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Welcome! − Contact − Resources e-letters − Resources e-letter 19:1 - February 2019

Resources e-letter 19:1 - February 2019

John Truscott

30/01/2019 8:36 pm

There are two new sets of Training Notes just uploaded: TN113, What to avoid on your website, and TN114, How to prepare a church profile. There is also news on the development of the new Topics index page and a plea for help in promoting this site. 
Click/tap red heading to continue
  

NEW: ‘What to avoid on your website’

Some church websites are brilliant, but many have features that lessen their impact on the curious and their use for the committed. There are 18 questionable features listed for you to test your website against.

Here is a selection from the list:

  • Non-responsive and non-secure technology
  • Unclear navigation
  • Hidden contact details
  • Out-of-date information
  • Unanswered questions
  • Suspect or coded words
  • Typos or poor grammar
  • Lengthy paragraphs
  • Stock photos
  • Delayed response

Each of the 18 is explained, so see which ones might just apply to your site. Better, ask a visitor to the site to mark you on each of the features listed.

Your church website is your shop window. It’s not easy to write and design it for everyone but it’s worth making an effort to get it as good as it can be.

Training Notes TN113, What to avoid on your website, are now available without charge on the Training Notes page of this website.
  
  

NEW: ‘How to prepare a church profile’

These notes give advice on how to write a church profile, a document that should provide an accurate and perceptive overview of your church especially when seeking a new Minister.

The recommendation is to think in terms of six sections:

  1. The HEART of the church: an overview of membership and priorities
  2. INFORMATION about the church’s life: a wide range of factual detail
  3. THE AREA: its features, schooling and how served by other churches
  4. A fair ASSESSMENT of your church: health, strengths and weaknesses
  5. The FUTURE: vision, prayer and plans
  6. The PERSON PROFILE for the new Minister

The Notes offer and explain four aims when writing:  To be

  • interesting
  • honest
  • visual
  • definite.

There are then detailed checklists of what to include. These cover the six sections and follow the four guidelines. There is specific advice on preparing the person profile.

Training Notes TN114, How to prepare a church profile, are now available without charge on the Training Notes page of this website.
  
  

Helping you find what you need

The website’s Resources section has a range of different indexes to help you find the material you are looking for.

  • Indexes in numerical order of Articles, Training Notes and Health-checks
  • Index by topic with a long list of possible terms
  • An alphabetical index by title
  • Six broad subject indexes: Leadership, Management, Structures, Planning, Communication and Administration.
      
      

Can you help me?

I long for more Ministers and other church leaders and staff to be aware of and using these online resources. I am happy to make quantities of my web-card listing them all available to anyone who can then distribute them to others. Or for you to use any emailing list you have to make these resources known.

If you have access to lists or means of helping me in this, please get in touch and we can discuss how to work together on this. Thank you.
  
  

Thank you too for your interest in the Resources section of my website and with my warmest good wishes for all your work in the service of Jesus Christ.