Would you like to expand the scope of your ministry from your city to the world? Your church can have its own web site and provide the world access to your ministry. You don't need thousands of dollars of equipment to have a web site. Organizations like Gentle Ministries provide free space for qualifying churches and other nonprofit organizations. Your own ISP (Internet Service Provider) will provide you the space you need.

GETTING STARTED

Before you start learning HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language), visit PC World's review of the top ten web authoring tools. You might also want to check out Netscape's web authoring tools or Microsoft's tools.

After selecting the tools you want use, take some time to visit some of the best church web sites and see what they offer. Kingdom Best lists the top 5% of church web sites on the WWW (World Wide Web).

COMPUTERIZED BUSINESS CARDS?

Church web sites should include the information you put on your business cards or Yellow Page advertisements, but they should include much more. The best web sites include information for those who live in their community to help them get to know their churches better. They include the church calendar, newsletter, constitution, staff biographies and publicity material on their sites, but also include information that will benefit a surfer from Australia, England or Uganda. Remember that Internet surfers are from all over the world, and most of them are not interested in the date and location of your next church picnic.

Our church's web site features FreshStart Devotionals. Surfers stop by to read the devotionals that we post every Monday morning to get a "fresh start" to their week. If they prefer, they subscribe (no cost involved) to our list server and have the devotional sent to their email address on Monday morning. Though we have less than 150 people attend our worship services on Sunday morning, this ministry expands our reach to more than 2000 people each week.

The Community Baptist Church of Manhattan Beach, California posts their Pastor's sermons on their web site. The First Baptist Church of Shreveport, Louisiana provides its visitors with "Light Readings." This page is a collection of poems, prayers and essays of interest to Christians and seekers. Be creative. You can even include audio or video copies of your worship services. 

EYE CANDY

In the early days of the Internet, web masters posted black type on grey background and avoided the use of graphic images. Slow modem speeds made the use of graphics impractical; after all, who wanted to wait five minutes to enjoy dazzling graphics? Today, surfers consider black on gray bad form. Though moderation is the watchword for graphics, you should include some eye appeal on your site.

You can design your own graphics with programs like Paint Shop Pro or borrow some from 3 Crosses Graphics who offers free Christian graphics, to non-profit web sites. They also will design free custom logos or customize their graphics for you.

With the GIF Animator you can add motion to your graphics. The graphics take on the illusion of motion--like pictures in a cartoon flipbook.

MOOD MUSIC

With the advent of multi-media computers many web sites provide music for their visitors. Yeshua's Ministry has a phenomenal collection of free midi files on their web site. Select a song appropriate for your pages or by cutting and pasting some code,you can have a jukebox of Christian music on your home page.

Add a free guest book, a free visitor counter and the email address of a contact person and you are ready to upload your site and register it with search engines and begin your world wide ministry.