Church events webpage: admitting defeat

I just removed the “Events” tab from my church’s website.

And it feels so good.

I had big dreams for that Events tab. Each time a new event was planned for our church, I was going to have a stunning graphic, a captivating blurb and maybe even a promo video ready to go, straight up on the Events page on our church website.

The page would be buzzing with activity, with all the one-off and ongoing events available for kids, women, men and seniors, events for evangelism, events for growth, events for socialising, events for in-depth study. It would demonstrate that my church is a church that’s alive. We do stuff!

But I realised far too quickly that for me, as a team of one, working part-time across a variety of creative disciplines, taking full responsibility for the initiating and maintaining of all church events included on our website, I just couldn’t handle it.

If you clicked on Events yesterday, you’d be taken to a lonely, empty page. Which is crazy, because our church does, in fact, have a lot of ongoing and special events happening. These events had brochures made, they were being advertised on a Sunday, they were being promoted via email, there were Facebook events being created. They just weren’t making it to our website. And for now, that’s okay.

Don’t get me wrong, keeping an events page maintained isn’t exactly hard or time-consuming. It was simply a case of resource allocation. My priorities, my initiative and my brain space were all focused elsewhere, and I just couldn’t get on top of that darned Events page.

So I took it down.

Just for fun, I did a little brainstorming the other day of all the ways a church website can be utilised to communicate, reach, inspire and challenge people inside and outside of the church. The list was massive. It took up a whole page! We can create blogs, podcasts, sermon uploads, live streaming, Q&A, events, registrations, online giving, contact forms, galleries, social feeds, database access, FAQ pages, biographies, videos, storytelling, the list goes on. (And yes, Gospel Powered websites can assist you with getting all of the above on your church website!) But just because we can do all those things on our church website, doesn’t mean we should.

For me, and my church, right now, with the resources we have available to us, the role of initiating and maintaining an Events page was too big for the resources allocated to that role (i.e., me). Could we resurrect the Events Page and empower someone else to own it and take over? Absolutely. Could we put the onus onto the event organiser to get their own info onto the website? Definitely. Could I restructure my work week to set aside one hour a month to scan our calendar and see which new events need to be added to the website? Probably. These are all good solutions to the problem of the missing Events page. And over the next few days, we’ll look at all the options and decide on the best one.

But for now, our church website will carry on without an Events page, and life will go on.

Churches shouldn’t feel the pressure to bite off more than they can chew when it comes to websites. Yes, there is so much available to you. Your website has so much potential to reach our world for Jesus. But better to do the things you’re currently doing well, and slowly work your way up from there.

At Gospel Powered, we are working hard to put together a manual of sorts to guide churches through all the stages of building and maintaining a website. We will help you to take it slow, only recommending stages you’re ready to manage, and equip you with a guide to help you progress and branch out, as you’re ready to adopt new initiatives and features. We don’t want you to feel overwhelmed by your website. By subscibing to Gospel Powered, we will partner with you by building your church’s website, equipping you to use it well, and coaching you along the journey as your website grows.