Tools to Build and Maintain Church Websites

There are a lot of steps that go into building church websites. We wanted to compile a list of various tools to aid in building your church website. We will first discuss tools that aid in graphics. Then we will discuss the various tools to build the website itself.

We are happy to report that we don’t receive any kickback from these product recommendations. We simply want a list of resources based on our experience and research. Although we are a bit bias towards our church website builder! 😛

Graphics

Your church probably needs graphics for a variety of things: bulletins, worship slide background, event flyers, and even website building! Here are a few tools that are worth checking out.

Canva

Canva is a free online tool (with premium features) that lets you design various computer graphics. This is a good tool for designing a logo, creating images for a blog post, making some icons to be displayed throughout the website. Additionally, this is a good tool for making church flyers, weekly bulletins, etc. This free tool is worth checking out and they have good premium features as well.

GIMP

GIMP is a desktop application graphics editor that is completely free. From GIMP’s about page:

  • “GIMP is an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed program for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring.” *

For those ministries on a budget, GIMP might be a good tool to check out. The only downside is the learning curve. GIMP is powerful but requires some expertise to use it.

Ministry Designs

Ministry Designs Media has a large collection of free graphics that churches can use. They boast 80,000+ graphics that are completely free with no contracts, no credit cards, no restrictions. Additionally, they have a drag and drop builder starting at $97 per month.

Church Art

Church Art is a company that provides various graphics with new ones every week. The base tool is $5.99 a month or you can get premium for $11.99 a month.

Coolors

Coolors is a color pallet generator. This tool can help generate thousands of color combinations that work well together. This aids in generating your church a color scheme. Phos Site uses this regularly while designing our websites.

Emojipedia

Emojipedia is a completely free wikipedia of emojis! All your emoji needs in one place.

Website Builders

Eventually, you will need to build the website itself. You can build one from scratch by writing the html yourself or you can use a website builder. This section will discuss pros and cons of from-scratch websites and using a website builder. There will be two website builder types to discuss: Form-based and Drag-n-drop.

From Scratch

From scratch means your church is hand-writing the html and css code to build your website from the ground up. This usually takes a substantial amount of time and effort. However, this also allows you to build a website exactly as you want without any restrictions compared to Form-Based and Drag-and-drop.

We don’t recommend this method unless you have someone willing to provide updates. Everything is hand-written and therefore will require time and effort into maintaining the website. Most website builders online would be easier for most volunteers to update compared to the specialized skill required to code a website.

Form-Based

Form-Based website builders have the users fill out a form and generate a website based off the answers. In the ministry world, this would be information such as meeting times, beliefs, staff members, etc. Additionally, it would probably have you upload photos and videos to be put onto the website. Usually, you choose a template, color scheme, and other design elements that informs the builder how to design the website for you.

The upside to form-based is the usability. Since it is only text-based and image uploading, this type of website builder is one of the easiest to use. You don’t need to know anything about website design allowing anyone to edit the website. This is very useful in a ministry setting where time and energy is limited. Any volunteer can quickly update the website, allowing them to go back to the core of the ministry.

The downside to form-based is the lack of design freedom, you can only change what the tool allows you to. This limitation poses the risk of most websites generated look similar. However, you usually can select a variety of design options, such as the color scheme. Additionally, the core of most websites is the content, i.e. what makes your ministry unique and special.

We highly recommend Phos Site, i.e. us (warning, this is a shameless plug 😀). As of writing this, we are the only form-based website builder specifically designed for churches. We might even be the only form-based website builder out there! Our tool is designed with small churches in mind. While your online presence is very important, we want to maximize your website while taking as little as possible from the ministry.

Drag-n-Drop

Drag-and-drop builders (or click-and-drag builders) are online tools that allow you to custom build your website with little technical knowledge needed. These builders operate by allowing users to drag and drop blocks to build a website. Most of these builders usually include templates specifically with churches in mind.

The upside to these builders is their balance of customization versus cost and expertise. There is a lot you can do with little expertise needed. Most volunteers can update the website as needed with a slight learning curve. These builders have plenty of resources and videos on how to change the website. They usually have templates specifically for churches. Additionally, these sites are affordable for most churches.

The Drag-and-Drop builders can be useful tools that have a lot of features but this additional complexity can lead to additional frustrations with the tool. Some of these builders can have bugs and issues leading to frustrations while designing your website. While this shouldn’t keep you from using these tools, you should be aware of this possibility.

Additionally, these builders still require some level of expertise to design a professional-looking website. We recommend looking up some best practices for website design. Some churches will hire a freelancer or a company to design the website on one of these platforms. This is an additional monetary cost but can be well worth it for a high-quality website that is still maintainable long term.

We recommend Drag-and-drop builders for medium to large churches for their more advanced features and customization without the from-scratch cost. This option does require more time and energy compared to a form-based builder since you are designing the website itself but gives greater design flexibility.

There are a lot of these builders out there. These ranking lists are a good starting point.

Conclusion

There are a lot of tools out there for church graphics and websites. This article gives a broad-stroke overview to help decide which tool is best for you. We discussed the tradeoffs of customization compared to various time and money costs. We recommend weighing all the costs of building a church website before you start building. You can learn more about the costs of building a church website with this article.

Disclaimer: Product recommendations are based on our experience and research. We recommend doing your own research before purchasing or downloading anything. We are not responsible for any damages that may occur while using these products.