 per delegate) In addition to training courses, there is some documentation on their website, although for such a complex system it is rather inadequate but this is slowly being improved with video tutorials etc. You can also subscribe to an RSS feed which provides news of their monthly updates, dates of courses etc. They also provide slightly reluctant telephone support. They will answer your questions but prefer people to do their training courses.

Pricing

Until recently, CI was charging a hefty 75p per church member, per month (eg. a church with 500 members would pay £4,500 per year) for the complete system but has recently re-structured pricing to a more friendly 3-level system. There is not space here to detail exactly what each level offers but essentially; Level 1 (£65 per month) offers the CMS and member management and mailing tools, Level 2 (£130 per month) adds audio & video support, the ability to edit site templates and e-commerce features. Level 3 (£260 per month) is the complete feature set and includes, online resource booking, member tracking, a dedicated shop and advanced database management. It is possible to 'buy down' additional specific features if you don't have the full Level 3 package .

Example sites:

These are some of the best CI sites (from a design point of view). Remember you will see the content for the general public but logged-in members maybe seeing something quite different.
Church of Christ the King (Brighton),
City Hope Church (London),
City Church (Cambridge),
Woodside Church, (Bedford)
Fusion UK (students),
Alpha USA (Chicago)

Conclusions

Pros: Powerful and has huge potential to revolutionise communication within churches. 'Future-proof' and makes more sense, the larger your church becomes. Great support for interactive and online networking features which are increasingly important. Could save huge amounts of money in admin costs - postage, printing etc in the long-term. Support for online-booking of events etc and e-commerce built into the product. Always being developed by an established company with new features rolled out free each month. There is nothing else quite like CI available anywhere else.

Cons: Relatively expensive, especially if you just want a website CMS. Steep learning curve requires big investment of time and money by the church in it's staff to make the most of it. Old table-based webpages and clunky user interface. Documentation and support could be improved. Poor range of 'off-the shelf' templates - you will probably need to pay a designer to create bespoke templates.

It's probably not for you if: - You are a small church, only want website CMS features, have a very limited budget, don't have the time, staff or resources needed to really make full use of the features. Smaller churches may want to consider the Level 1 option if they want something that can grow with them, but if you just want a basic CMS then there are other mores suitable alternatives.

It's probably for you if: - You are a large church (400+ members), want to invest in a 'future-proof' system that will cope with significant growth, want member management features and e-commerce functions, Want member log-in and 'web 2' type community and interactive features.

A good stock of current photographs is a pretty vital 'raw material' for any website project and indeed most church publicity materials. Good photographs will aid good design. When commissioning photography for a church website here are some of the issues it is good to consider:

Avoid a series of mugshots. Try to capture people in action - talking, relating together, working together and doing things. Avoid loads of shots of people gawping at the camera. Try to document church life as if the photographer is invisible. Think of it as if your are telling a story not producing a rouges gallery.

Try to avoid using flash where possible. Unless used skilfully, flash will often cause red-eye, unnatural skin tones and odd effects. In general you will get better photos where there is natural light rather than under artificial lighting.

Consistency of style - try to use only 1 or maximum of 2 photographers so that you have a consistent visual style throughout your website. Different photographers will produce very varied results when given the same brief. Also it is better to take a lot of photos at the same time with the same lighting. For example an evening meeting under artificial lighting will look very different from a morning meeting in daylight.

Avoid 'artistic' cropping and rotating of pictures - the designer may want to do cut-outs, make montages or use photos in a way you had not thought of. Photos with the tops of people's heads missing and unusual rotated angles are often not helpful. Leave the cropping and orientation choices to the designer.

When you do need portraits (eg. photos of leaders), try to get consistency. if possible photograph them in the same place and time with the same light. Try to get the subject to relax, tell jokes and try to get them to forget they are being photographed and avoid the 'rabbit caught in headlights' expression.

Take 3-4 shots of each subject - the chances are if you are shooting a group of people at least one person will have a weird expression in a shot. The more shots you take, the better the chance of the perfect shot.

Happy faces are best. We are trying to project a warm welcoming friendly face, grimaces, frowns and strange expressions will put people off!

Variety is best. Try to get a broad cross section of photographs showing different ages and ethnic identities. Church is for everyone avoid focusing on just one type of person.

Get permission. Make sure the congregation is aware when a photographer will be present and that if someone is unhappy being photographed give them an opportunity to opt-out and ensure any photos they are in are not used. Be especially careful photographing children and that you have parents permission.

If possible commission someone to be permanent 'church photographer' to capture special events as they happen. Websites keep people interested and coming back if there is recent material and is frequently updated. Highlighting events that have happen helps give people a flavour of church life and provide a great historical document of your church growing and developing. These photos will also be useful when you come to prepare publicity materials for the next event. Also when there is an outstanding testimony, get a photo of the person and get in on the website quickly - good news is worth sharing.

Do some preliminary sorting of photos yourself - don't supply thousands of images to the designer (He will probably charge you for hours spent sorting them) Although it's good for the designer to have some choice, at least delete shots that are obviously rubbish. You may need to get approval for use for some photos before you give them to the designer.

Use a good quality digital camera where possible - it is cheap and flexible. Anything over 3 Mega Pixels (with the camera set a maximum resolution) is fine for use even in printed items. If possible supply the photos at high-resolution straight off the camera onto CD to the designer. (A few photos can be sent by email but avoid attachments totalling over 10Mb). The designer can down-sample them to a size suitable for use on the web. It is not problem to go down in size but scaling images up will produce messy pixelated results.

You can download this guide as PDF here to keep and print-off for your reference.

Many churches are waking up to the fact that their website can be the main point of contact for visitors to their church. Beyond that the internet is a also a great opportunity for Evangelism and there are many great evangelistic sites (An example is one I recently designed "What's Life About?" site, written by Trinity Baptist Church, Tenterden).
The Internet Evangelism Coalition (IEC) is promoting Internet Evangelism Day on 27th April. This is an opportunity for churches to focus on using the web as an evangelistic tool. More imporantly than the actual day, the site has lots of resources, testimonies and suggestions about how churches can make their websites more effective for outreach There are also some 70 tips for effective church websites. This is a very useful resource (although I would have some minor issues with some of their design advice) and prompts us to consider how can you make your church website more friendly to outsiders?

Before you begin any web site project you must consider how the site will be maintained and updated after it is launched. In the early days of the Internet many websites were essentially online brochures, which carried basic information about the organisation but were not regularly updated or very interactive. There is still a place for a the simple 'brochure-type' church websites that are an initial point of contact and provide 'fixed' information about when and where they meet and what to expect on a typical Sunday. With the advent of 'Web 2', websites increasingly becoming more like a living community, updated daily with users making regular contributions. (World-class examples of this are FaceBook, MySpace and Flickr.) If you want your church website to be 'sticky' - i.e. attract regular repeat visitors, it is vital to keep it up to date. Examples of what can make a church website sticky could be; Sermon podcasts (Provided each week), details of times and locations of midweek and other meetings, details of the next Sunday; who is preaching, who is leading worship etc, reports and photos of recent events... the list could go on.

Running a church website effectively will involve a serious commitment and I would highly recommend the church appoints (and funds?) a website manager who is responsible for updating the site on a weekly or even daily basis. In parallel, I would also suggest you find a photographer (ideally within the church) who will record church events, not only to provide a library of images for the initial site design, but to add to the site on a frequent basis.

Manual updates V Content Management System
Before the site is designed you have a VERY important choice to make - will the site be a manually coded and updated or will it be built on a Content Management System?

A manually constructed site may be built using software such as Dreamweaver or Frontpage on a PC and then uploaded to the website hosting space (Which you will have to purchase yourself). Any changes have to be done on the PC using the software and then re-uploaded. This requires someone who is technically competent and willing (your 'IT guy') and usually means you are reliant on the co-operation and availability of just one individual to update the site. However this could be slightly cheaper (if your 'IT guy' is a member of the church and not charging for updates) as you will have to pay fees to the CMS provider

Using a CMS involves a third party who will provide a clever software system that allows any authorised users to access the site using a 'back-office' where they can edit the site easily using just a web browser (from anywhere in the world) and will not usually require a great deal of technical know-how. Your website designer will provide a template to the CMS who integrate it into their system. The huge advantage of this is that a team can run the site that doesn't need lots of IT skill and can be quickly updated. The CMS will usually include hosting the site, email and many other features that would require a great deal of work to add to a manually built site.

Church Website Content Management Systems.
The primary function of a content management system (CMS) is to allow the content of the site to be managed and updated easily, ideally without much technical expertise required by the website manager. At the very least a CMS should allow to website manager to edit text, upload, photos (and other file formats such as PDFs and MP3s) add and delete pages and 'publish' the changes to your website. There are many other functions offered by CMS that I will discuss at a later date.

In the UK there are several companies providing specialist CMS for Churches. I will provide an independent review of these soon. They each have strengths and weaknesses but I would usually recommend that any church website is built using a CMS.

Many times I have been approached by clients who want a web site but who have not really thought through what they want to say and to who they are saying it. We must define who the site is for, what is its purposes beyond just having an online presence. Having defined the target audience and what the message is, it is important that the content is planned and the structure decided upon before design begins. Although content will change and develop over time, your designer will need some idea of how the site will be structured, your key messages as a starting point.

Suggestions for briefing your web designer:

Focus on the home page. This will carry your key messages, and lead people into the most important areas of the site. Think about what most of your visitors will be looking for and make sure they can find it easily. This is where people may form their first impression of your church so put extra time, thought and work into your homepage.

Decide on your page structure i.e. the pages within the site and how they might logically be broken into sections. Maybe supply a tree diagram such as the example below.




Look at other web sites what works and what doesn't? Maybe give your designer a list of sites that you like along with the reasons you like them. A good designer doesn?t just copy other sites but will take inspiration and can re-interpret ideas that work elsewhere.

Gather your content. You don't need to have written the entire site before you start but it is helpful to begin to outline the copy and content at an early stage. This will probably evolve in parallel with the design as the project progresses. Don?t expect your designer to write the content for you. It's your church and you know what you want to say about it. Try to involve people with good written English and editing skills if you have them in your church.

Find a good photographer. A good library of photographs covering the life of the church is a pretty vital part of any church website project. It will form a major raw material for your designer and pictures will often communicate more than the word themselves. (I have written a brief guide to photography for church websites here.

Be creative. Keep to web standards (your designer can advise you about this) but try to 'think out side the box' and be creative in how we reflect the vibrancy and joy of Christian living and church life online.

Further reading. There is also much good advice and further reading about church website projects provided by the excellent people at Church123.com.

Until the last few years the majority of church websites were frankly awful, usually cheaply put together by an enthusiastic amateur volunteer from within the church who often had little understanding of how to structure information or of design aesthetics. To further worsen the effect, after the initial burst of energy the enthusiasm would die off and the site would be less frequently updated leaving a poor and out of date site. Fortunately most churches have now moved onto their second or third generation site and standards are improving rapidly, although they maybe still somewhat behind most secular organisations.

Too many churches used to think of their website as just another form of brochure or like an advert on the side of the building that once done is complete and can be left. In fact most successful websites are updated frequently and build a community of regular visitors, users and contributors. The site is a living, breathing thing that needs frequent attention and loving care way beyond the initial work and launch. Ideally a team will be put in place to manage the ongoing development and updating of the site. Ideally you would have a writer/editor and a roving photographer plus someone with overall authority to check and sign off before publishing. Not all churches have the staff to do this at first but it is worth the investment of time and even money as the website can often become one of the main tools for communication with both church members and the outside world.

Increasingly church websites are becoming more 'sticky' and providing content that draws visitors back regularly. Probably the biggest traffic-driver is the sermon podcast, allowing people to listen to sermons they may have missed or want to hear again. Providing accurate details of forthcoming events, meeting times etc will also be a very useful service for members. It remains a big challenge for churches to attract visits to its website from people outside of the church, particularly unbelievers who may have questions about the Christian faith or who are contemplating visiting a church. In my experience a surprising number of non-Christians visit church websites. For many it is far more comfortable to surf a website than actually visit the church in person and this can be a vital first point of contact between unbelievers and the church. This means it is important that the site makes a good impression, that people feel at home on the site and can find what they want. I have seen good church websites drawing significant numbers of visitors and many churches feature the Alpha Course prominently on their website.

Out of the blue I was recently invited to the Christian Blog and web Awards as two of the web sites that I designed had been nominated. The Phatfish site was runner up in the "Best Worship Blogg" category, although bizzarely the site is not a blog and is really about the activities of the band and only loosely related to'worship'. This is the first year of the Christian 'Bloggies' and although the event was well run, the categories and nominees were something of an odd mixture - maybe as the awards become established and mature over the years they will gain a little more credibility and consistency. Anyway it is great to have work recognised and to be wined and dined free of charge, even if the awards were slightly haphazard.

As with all award ceremonies, one always has to ask what's the point? On the positive note it is great to encourage Christians to raise their standards in using the web to get the gospel message out there and communicate properly. It was good to see some really excellent causes like Stop the Traffik recognised. Also it provides a networking opportunity for Christians involved in the online world to support encourage and honour great work. A more negative view might be that the media as an industry is notorious for this kind of indulgence and self-congratulatory exercise.

As a Church website designer I was most intrigued to see what won the "Best Church website" category. The winner was Kings Church Manchester - a decent website with the typical content found on established church web sites and adequate, if not outstanding design. Apparently the judges had 'hundreds' of nominations for this category and although KCM is a good website I could think of many other church websites that are far better. Anyway I'm not trying to carp about the winners or the judges decisions, but it does raise a very interesting question - what constitutes a great church website? That is one of the questions that this re-launched blog aims to address.