GCI Australia Micro-sites
Grace Communion International in Australia is offering micro-sites for congregations wishing to share their meeting details, location and time of services, along with contact information.
These typically will be small congregations or house churches that don’t have the local expertise to provide a web presence. The National office is able to enable a site for you using templates to bring a one-page responsive site online with your own URL with ease (i.e: like sydney.gci-au.church).
Other options are possible, depending on a congregation’s need and would require further discussion. Contact Us.
Software Partners supporting GCI Micro-sites
How to start a website
Before you start
The first step in starting a website is defining what you want to accomplish with it. Most churches start by providing public information about their church for people who might be interested in visiting. Most people looking for a church start on the internet, so having that information available makes it more likely that new people will find you. Potential visitors want to know the basics:
- When and where do you meet?
- What is a service like?
- Who’s the pastor?
- Are you doing anything in the community?
The next logical audience is people who already attend. They might want to know when and where an event is, or how they can donate, or listen to a past message. Many smaller churches find that the work required to maintain this information is more than the value it brings to its members. It can also be hard to find a volunteer willing to commit to the regular updating that would be required.
Choosing an option
GCI offers a template-driven micro-site. It requires very little to get started–essentially, requesting the site be created, editing the supplied text to better reflect your church, and providing information on content you would like to reflect on your site.
GCI also offers WordPress and professional themes for WordPress that takes a bit of the design work out of the process. Worpress has tons of options, and it’s well-documented, but it’s a way to go if you don’t want to tackle a full website design.
Of course, you can always design your own website.
For GCI churches, you should take time to consider GCI branding guidelines and follow them when designing your website.
Hosting the website
If you choose the GCI micro-site template, GCI does the setup and provides the hosting as part of the national office support . For other options, there are a host of inexpensive website hosting services that provide varying tools and support.
For Australia based churches, you can consider the National Office hosting, using PLESK or your own WordPress site, if a Micro-site is not for you.