FLC Website

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FLC Website Part 1
Brent Jacobs November 14, 2006
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FLC Website

• Statement of Issue
• Faith currently has an excellent website, but it
  needs a thorough review and possibly redesign to
  ensure that we are maximizing its potential.
• Comment As with Faith Alive, it looks like a
  small church website, but needs to look like the
  large church that we are.

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Initial Activities (March-July 2006)

• Brainstorm what should really be on the site
  (March July 2006)
• Information for Potential / New Members
• Basic Schedule info (service times, brief
  explanation, etc)
• Information about Faith Lutheran church
• Activities
• Programs
• History

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Initial Activities (March-July 2006)

• Brainstorm continued
• Information about LCMC
• Information about what it means to be Lutheran
• Theology
• Principles
• Guidelines
• Offering
• Norms
• Etc.
• Other

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Initial Activities (March-July 2006)

• Dream what could be there if possible
• Current Weekly activity schedule
• Other
• Review other sites out there
• Attractions
• Distractions
• Negatives

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Benchmark Websites

• Benchmark with other web sites how do we
  compare
• Community of Joy, Glendale, AZ
• www.joyonline.org
• Saddleback Church, Lake Forest, CA
• www.saddleback.com/flash/default.htm

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FLC Website

• Formulate initial plan for changes/improvements
  (August 2006)
• Gather suggestions from council and members
• See what is possible. Work with
• Keith Bauer internet possibilities and
  limitations
• Church staff capabilities, commitments, etc.
• Formulate final plan and present to council for
  review and approval (January 2007)

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Goals

• More than just a photo album
• God-ly, not Gaudy
• Attract goats without repelling sheep
• Useful content to
• Attract
• Inform
• Guide
• Encourage

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FLC Website

• Need a section to respond to current events, and
  educate
• i.e. DaVinci Code
• etc.

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FLC Website

• Define/ Explore How a website is
• Designed
• Launched
• Loaded
• Updated
• Changed
• Managed
• Protected
• Etc.

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Website Want List for New Folks

• Welcome / invitation
• New worshipper sign-up / interest / contact link.
• Church
• Address
• Phone
• worship hours and styles
• Congregation characteristics
• Size
• How many kids, middle age, families, elderly
• Demographics
• Attendance

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Website Want List for New Folks

• Pastor list / pictures
• Staff list / pictures
• List of groups / activities
• Description
• Point of contact
• Pictures, etc.
• Answer question Why go to church?
• i.e. Why IN church, not just belief, or
  spirituality,
• Provide discussion regarding Im spiritual, but
  not religious
• Link to David's sermon  Why go to church? 

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Website Want List for Active Folks

• Weekly activities and contacts
• i.e. Choir sign-up / interest / contact director
  link.
• Announcements from each Sunday
• Sermons
• Last 4 (?)
• Series
• Selectable / Requestable
• By Date
• By Subject / Title
• By Pastor
• Upcoming events and points of contact
• Online listing
• Weekly e-mail This Week At Faith
• Subscribe / unsubscribe online

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Website Want List for All

• Foundation
• Explanation of Lutheranism
• With links
• Explanation of LCMC
• With links

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Website Want List for All

• Foundation
• Foundational
• Discussions
• Sacraments overview and discussion
• Checklists
• Review lists, etc
• Stewardship
• Background
• Summary
• Guidelines
• Financial status (??)

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Website Want List for All

• Growth
• Verse of the day
• Devotions each day
• discussions
• Services
• Weddings
• Baptisms
• Funerals
• Other

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Website Want List for All

• Programs
• Kids activities, schedule of when kids get
  involved in
• confirmation studies,
• communion,
• etc. 
• Lets get away from "word of mouth" communication

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Website Want List for All

• Input page for
• Comments
• Suggestions
• Business stuff
• Shopping links, etc.

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Care and Feeding

• How will the website be managed?
• Hands-off?
• Periodic volunteer modification?
• Periodic church staff modifications?
• Periodic professional modification?
• Extensive professional service?
• Regular office staff activity?
• Combination of periodic professional, staff and
  regular volunteer inputs?
• Other?

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Care and Feeding

• What resources are available / desired for
  professional maintenance?
• What resources are necessary for volunteer
  input??
• Training?
• Level of knowledge?
• Equipment?

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Care and Feeding

• What resources are available for regular
  input/maintenance?
• Office staff?
• Volunteer?
• Professional?

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Need for Media Staff Member

• Delayed webcast of a service (930??) requires
  someone to tape and upload to website shortly
  after service is concluded
• As sanctuary projector becomes integrated into
  services, someone needs to be in charge of
  operation and coordination
• Website needs to be continuously updated (at
  least Monday Friday)
• Could a new half-time staff person do this

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Need for a Professional Website Designer

• The needed changes to the website require a
  professional level of expertise or at least a
  professional consultant to work with volunteers
• Time and cost estimates
• Schedule for making changes

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Features

• Is website OK for now?
• Does it need to be spruced up? How much?
• General re-organization to enhance usefulness
• More info,
• More useful information

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Features

• Special graphics and animation?
• Sound files
• Video files
• Security features?
• Links / cooperative arrangements with other
  websites / services?

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Visibility

• What is Faith Lutheran Church's visibility to
  those searching the web??
• Lutheran churches Albuquerque
• Churches Albuquerque
• Congregations, Albuquerque
• LCMC Albuquerque
• Weddings Albuquerque
• Funerals Albuquerque
• Youth groups Church Albuquerque
• Churches New Mexico
• Lutheran Churches New Mexico

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Visibility

• How can visibility be enhanced / improved??
• Need input from Keith Bauer here
• What appeal priorities do we want to have?? (Who
  do we want to reach, and how???)
• Need input from council, pastors

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Features

• Whats missing???
• Bulletin Board?
• Need inputs
• What shouldnt be on the website??
• Commercial content?
• Rants?
• Need inputs

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Action Plan
Action Assignee Criteria for Completion Target Date






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Original Website Questions

• The FLC website is basically a one-person
  operation (many thanks to Keith Bauer) we also
  have a youth website Jeremy Rodriquez
• What is the purpose of the website
• Website content need a thorough review by all
  members of the Council to determine completeness
  and identify areas for improvement
• Solicit suggestions from membership (survey)
• What percent of our members can access it (see
  survey results)
• Traffic statistics who is using it
• Can it be found by search engines?

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Original Website Questions

• Add Council member pictures and emails addresses
  (?) we can use a church email address for each
  councilor to protect individual private addresses
  reflecting capability of server will forward
  message
• Meet Our Staff provides a great example of how
  a Council page could be constructed staff could
  tell us how much junk email they get if that is
  a concern
• Move toward a delayed webcast of one or more
  church services
• Youth website
• Staffing does Keith need help and, if so, how
  do we go about supplying it

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Original Website Questions

• Benchmark with other web sites how do we
  compare
• Community of Joy, Glendale, AZ
• www.joyonline.org
• Saddleback Church, Lake Forest, CA
• www.saddleback.com/flash/default.htm
• Overall design of FLC website do we need to
  make some changes many areas lack design appeal
• Sermons and FA on website, what else is needed
• Amazon.com and other links on church website
  source of income for youth or other projects

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Original Website Questions

• Need to allow plenty of lead in time as some
  changes will take time to effect start early
• A redesign will require expertise in this area
  could utilize volunteers to assist Keith or to
  just do the work themselves