Is WordPress or Hosted CMS solution right for your church? (Photo credit)
Earlier this week I wrote a post on Church Marketing Sucks – What’s best for your church website? WordPress or Hosted CMS? I was explaining the journey and decisions we have been making over the last 6 months in choosing our web platform for our own church website. There are important tactical reasons why we have made the decision to switch. However, there are many good hosted CMS solutions that offer church web hosting, have the right features and functionality which have design templates ready to go when you want them.
In our scoping stage we did look at the various church web solutions (highlighted in no order of preference below) that are available and I thought I would share them with you. As well as providing the ‘burger with the lot’ functionality they provide pre-designed templates which can be really useful for a church just starting out.
Here are six reasons why a hosted CMS might be right for you:
1. Low budget – if you are a new church plant there are some excellent low cost solutions with everything included.
2. No web staff – If you have no specialists on your team you might want to consider the ease of use of these solutions offer. I’ve found WordPress quite easy to use, but I have a tech side to my brain ;-), you may not.
3. Baked in functionality – Most of what you need from a functionality perspective is already there. No updating or searching for the right plug-in.
4. Design is already done – While templates aren’t for everyone, for a church just starting out it will get you going. There are literally hundreds ready to choose from. There are some Church WordPress themes that have design templates ready to go as well, but there aren’t as many as the hosted solutions have.
5. Hosting – You don’t have to think about yearly hosting fees ever again.
6. Back-ups – Working in design and advertising studios all my life I have had this saying burned in my mind ‘back-up, back-up, back-up! Hosted solutions do all of the heavy lifting in backing up and restoring for you. It’s part of the deal so you don’t have to sweat it.
The reason why I wrote this post was because I believe that with any web project you should have all the facts at hand. Seeing some one-eyed comments from WordPress developers made me pause. Even though WordPress was the right solution for us, it isn’t the right solution for many churches. One of these ‘hamburger with the lot’ hosted CMS solutions might be perfect fit for your church.
Here they are five hosted CMS solutions we considered before making our decision, which you may want to consider:
1. E-zekiel
Up till now E-zekiel has been the church web solution we have been with. As at time of posting they just let me know about a new product they have launched called Thrive. Looks very interesting!
2. Cloversites
3. ekklesia360
ekklesia360 is a product of Monk Development. My interactions with Monk team have been really useful and the team there have a great product with ekklesia360. They have demonstrated over and over again to me their heart to serve. Great crew!
4. Bridge Element
5. OurChurch
In case you are wondering, I have no ‘deals’ with any hosted solutions. I just like to share with you what I’m learning along the way.
Do you have questions or comments about WordPress or ‘hamburger with the lot’ church web solutions? You may also know of other solutions or WordPress themes. Comment below!
