Website award for Baptist church
Coulby Newham Baptist Church in Middlesbrough was voted runner-up in the most engaging Small Church Site category in the Premier Digital Awards earlier this month
Its minister Stephen Sutton has created the site using Wordpress over the last couple of years.
‘We were very pleased to be runners up,’ he said. ‘The website has actually just been a hobby of mine in the evenings.
‘It has taken a long time to get it how I wanted it and it will probably take another couple of years to finish it off but I have found it amazing what you can achieve on the Wordpress platform with very little technical knowledge, as I can’t code or anything fancy like that.
‘A good website is a massively important communication tool to have as a Church as it is in reality just as important as the welcome you provide on door step on a Sunday morning.’
With this in mind the website has been set up to be “as welcoming as possible”, giving a sense of "what sort of a bunch of people we are", he continued. There are lots of photos, light and easy to engage with text, and clear communication of what’s going on within the church.
Stephen has ensured the website is regularly updated by integrating both its MailChimp (email provider) and its Facebook and Twitter feeds.
'I didn’t want to end up with a website that was high maintenance to keep unto date, because inevitably I would fall behind with it and there would be loads of out of date events and info on the site that no one wants to know about,' he explained.
'So as we upload sermons and send out the regular email/twitter news and the site is automatically updated.
‘I love it this way because we get to have a site with loads of the latest info on but I actually rarely log on to make changes to it.'
About a year ago a responsive layout was introduced, meaning the site now changes automatically whether accessed via phone, tablet or laptop.
‘This has got to be a must have now the majority of searches and information is consumed on a mobile device,’ continued Stephen.
‘There are loads more improvements I would love to have the time to do to the site but for now, it looks good and it gets the information across.’
Baptist Times, 23/11/2015