When looking for inspiration for your “coming soon” church website, it’s easy to turn to Google. But here’s why scoping out your area’s churches might make things more confusing for you: every one of those websites has different needs.
Some churches with thousands of members may need a more complex, custom website to adhere to their large following, while smaller communities would still make huge waves in their church community with a carefully chosen, ready-to-go theme.
Despite what your Google search gathers, one thing is for sure—your website should be right for you.
This month, we want to put the spotlight on four awesome church websites that just launched! Of course, we think they’re gorgeous sites, but the main thing we want to emphasize is that they all took a different approach. Each church had different ministry goals, and their websites each needed to solve different problems. Whether they decided to choose a theme, make a tailored multi-site church website, or partner with us to build from scratch with a custom design, they all blew us away.
But don’t take our word for it—see for yourself!
Theme
If you and your team have ever pushed through a staff transition, you’ll know how challenging it can be, especially if you’ve got other big projects or events going on at the same time.
Calvary Chapel Aurora built an incredible website, despite simultaneously undergoing staff transitions.
They chose an awesome theme (Augustine) to structure their website’s unique features. One of the most common problems we find when a church chooses a website theme is that, frankly, they struggle to utilize all of the functionality as well as the theme’s preview did. Despite choosing an intricate theme, Calvary Chapel Aurora added their own stunning images to elevate the theme to make their website completely their own.
To add more value to their website for their visitors, they’ve also added several helpful, easy-to-find resources like different ministries sorted by age and gender, and a basic bible study series for those looking to grow their relationship with Jesus.
Tailored Theme
If you’re a church looking for a theme that can be altered in a more advanced way, look no further for inspiration than Fellowship Bible Church. They chose an e360 Theme then added several different layouts for increased functionality and design. The added layouts are a great solution for a church that needs just a little more than a theme—not to mention the added pizzazz.
Their onboarding specialist, Charlie, shared their story with us while building their website: They were on a tight deadline and wanted to launch their site before Easter, and used the potential of a set theme to make their job a bit easier. With tailoring services from Ekklesia 360, Fellowship Bible was able to install additional layouts and tweak site pages here and there to meet their needs in a short time frame. Everyone worked tirelessly as a team, and the gospel-focused attitude made the website launch that much more rewarding! And they did, in fact, go live before Easter.
Multi-Site Tailored Theme
Visit Village Bible Church’s website, and you’ll be impressed with how they used their website to unify their multiple church campuses.
They took their theme to new levels by doing more than just tailoring it—they went through an overhaul with our strategic and design teams and built their website into a major hub for their multi-site congregation.
With a unifying single domain, www.villagebible.org, the visitor first chooses their location based on which campus he or she attends, then they are given a particular version of the church website depending on their choice.
“Thanks so much, Jenn! I really appreciate all your help and patience. I really like how the site turned out, and I’m thankful for such a useful and beautiful ministry tool. God bless you!” - David R Wood, Family Ministries Pastor, Village Bible Church | Aurora Campus
Custom
If you’re looking into custom design church websites, look no further than Bell Shoals Baptist Church. Bell Shoals wanted the whole shebang and had us build their site from the ground up.
Teaming with Ekklesia 360, they paid extremely close attention to detail and created a website that completed everything on their checklist. They weren’t afraid to ask the hard questions and let us use our experience to help them approach a multi-site church website in an innovative way with lots of universal content and lots of campus-specific content. Together, we came up with intuitive, campus-based navigation. It’s truly a great church website. Their overall goal was to unify themselves as one church while still maintaining clarity for their many locations.Their website reflects that exceptionally well.
