The folks over at Friends Church in Yorba Linda have put together a great resource on their SnapShot Website for Thanksgiving week.  Each day this week, they will be posting something new to their Gratitude Initiative page.  Each post will include four things:

1. a theme that includes a song to listen to
2. a scripture to read
3. a prayer to pray
4. an action-step to take

They've included options for sharing via twitter and email as well as a way to add comments.  Check out what they've got going on and share something you are thankful for this week.

What do think should be included on the home page of your church website?  How should it be displayed?  What options for connection should be most obvious?  What are your goals when setting up your home page? How effective is your home page?  How do you measure it's effectiveness?  Check out what the folks at East Valley Nazarene have done with their homepage.  It's simple and beautiful and I think you are going to love it.

Most of what we do every day at SnapShot Web could be described as helping churches, ministries, and sometimes small businesses get setup with affordable, great looking, very robust, and easy to manage websites.  When we set up a new website, I always tell customers and potential customers that the templates we start with are fully customizable.  What this means is that you can simply look for the website template that's closest to what you have in mind and we'll help you make changes to the images, colors, layout, etc. so that it's a perfect fit for what you are looking for.  That's most of what we do.

Occassionally though (it's actually becoming rather frequent) we'll have someone approach us with the website design already complete.  Not only do they know exactly what they are looking for but they have the design already packaged in layered Photoshop file.  These people want us to do two things for them:

1. Take their design and make it work - make the rollover images work, program the dropdown menus, add links, videos, mp3s, slideshows, etc.
2. Set it up in such a way that they can easily manage it themselves - this way they don't have to pay or wait every time they want to add a new page or update content.

We recently finished a custom project in this arena at live.simplyyouthministry.com and I thought you might like to check it out.  Click around the site and let us know what you think.  We've got a handful of others that I'll post on the blog in the coming weeks. 

Aliso Creek Presbyterian Church has put together a custom church website using the SnapShot Web tools.  One thing that you'll notice as you click through their church website is that they have some amazing and powerful photographs on every page.  These aren't your typical stock photos of generic smiling families.  Instead, they hired a local photographer to come out to their church and take some shots of people in their community.

The effect of a few good photos for your church website is priceless.  Take a look at www.acpc.net and let us know what you think.

The good folks at Trinity United Methodist Church in Elkhart, IN have had a SnapShot Website for their church for the last 5 years.  Just this past month though, they decided it was time for a major redesign of this church website. Since they are using the SnapShot tools to manage their site, the entire redisign process took only a matter of hours as they switched to a different template, make a few custom changes to the new template, then clicked through each page of their site to make sure everything was in place.

Check out the new look and feel at www.3umc.org.

We recently interviewed Justin Davis, the Student Pastor and the Pastor's assistant at The Pentecostals of Pasadena about their new church website - www.thepopchurch.org.

Here are some of the highlights from the interview:

SnapShot Web: Tell us a little about The Pentecostals of Pasadena.

Justin Davis: Our church has been in Pasadena for 58 years.  In September 2008 our church was severely damaged during hurricane Ike, and we were displaced for 2 ½ years.  Several months ago we finally made it back home to our church building. Everything is new and improved, and we felt like our website needed to be new and improved as well.

SSW: We've seen the new site.  It looks awesome.  How much time do you spend working on your website each week? What changes do you make regularly?

JD: Time spent updating the site every week is a minimum, maybe 3 hours.  And that includes updating our podcast with our latest services on Monday and Thursday.  I also make any changes to the calendar that are needed.

SSW: What kind of feedback have you received from people in your church or community?

JD: Feedback from our church was been great.  The Sermon Archive is particularly popular, especially during a sermon series where you want to catch every message.  They also love having the church calendar online. We pass out year long calendars at the beginning of the year.  But, as always happens dates/times get changed, new events are planned.  With the online calendar it is being updated weekly and everyone is aware of upcoming events.

SSW: Now that you have worked with the SnapShot Tools a bit, If you could share one or two tips or tricks with others who are new to  the SnapShot Web world, what would they be?  

JD: Two words:  Recurring Events.  The initial setup of the calendar was time consuming, but every month got easier, due to the recurring events already being populated.  Also, I spent quite a bit of time reviewing the tutorials that are available.

SSW: Has this been a solo endeaver of have you gotten others involved in the website (either through editing the site or interacting in some other way)?

JD: We have a graphic artist in the church who supplied the slides for our home page slide show.  She keeps them updated with our upcoming events.

SSW: Anything else you'd like to say?

JD: I am extremely impressed with Snapshot Web, the product and the people.  Because they specialize in church websites, they had a module created for everything we wanted.  And most of it came pre-loaded on the site, we just had to edit it.  I have made several calls to them and they spent time to walk me through different questions I had, and made some changes to the site for me. This is their business, but it seems they are approaching it with the heart of ministry.

SSW: What do we owe you for that last statment and where can we send the check.  Just Kidding.  Thanks for the kind words.

The fine folks at Yorba Linda Friends Church recently launched a custom SnapShot Website.  When the new site launched, they put out a pretty great video to announce it.  They've done it again.  This time they have set up an amazing mobile app for Apple, Android, and Blackberry through the R04R promo.  You can check out the mobile app at friendschurchyl.com/mobile.

Just like last time, they put together a slick video to announce the app to their community and the world.

Want to setup a mobile presence for your church?  Sign up today.

The Student Ministry Website at First Baptist Church in Owensboro is very impressive.  Take a few minutes to click around the site and see what you think.  Here are the top 5 things that I love about it:

1. An Organized Home Page - When you pull up the home page you will see a simple welcome message, a slideshow with some of the latest announcements, a weekly schedule, and links to some of the most important places on the site.  It's clean and simple and easy to navigate.  
    
2. An Image Driven Bottom Navigation on Every Page - In the footer of every every page, you will see the phone number and address of the ministry as well as 6 images that link to things like facebook, twitter, the church site, a flyer for an upcoming event, etc.  Keeping these things available on every page, means that they are always only one click away.
   
   
3. Sub-Banners on Every Inner Page (almost) - On almost every page, you will notice an image that stretches across the top of the content area.  This image has the same footprint and it immediately tells you where you are on the site.  When I'm on the events page, I see the calendar sub banner.  When I'm on the student resourses page, I see the student resources sub banner.  It gives the site a uniform look and feel.
   
   
4. Creative Ways for Parents to Connect - Many people consider their youth ministry website to be a tool that is exlusively for their students.  The folks at  First Baptist Church in Owensboro have clearly structured the site in a way that makes it a great spot for parents as well.  The way they have done this is quite comprehensive.  They have a place for parents to be able to ask questions to the ministry team, an online discussion board where parents can interact with one another, a list of helpful parenting links, articles, and other resources, a regular newsletter, and even a place where parents can sign up for a parent Bible study with one of the student minsters.
    
5. Video and Social Integration - There are lots of videos on the site - embedded from both youtube and vimeo. This is a great way to draw people in, to allow for a creative outlet for students, and to make your site a bit more interactive and social (as people can share the videos with a single click.)

Take look around fbcstudentsonline.org and let us know what you think.

Friends Church in Yorba Linda just launched a new church website with the help of the SnapShot Web team.  As the new site went live, they put together a quick video to show at their services and online to let people know about the launch and new domain name.  It's a simple and clear 30 second video to point you to friendschurchyl.com.  Check it out.

What have you done to let people know about your church website?

Bridge Community Church is an Assemblies of God church in the greater Philadelphia area.  Among other things, Mike Oldham oversees the media ministry at Bridge Community Church, which includes the church website - bridgecomchurch.org. Every Monday morning, Mike will spend a little time working on the church website.  He devotes most of his attention to the home page as it's the "face of the website."  

On the home page, Mike has set up a few different features that have proven very effective as communication and interaction tools.  He's got a great looking slideshow with some upcoming announcements, a calendar list, the latest sermon available for listen or download, options for sharing the site, and a place to login to their Church Community Builder account.  

Take a look at what they have going on their home page and let us know what you think. 

Tommy Foster is the Associate Pastor of Students at First Baptist Church of Mountain Home. He has used SnapShot Web for a few years to power his Student Ministry Website at 180uth.com and his church website at myfbcmh.com. One of the things that Tommy is doing really well on these websites will be noticeable as soon as you visit the home page. On both sites, you will see an eye-catching, layered, and interactive slideshow that will highlight some of the most important things going on in the community. He's using SnapShot's SlideShow feature to pull this off.

Well Done Tommy.

Want to know why others are using SnapShot Web to manage their Church Websites?  Here's what a pastor from Hedgesville has to say about using SnapShot Web for the church website at Hedgesville Church:

Our church is located in Hedgesville, WV (Eastern Panhandle) and has been in this location now for about 34 years.  We are a very young church at heart with contemporary worship and very strong children, youth and young adult ministries. Our first goal is to serve our community and let them see the love of Christ in what we do not only what we say.  We love technology!  We try to squeeze every drop out of everything we have and Snapshot helps us do just that.

I am the Associate pastor and have been on staff going on ten years.  I lead our young adult ministry (HC Live) and handle all the technical stuff. (sound, lights, video, graphic design,computers, etc)

We use our church website as the front door of our church.  Visitors can get a feel of what our church is like while finding out info and schedules for all out ministries.  We also embed sermon archives and a live stream for our Sunday morning service.  This gives people a chance to experience a service before they get here.

We routinely update the schedules and announcements and sermon archives and we have totally changed the look of our site once since we have been with SnapShot Web.

We have had visitors attend out church expressly because they visited the website.  It's the first thing people looking for a church do when they come into a new community.  We have to do our best and SnapShot has made that easier for us to do in house instead of a big web design bill.

The first tip I can think of is to look around.  There are a ton of incredible looking church websites out there and you can get a feel for what is good and what's not.  I have found that it is pretty easy to customize snapshot to fit just about anything you want.  Don't try to come up with everything on your own.  If I like the way a website looks as soon as I see it then I try to look at WHY I like it and incorporate those principles into ours.  Chances are the really good websites at the really big churches cost a lot of money and I can get that look for a lot less as SnapShot Web is quite affordable.

Our team of people who head up our small groups usually change the info about their group activities themselves.  It is extremely easy to show people how to make basic changes to their pages.

One other thing!  I have been a customer of SnapShot Web for more than a couple of years now and the one thing that stands out is their customer support.  They get back with you quickly!  They have answered all my technical questions and have equipped me to make changes to our site for a very custom look.  The customer support is first class.

Chris Jones
Associate Pastor
Hedgesville Church

I'm connected to LA VIDA Education in Nicaragua in a few different ways.  First off, my church has been supporting the ministry financially, prayerfully, and though work trips for the last few years.  Secondly, as of last week, SnapShot Web is powering the ministry website.  Finally, my family has decided that we will be supporting LA VIDA with our Christmas Giving this year.

If you are still looking for a way to give a meaningful gift this Christmas, check out LA VIDA Education and see what you can do to help provide educational resources and extracurricular programs to schools and communities in Nicaragua.  

Check out this testimonial from a SnapShot User at Hayward Wesleyan Church.  Also be sure to take a look at their Youth Ministry Website and their Church Website.  You may get some great ideas on ways to take your own Church Website to a great new level.  Here's what Jeremy has to say:

I don't know about you, but I use the internet for almost everything. My personal and profession email, calendar, contacts, web searches, pictures, videos, etc are all online. If I need to know something, I google it. If I need a video clip, graphic, activity idea, inspiration for a teaching lesson, etc, I go online and search for it. Translate that to my local ministry context with youth and children: when people want to know what time an event is, or a Release Form they forgot to pick up at church, or how much an event costs, or what is my child learning about, or what music is my child singing, or who are these weird people at Hayward Wesleyan Church and why do they enjoy ministering with youth and children so much... they go to the internet.

Before we purchased SnapShot Web, we had a custom built website that wasn't very good. And when I say "we" it wasn't the youth and children's ministry, it was the church's main website. By the time the website went live most of the pics were outdated, content was no longer relevant (because it was outdated), and we didn't have a convenient and timely way to update content and events as needed. It wasn't user-friendly at all.

Enter SnapShot Web.  I discovered SnapShot Web through Simply Youth Ministry resources. I was drawn to the idea that we (in-house) would be able to create and maintain a website and its content ourselves without having to learn about CSS, HTML, Web Hosting, FTP, etc from scratch. SnapShot Web provides the container, the portal, access to all the features you might need, and the ability for the end-user to create and maintain and update content as needed. They also provide many tools and videos and ideas and suggestions about what is possible and ways to learn about making things not only look great, but also usable and interactive for the average visitor to our site. I have thoroughly enjoyed the freedom to create our own content and make the website our own in a very simple, easy and intuitive manner. I can't tell you how easy it has been to create and maintain an online presence for our youth and children and their parents in our community.

One of the things I really enjoy about SnapShot Web is that I can update content ANYTIME and ANYWHERE there is a web connection. I don't have to be on a special computer with special software attached to a special server. I can be literally anywhere and update and upload content as needed.  I can also embed videos from YouTube and Vimeo (virtually anywhere) on our website. Upload and link PDF documents for forms. Graphics and pictures and links are a breeze to do. Connect the site with Facebook, etc. It's been fun to upload and share curriculum and ideas and content with the world (via the internet), so not only do our local church community benefit from the connectedness and information, but the entire church community benefits from some of the things we do and share with everyone. I think it's fun doing that and the website has really helped with that. I can't imagine how much our current website would cost if we had to hire a firm to generate the current website we have... and we have created that!

My sister just got back from India.  She was there for just over a month working on a movie called Not Today.  It's a movie that will highlight the devastating issue of human trafficking.  It's a movie that has a great cast and crew, an important message, and is generating a good amount of recent press (and I'd say all that even if my sister weren't involved.)

Here's a quick blurb about the plot from the movie's website:

At SnapShot Web, We pride ourselves on going above and beyond helping you make your church or ministry website into something beautiful, effective, and amazing.  We love to support you as you manage your SnapShot Website.  We'll often get a phone call or email that begins with "So sorry to bother you but..." It's never a bother.  Helping you is what we love to do.  We see it as a great gift and joy to get to support you and your ministry in this way.

Occasionally we will have a SnapShot Web user that doesn't ask any questions.  This sometimes means that she or he is not working with their site much.  It sometimes means that they are comfortable with the most basic setting and they will leave their site as it is.  And it sometimes means that they are a super-user - so gifted at working with the SnapShot Web tools that they may have things they could teach us.

Grace for Africa - a beautiful ministry with a stellar website.  They are committed to sharing the love and grace of God with the people of Africa.  They have some amazing things happening.  The recently gave us some specific and flattering feedback about how they are using their SnapShot Website.  Kellie Barrett from Grace for Africa had this to say:

 There are a lot of great things about SnapShot but what I love most about this site is that...

1. It's completely what you want it to be. If you want to choose from their templates - you have a lot of great ones to choose from; if you want to make your own design you can do that too.
2. Any question you have regarding your site will be answered within minutes! Absolutely any questions and like I said I do not have experience in site design so most of my questions seemed very elementary and yet they were answered clearly and efficiently.
3. It's SO easy to learn the ins and outs of the site. The support team is there always but there are also video tutorials explaining every module/option on the site. Very very user friendly!

Sometimes people will ask us "Just how customized can our church or ministry website be if we use SnapShot Web?"  Well, take a look at the new Live Curriculum Site and see what you think.  The designers over at Simply Youth Ministry put the design together and our team here simply dropped it into the SnapShot Web tools. 

Stay tuned in the near future as we are working on some great new templates that you are going to love.

I have been a fan of Snapshot for a while. Years ago I used it as a youth minister and now that I have "grown up," I use it as a pastor. Right now, I serve a wonderful and friendly small rural church in the panhandle of Texas with a big vision -- we desire to reach the un­‐churched and de‐churched and make disciples the best we can according to Scripture. I believe that Snapshot helps in this process. Here are some practical ways it has helped us:

We use the website for information/PR -  Snapshot has many great features that allow us to get info out -- from calendar events, to scrolling flash images, to Facebook/Twitter helps, to podcasting. We use these all. I would like to see the website be the go‐to for all information rather than the church bulletin. This would be better because it can be edited/updated anywhere at any time and there are quicker, real‐time updates. We have done community wide mailers and the main way we want to interact and get the word out about church is through our website. Snapshot also looks good and clean which has allowed residents of the town to take notice (and even motivated them to upgrade their web pages!).

We use the website to streamline - instead of calling the office or telling me in the hallways of the church on Sunday that I inevitably forget, we have used the website for members and ministry leaders to submit announcements and events to put on the calendar. It has really helped in organization of our office and calendar. This helps us focus more on our purpose and mission rather than just adding "stuff" to the calendar. Snapshot also makes PayPal easy with its module and has greatly helped in online payments for events.

Snapshot really has so many qualities that have helped our ministry this past year. The staff at Snapshot have always been an email or phone call away and have been quick to help in our times of great peril (i.e. PayPal changing everything during our sign-up for a conference!). If you are considering Snapshot, sign-up now without thinking - it will provide helpful tools to fulfill your vision to reach and disciple a generation that is desperately seeking truth.

By Paul Stohler
Pastor, First Baptist Church
Canadian, TX
www.fbccanadian.org
pstohler@fbccanadian.org

We met Matt Swider at the Simply Youth Ministry Conference in Chicago a few months ago.  He wanted to get his youth ministry set up with a stellar website but he quickly admitted that he was far from web savvy.  "No problem," we told him.  We set him up with a site and he was working on it the next day. 

Here's what's really cool... Matt has a student in his ministry that has some great design and web skills.  This student took one of the SnapShot Web templates and started making custom tweaks to make it his own.  You've got to check out the finished product at www.helenavoltage.com.  While you are on their site, make sure you take a look at their staff page (rollover the images to see some great effects) as well as their photo galleries. 

Well done guys.

What is one of the first things a potential visitor does before coming to your church? Research shows that most people do exactly what I’ve done and look online to find out some information. What times do you meet? Where are you located? What activities does your church offer for their children? Do you have a nursery? Your website is the new entry point into your church or ministry and your first chance to make an impression. A well-designed website can reflect the quality of your ministry and the culture of your church.

Jody Webster is SnapShot Web Ministry Partner that has a great eye for design plus the tools to make it all happen.  Check out his site and some of the ways that he can help with yours.

A letter from a gifted designer, pastor, and SnapShot Web user in Northern Ireland:

Hey, my name’s Neil Young, I am the Youth Pastor at the Causeway Coast Vineyard church, Northern Ireland. Through our youth movement, Destination:Home, we work with a variety of young people in schools, streets, café’s, smallgroups etc and I love what I get to do as a job.

We have been using snapshot web since 2008 and it has been such a valuable tool in communicating why we do what we do and when we do it. We have found a number of things pretty important when it comes to building web sites, especially church based sites.

Incarnate Consulting is made up of proven, veteran youth workers who have been in ministry for at least 10 years. The "whole church approach" that they use includes helping a church develop a vision for kids in their church and community, finding the right people to do the job, and helping to develop a strategy for reaching and keeping kids. Their ministry is designed for churches who want professional ministry but can’t afford it or churches wanting to save as much as possible for when the right person comes along.

They have been using their SnapShot Website for almost 2 years and with just about an hour and a half every week working on the website, they’re able to make regular changes to directly help youth workers, including games, talks, and seasonal blogs that create a jumping off point for their members to use at their churches. With the SnapShot Web tools and support, they have set up a site that's easy to navigate, clear to read and full of valuable information.

In His Eyes Ministries is about bringing God's perspective into the everyday lives of women.  The ministry offers a variety of resources in print and in person in order to develop authentic discipleship relationships.  The ministry is run by April Motl.  She a fairly new SnapShot Web user.  We talked with her recently about her experience with her new SnapShot Website and here's what she had to say:

Over the past few years I have tried six previous methods/services to create a website and I finally have a site I am really happy with.  Snapshot's design tools were simple to use and the appearance of the site was fairly consistent across different web browsers- something that has always been a bit of a nuisance.  The design tools offered a level of creativity/freedom I was very happy with, but did not require a ton of technical knowledge. 

Make sure you check out April's ministry and her new website at www.inhiseyesministries.com.

We sometimes hear questions that go something like this: "Since SnapShot Web uses templates, how can I ensure that my site doesn't look just like everyone else's site?"  The underlying assumption is that a template is a static entity - something you simply drop onto your Church Website and can never change or customize.  This is simply not the case.

We always tell people that the templates are really just a place to start.  FInd the template that is the closes to what you are looking for and then start tweaking the colors and images and backgrounds so that it will fit your particular culture.  Three months down the road, if you are looking for something different, change it.  We'll make this super easy for you. 

All of our templates are included with any of the SnapShot Plans.  You can change as often as you'd like and even use different templates for different pages or sections of your site.  You can see live examples of all of the templates at www.snapshottemplates.com.

To get a sense of just how customizable the templates are, you've got to take a look at www.graceyouth.net.  Click through that site and see all of the things they have going on.  See if you can tell what template this is.

Give up?  Here is the template that they started with.

We wanted to show you a great Church website that is incorporating some simple and clean design pieces that give it a great look and feel.  The church, Mosborough Elim Church in the U.K. has set up a sub navigation on their site.  It's really 4 simple images that they have dropped into their site and shown on every page.  This, in essence, ensures that wherever someone is on the site, they will have a quick and easy way to get to the contact info, the service time info, and the info for guests with a simple click.  The design that they have used for these images looks amazing.  It fits well with the look they have implemented on their site. 

Another thing to check out while you peruse their site, www.mosboroughelimchurch.co.uk, is the way that they have used sub-header images on each of their pages to build a sense of continuity all through their site.  Make sure to check it out and as always, let us know if you'd like us to help you do something similar with your site.

It's Day 4 of the 90 day Bible Project for First Student Ministries.  A few years ago, I decided that I wanted to read through the Bible in a year.  It was a good year.  These guys are doing it in 90 days.  They've done the math and they say with just about 45 minutes and 12 pages a day, they can pull it off.  I love it.  What a amazing feat.  Their encouraging the students in their ministry and their families to join them.

Not only that but they are cataloging the journey on their website.  Each day at midnight they put up a new video, a new key verse for the day and a link to to a new resource that will help people in this adventure.  Each week's message at their program night will focus on the scripture reading for the previous week.  Check out their site to follow the daily updates. Check out their sweet video archive.  Join them if you dare. 

Lots of people have asked recently about how to set up a splash page for their church or ministry website.  A splash page is, in essence, a page that shows up before your home page and often offers people the chance to enter into different sections in your site.  We would say that sometimes this is not the best option as you are requiring an extra click for people to get to the content of your site. 

Other times though, people can make it work quite well.  We came across this site - www.ampedyouthonline.com - recently that has set up a make-shift splash page right from within the SnapShot Web tools.  They've done it in a way that looks good and is very easy to understand (two essentials for a splash page.)

Check out this SnapShot Website that's being used for an upcoming movie project with an amazing cause.  Go to www.nottodaythemovie.com and watch the videos that they have on their home page, check out some of the recent blog posts, follow them on facebook and twitter, and see how you can be involved.

The movie will draw attention to the horrific issue of human trafficking by telling the story of a college student who travels to India for a summer trip with a few friends.  He finds himself in a situation that will change his life forever.  He meets a young girl and her father, Dalits by birth, who are facing starvation and plead for his help.

Anyway, we came across this recently and couldn't help but share it with you.

One of the beautiful things about SnapShot Web is that you start with a template for your website but you can make all kinds of changes and tweaks to that template to "make it your own."

Let us show you a beautiful example.  Grace United Methodist Church, in Merritt Island, FL had a particular look and feel in mind as they were considering putting together a website.  Since none of our templates were a perfect match for them, we just had them choose one that was close and then we talked them through the process of changing a few images and a few colors and they were all set with what you see now.

All that to say that adding custom headers, logos, colors, images, and more is not only possible but we highly encourage it and we'll help you with the process.  Click through their site and check out some of the things that they're doing.  As always, please let us know if we can answer any questions for you or help you with your web needs in any way.

A few years ago a church could get away with having a website that was nothing more than informational – a site that merely answered basic questions about the time and location of the weekly service. A strictly informational website like this is called a “brochure website” because its content is static. It basically serves the same purpose as a tri-fold brochure that you might pick up in a hotel lobby.

The time for brochure websites has come and gone.

You already know that having a website for your ministry is important. You also know that it’s important for your website to looks great. But how do you pull this off? How do you make sure that your website has a look and feel that is easy on the eyes? How do you create site that makes people say “Wow”? And how do you avoid the common pitfalls that cause people wince when they visit your site?

We’ll mention 4 quick things that will help you create a website look that you’ll love. Some of these things may seem obvious to you, but if you were to look at as many church and ministry sites as I do every week, you would find that sometimes the obvious things aren't so obvious and are worth reviewing.

Having an online presence for your ministry is more important today than ever before. As we all know, the Internet can be an amazing way to connect with people inside your community and to reach out to people outside of your community. The possibilities for what you do online are endless - from the very simple presentation information about times, dates, and locations, to the more complex and interactive features such as social networking, discussion boards, event registration, and podcasting.

As part of our job, the SnapShot Web Team looks at hundreds of ministry websites every week. Some are fantastic, others are mediocre, and to be honest, some are so scattered and disjointed that it almost hurts to look at them - having no website at all would be a better option. The most common thing that distinguishes the good from the bad and the ugly is purpose. Let us explain…

Before creating (or re-creating) your online presence you’ll want to make sure that you ask yourself this critical question: Why?

Why are you doing what you do with your website? What should the purpose of your website be? Is it simply to convey information or do you want it to be something more? Is it to grab people’s attention? Stir people’s emotions? Get people involved? Persuade people to take action? Is it to connect with those already involved in your ministry or to reach out to those who are not yet involved?

The reality is that if you don’t have a purpose for your website, your blog, or your facebook group – if you haven’t thought about why you are doing what you do – there’s a very good chance that you’ll end up with a scattered mess that doesn’t do anything all that well.