Any interest in a brotherhood web-hosting service?
What are congregations looking for when they consider putting up a website? Are current services satisfactory? Or do many just plop into WordPress.com or Blogspot? Is there a need for a good service out there?
I’m asking for a brother who is apparently considering offering this service. I have no investment or connection, other than as a friend, so no disclosure needed here, as pundits often do. He asked me what I thought, and I said I’d ask around.
Please everyone reply in the comment area below. I’m directing my friend to this post.
Jeff Rich, 
Manly Luscombe 4:18 pm on January 28, 2012 Permalink |
There are a few in the church who offer web hosing services. My site and the church for which I preach are on one operated by the preacher in New Madrid, MO. To me the issue is one of cost per year, and services offered. Most churches have a small site with local information and do not require a lot of bandwidth.
The second issue to consider is how to advertise and promote it.
In summary – if the price is reasonable I believe there would be a demand for the service.
Brad 4:45 pm on January 28, 2012 Permalink |
Unless he is going to be offering specific features that would aid the congregation in having a pleasing site, I’m not sure what the difference would be. Of course, there is that “preferring one another” verse.
With a lot of non-computer-savvy congregations, he would need to offer some sort of templates where they simply punch in their name, directions, contact info, and the template takes care of the rest. Also, for those interested, he’d need to offer ftp service (which apparently some webpage providers don’t offer) and extremely simple explanations on how to do it.
I may be mistaken, but wasn’t there a group that attempted to offer this same service a few years ago?
Tim Hester 7:04 am on January 29, 2012 Permalink |
I don’t know if their would be much demand for this. Preachersfiles has been offering both a blog or to host a website for sometime now. It is only one of the options available to churches. One of our members at Waynesboro host ours on his site. It would be a good thing but he would need to find something that would make him standout among the other options out there.
Richard 11:24 am on January 29, 2012 Permalink |
There is already one that I know of and it has been active and around for a long time–if interested I can give you the site http://internet-ministries.net/ He also has a facebook page but its pretty non controlled
https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Church-Of-Christ/151003081320?ref=ts&sk=wall#!/pages/The-Church-Of-Christ/151003081320?sk=wall
Weylan Deaver 9:00 am on January 30, 2012 Permalink |
These folk take care of ours website (shermandrive.org): http://www.cocwebdesign.com/ . They specifically work with churches of Christ.
Weylan Deaver 9:01 am on January 30, 2012 Permalink |
Correction: “ours” should be “our”
Jeff Rich 8:30 pm on February 4, 2012 Permalink |
It is something the church here keep smaking a lot of noise about, but things just never seem to happen. I think a high quality option would be blessing. Not unlike House-ot-House/ Heart-to-Heart does in the mailing area.
J. Randal Matheny 3:52 am on February 5, 2012 Permalink |
Our brother decided to go live with the offer. You can see what he offers here: http://www.the7ones.com