Why Baptists suck at the Web [Part II] December 7, 2007
Posted by Gordon in Web.Tags: baptist church, australian baptists, baptists, Baptist blog, Baptist blogger, Christian websites, church website
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I promised I would research some examples of Australian Baptist church websites that DON’T SUCK. Time prevents me from examining every single Baptist church website, but I have looked at quite a few. So here’s my Inaugural NeoBaptist Baptist Church Top Five Websites Award:
[click on images to visit their sites]
5th Place goes to Unley Park Baptist Church in Adelaide.
A good functional site with excellent information and good navigation. Easy on the eye but it drops off the bottom of the screen too much.
4th Place goes to Epping Baptist Church in Sydney
Standard Joomla type site with everything visible without too much scrolling [see above]. Has all the info you ever need and more.
3rd Place goes to Gymea Baptist Church in Sydney
This site is also a typical Joomla, Web 2.0 layout, with information readily at click. A little more graphic than the 4th place site.
2nd Place goes to Northville Community Baptist Church in Newcastle, NSW.
A very neat, simple yet stylish and elegant site with good colour scheme and excellent navigation. Everything appears on the screen without scrolling. Very professional layout with a warm welcoming picture of a pretty woman smiling. The orange scheme is warm and neat. Part of this site is only for members, and the highlight is the link you can click to ‘cancel your credit card offering’. Very sharp!
Drum roll…………… Our very first NeoBaptist Top Five Baptist Church Website - Top Website goes to:
Bendigo Baptist Church in Victoria.
A colourful, inviting website packed with information and a graphic rich environment. Easy to navigate with lots of things on offer including download-able newsletters etc. This church has truly arrived into the Web age, and utilises this medium of communication extremely well:
If you know any other church website which you think belonging our top five please submit them. If your church has a great website and you think you’ve been ripped off then send us the link. Due to the fact that this blog is run on a less-than-shoestring basis Bendigo Baptist get absolutely nothing except serious kudos from Australia’s best Baptist blog!
The Kudos is good.
I might say, the web site is also run on a less than shoe string budget. (No budget!) Done as a hobby and as a learning curve to develop a few other sites..
You can get some great templates to base a website on.
Bright complimentary colours and some good pictures will help.
It pays to look at many other sites first to see what works and what doesn’t. You need to plan it out to be consistant in theme, colour and design layout across the whole site.
It is still, and will always be a work in progress.
I think that it still needs a lot of work though.
Thanks for the comments,
Bruce Mc
MrMac Web design
Bendigo Baptist Church Web Master.
g’day Bruce. For a shoestring website it sure doesn’t look it. For the benefit of those churches looking to emulate you, can you fill us in on the basics. It looks like one of those ready made templates you buy, or if not it looks a lot like a Joomla site.
Care to share some of your secrets?
oi!!
what about mine?
http://www.bedfordbaptist.org.au
OK, good site but still not top 5 yet. Remove all mentions of the Dockers and it may well go up in the rankings.
A few real pictures of your church would help in the section about ‘new to church?’. Having stock photography [or generic looking pictures] does make a site look professional but often locals want to actually see what you all look like, what the building looks like, what the front entrance looks like etc.
It looks nice and clean, probably a Joomla or Drupal site?
Overall, great site, has all the relevant info, and it doesn’t look like someone has hacked it out on an early version of Frontpage, or even worse, made it in Word!
developed from scratch, in house, no templates…agree about pictures….working on that and some video content.
now here is something for you, do you know the common denominator between your 5th and 1st choice…..nothing to do with web site, really, more the churches?
OK, let me have a stab:
1. They are both situated in places I’d rather not live.
2. They both have a long history.
3. They have been blessed to Mark Edwards preach there.
4. They are not in WA
Take your pick from 1-4 or add no. 5
Rob Worsley was associate at Unley, and now is associate at Bendigo…
btw I did once go to Unley, (one visit) but I never preached there… 
[...] websites are getting better. Check out my 2007 awards for Baptist Church Top Five Websites. However, some are in need of urgent updating. I found this shocker a few days ago. I feel [...]