Pastors get to be dreamers. As the leader of your flock, you’re trusted as the “big picture” person––steering your church closer to Jesus and the gospel. You have almost too many responsibilities to count, and your opinion is needed on many projects and topics.
So when it comes to your workload, it can be difficult to delegate tasks. You might want to have an active role in everything because you’re used to leading others, but that doesn’t mean you need to take the lead on everything. You can still guide and direct your church staff members without taking on the nuts and bolts of many tasks.
Your church website is one of the first things you should delegate. It’s not that you won’t be involved in the planning or long-term goals of the site (you still should be!), and it’s not that your website isn’t important. But it’s time for you to pass the torch to a team member who has the experience, drive, and time to take this aspect of your ministry above and beyond its current state.
It Doesn’t Take a Village
Having a website is now a non-negotiable of your outreach ministry and community support. Just a decade ago, churches who had a website could rely on volunteers and part-time help to run them. They needed a simple site with contact information, a few basic functions -- and not much else.
Today, you shouldn’t have an army of volunteers managing your website part-time. If you want to truly let this project flourish and grow, you need to entrust it to the hands of a professional. You should find someone with marketing, writing, or project management experience. Maybe this person hasn’t even worked specifically in church communications before, or maybe you can find the perfect partner for your church’s website project.
You need to let it be the work of a consistent, experienced team member (or a few if you have the resources). This investment is worth the time of a dedicated staff member who can elevate your website into your best source of community involvement and outreach.
It shouldn’t take a village to keep your online presence afloat and only sorta kicking. Your church website can be your pride and joy, if you trust it to someone who knows what the digital world is like from the inside! If you’re a pastor, you probably don’t have the technical experience (or the time!) to follow the rapid trends and updates of online ministry. Hand this off so you can rest easy knowing your website is being taken care of by someone whose specific gifts and talents better equip them to take on this type of project.
Elevating Your Website
If you’ve ever found yourself doing bare-minimum work to satisfy your website’s needs, that level of effort won’t be sustainable. Between writing sermons, leading services, and being the core spiritual leader at your church, you have other things to focus your efforts on. It really is okay to delegate your church website to someone who has the drive to take it beyond just “okay.”
You should put the website in the hands of someone who feels passionately about the amazing power it has––someone with the drive and excitement to research new methods and tools, control the nitty gritty website tasks, and make this website a “homebase” for your entire community. You need to find someone to geek out over how awesome your church could be online!
When one person is tasked with managing the site, they’ll also feel a great sense of dedication to seeing goals through and accomplishing what they say they will do. When there are too many cooks in the kitchen without a focused drive, the “bystander effect” may take hold. Small things are missed here and there, due dates get pushed back, and entire projects get postponed. It’s a waterfall of slip-ups that can spiral out of control if no one truly feels fully responsible for making the website excellent.
Do You Really Have the Time?
In the end, it really comes down to the fact that running a church website shouldn’t be a “side” project. If you had the time and energy to charge this online mission, you would! But if you simply don’t have a few hours each day to manage and create content, update forms, handle internal communications requests, and ensure the site is functioning correctly––then it’s perfectly okay to say, “I need help.”
If you don’t have the time needed to run a modern, beautiful, up-to-date church website, it’s time to find someone who does.
So, Who Do You Ask?
Hopefully, you can now see how it could be freeing and wise to delegate your website to another dedicated person in the church! Now it’s time to find the perfect leader for the mission.
If you’re asking an existing staff member...
...you need to create a conversation about their workload, passion for the project, and skills. You may have someone within your staff who you see as a perfect fit for running the site––but you shouldn’t just drop it on their plate without ensuring it’s in the right hands.
Find out if they actually have the time and ability to manage the technical side of the site. And don’t forget that they’ll need to produce relevant, timely content to engage with your church in a variety of ways everyday. If they don’t have a few hours each day to devote to the site (maybe more, depending on the size of your church and your unique goals), then you may want to consider other options.
If you’re bringing on someone new...
...you have a chance to fill the role with someone who has fresh perspective and a clean slate. Investing in a church communicator means you’ll be choosing someone who isn’t caught between other existing duties. You can even find a candidate who has previous church communications or website management experience!
If you have the resources, hiring a new, dedicated staff member can be an incredible investment in your website that could lead to unlocking its true potential.
