I’m about 2 days late on this post, but it’s topic worth checking out.
It started with Boyink and it has been perpetuated by ChurchMarketingSucks, eMinistryNotes, Strategic Digital Outreach and Heal Your Church Website.
This is a discussion of whether a church should pay for website development or use volunteers. There are valid points to both sides of the argument, in my opinion, and many perspectives have been offered up in comments at all of the above sites.
Once again, in my attempt to be humble, I’m going to give the definitive answer here. So, consider yourself fortunate to find yourself reading this post at this moment in time because I’m about to put an end to this discussion.
The answer to the question of whether a church should pay for their website development is (drumroll please!):
- It depends
That’s right, it depends. There is no across the board answer that fits every church, every church is different. If a church is larger and wants to make their website a top priority and funds are available, by all means, they should consider paying for it. If a church is smaller, with extremely limited funds, but sees the benefit of having a site, they should consider a volunteer or a team of volunteers. These 2 examples are probably the outer limits of a wide range of situations. Size does not dictate whether you should pay for this service, just as nothing else does. A church may have a gifted web developer/designer that has a heart for this type of ministry and offers to head this effort up at no cost. Also, a church may not have that type of skill, or at least someone with the heart for ministry, willing to give up their time in that way, so it makes more sense to hire a professional.
I have said this before and I’m saying it again, every church needs to evaluate for themselves and make wise decisions based on many factors. Look at the resources God has given your church, look at all options, pray about it as you seek God’s will, then do what is best.
Another point to keep in mind is that even if you start in one direction doesn’t mean that God won’t lead you in a different direction in the future. Things are always changing and you need to always evaluate what makes sense from here moving forward, not from last week, last month or last year moving forward.
Let me close with my disclaimer: my wife is an extremely gifted web developer/graphics designer and runs a business out of our home doing this type of thing. She designs websites for ministries, authors and others professionally and she has a heart for the church and it’s ministry. She designed the website for the children’s ministry at our church and continues to maintain it at no cost. She is also designing a website for our friends church, at no cost. She is to the point where she really has to limit the projects she can take on at no cost because she has more paying clients and honestly, there are times when the non-paying clients get put off because the paying ones are taking priority. I’m not trying to shamelessly plug her(she is good though), I am offering a first hand perspective from the side of the volunteer webmaster. It’s a good arrangement but there can be a downside.
I was just having a conversation with my buddy Brad about volunteers and I will be addressing that topic sometime in the near future. We both are in a situation where we are needing to add some volunteers to tasks that we are doing in our own churches, so it’s a relevant topic, that’s for sure.”