Parish Websites

Okay, small rant alert…

Bad parish websites. They have to stop. Seriously.

I never fail to be amazed at how little time, attention and money is devoted to the websites of some Catholic parishes. It’s 2013 people! Bad parish websites are now simply unacceptable.

If you arrived at a parish for Mass for the first time and you walked through the front door and are greeted by 70’s decor, peeling paint and a sparsely populated notice board containing only out-of-date notices, what conclusions would you reach about that parish? Well, having no website or an extremely poorly produced or out-of-date website is the digital equivalent of that today. A parish’s website, or lack thereof, is the first impression most people will have of that parish.

When I’ve conveyed my annoyance at the generally poor state of parish websites, I’m usually met with the following objection:

“But wait, websites are expensive and need skilled computer people to build and maintain them!”

Once upon a time, this was true, but no more. These days, even someone with a moderate amount of computer knowledge can put together a suitably professional looking website. This can be done in several ways. For example, Google offers really simple to use (and free) website building tools.

Alternatively, you can build a parish website out of a blogging website such as WordPress or Blogspot. This is what I did for the JP2 Group website. With a little bit of configuration you can turn the blog into a fully-functioning website. Additionally, for roughly the cost of brunch at a cafe, you can buy a domain name, moving your parish’s website address from DoubtingThomas.wordpress.com to DoubtingThomas.com.

Still think this sounds too complicated? Well, my mother, who although I love her dearly, isn’t the most naturally computer-minded person in the world, yet with a little bit of help she managed to put together this website for a local art group in her town:

Having said all this, I would like to end this post by saying that building a website out of a blog is the BARE MINIMUM that a parish should be doing. This is what you do if your parish is REALLY short of cash. If you take evangelization seriously and really want to attract people to your parish you should be setting aside some time and some money for the creation and maintenance of your parish’s website.

It is said by the Eastern Church Fathers that icons are “windows into heaven”. If that is the case, then your website is a window into your parish. Make sure the view from that window looks enticing.