Imagine that you have a Super Usher. With extraordinary stamina, he stands by the doors of your church 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. He is the perfect advertisement for your Church – with his trousers always pressed, his tie always straight, and always wearing a smile.
Whenever he stands at the front doors, people are intrigued by his warm and friendly manner and come in ‘just to have a look’. He invites them in and tells them about your church, showing them all of the wonderful things they wouldn’t normally see from the outside as they’re scurrying by. Wow – what a man!

Maybe a super usher sounds too good to be true, but most churches have one available to them  these days, even if they don’t realize it. Your very own Super Usher is your church website!

The simple truth is that in our day and age, your church’s online presence is too important to ignore. When someone is searching for a local church to visit, the church with the most successful website will get the most attention. Taking
a half-hearted attitude about your church website can mean losing potential visitors and fostering a poor perception of your ministry within your community, especially among the younger generation.

Have a look at your website through fresh eyes. Do you like what you see?

Activate Blog posts for discussion

Enabling discussion on your site helps to create a sense of community. Visitors and congregation members can comment on the information you post in your blog, adding a richness and variety to your site content that is not all driven by you. Additionally, you have full administrative access and can allow or disallow comments as you choose ensuring that you are in control of what is viewed on your website.

You can even allow certain church members to have their own user account to post their own content. This would enable your Youth team to post news of interest to your young members; Pastoral Care could keep news of Church community events up to date and the Prayer Team could let everyone know what specific points the Church is agreeing on in prayer as well as testimonies of God’s faithfulness.  

If you would like this functionality to be activated on your site, please let us know by logging a ‘Support Request’ in your Admin Centre.

There are definite benefits to posting weekly information to your News & Events blog.

The news articles and events information you post are automatically updated on your Home Page (for those who have this feature on their website), which means that your visitors are constantly seeing new and interesting content as they land on your site. This shows that you are proactively keeping in contact with not only your visitors, but your Congregation as well.

Included within your News & Events, is a wonderful automated feature which sends a list of your months posts to all of the subscribers to your Newsletter, every month end. This means that even if they haven’t been to your website lately, they still receive all your postings, once a month.

What a fabulous way of keeping everyone up to date with your upcoming events and as well as news of what’s currently happening within your Church!

Most churches use their blog to post latest news and events, but did you know that you can also use it to upload audio sermon podcasts, images, videos and blog posts as well? 

We have tutorial videos that will lead you through this process that are available in the User Guide in your Admin Centre. Simply watch the video, create dynamic Blog content  – and voila!

This month we’ll be looking at an excellent feature that comes as standard with all UK Churches websites – the News & Events Blog.

Wikipedia describes a Blog (short for Web Log) as ‘maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video.’ www.wikipedia.org

The feature we’ll be highlighting this week is the Events Calendar.

Your events calendar is a very useful feature. It highlights not only what is programmed to happen today but also all the future events that you add in the Posts’ tab in your WordPress control panel. The events that are coming up the soonest are then automatically displayed on your website’s Home page so that your visitors can see exactly what is happening in the life of your Church, at a glance.

Whilst in the News & Events page your visitors can also click on any highlighted date and they will be taken to the detailed description of the event that you have input. We’ll talk more next week about what can be inserted within your Blog.

This week we’re going to talk through the function within your Admin Centre entitled ‘Log a Support Request’. This vital tool is the best way in which to communicate with the UK Churches team.

Once you have logged in to your Admin Centre you can log a support request which triggers a new ‘ticket’ opening up in our Administrative System, in your Church name. All the detail is uploaded to a central ‘Support’ tab which every member of our team can access. We have a look at the request as it comes in and it is then allocated to the member of the team who can start actioning it. Once their section of the request is complete they can either sign it off, in which case you get a notification e-mail, or they can pass it on to the next member of the team to do their part. This streamlined process ensures that your request is dealt with by the collective pool of knowledge at UK Churches and receives prompt and efficient attention from the whole team.

Explanations of how to use the ‘Log a Support Request’ function are contained within the tutorial videos available in your Admin Centre, for each stage of the process.

Happy logging

UK Churches

P.S – Next month we’ll be looking at the tremendous benefits of fully utilising your website Blog functionality

Over the years we have listened to your comments and feedback regarding which parts of the UKC process you find easy to use and which parts are confusing or difficult to use. Each time we receive feedback we look at our processes and create ways to help you to use the system with the greatest amount of ease and pleasure.

We’ve recently created just such an improvement.

When you log into your Admin Centre, have a look at the new STEP BY STEP VIDEO TUTORIALS that we have compiled for you. These short videos have been created to lead you through each aspect of the site design and build process, so that you have on hand help whenever you need it. You can access them through your ‘USER GUIDE’ link at the top of the screen.

Just another way we aim to be of service to you, our valued client.

Happy New Year to you from everyone at UK Churches.

Did you know that the rotational banners on your website can be an integral part of your communications strategy?

They are the first large image and text area that visitors see and can thus be a powerful way to let them know vital information that you are trying to convey.

This could include highlighting an upcoming event, sharing a mission statement or word from the Lord or showing people the welcoming faces of your Congregation.

Log a support request in your Admin Centre and utilise this fabulous resource today!

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Remember to register for the upcoming ‘Ask UK Churches Teleseminar’ on 13th January 2010. See www.askukchurches.co.uk for more exciting details.