With less than half of the population now describing themselves as Christian the Church is facing a challenging time. Christianity is as relevant now as it was when St. Paul preached in Athens in Acts 17, but with many churches seeing their congregations dwindling the question has to be "What can be done to reach those in our community who would say that they have no need of Christ?".

It's a question that I am regularly asked here at Church Pages, and one that doesn't have an easy answer. However, knowing who your community are is the first step and discussed in our last blog "Who is the community we serve?". One thing that is known is that over 71% of people use their mobile phones to find information and therefore your church's website has to engaging, easy to navigate, informative and secure. From a relevance point of view it must be easy to edit, and if you have invested in church management software it must work seamlessly with this.

Why the focus on my website and not my other social media accounts?

The reason for this is that different age groups engage with different media platforms. And unless you are blessed with a congregation brimming with online creative experts then you will need to decide which online presence should take priority. All ages will access a website (that works well on a mobile), but statistically Generation Z will not spend their time on Facebook, and Baby Boomers will not be frequenting SnapChat!

At Church Pages our aim is to provide churches with affordable, responsive websites, that work well for the web visitor, and can be easily edited. We are also on hand with advice and encouragement as you manage your site. We do this so that you can outreach to your local community with the good news of the Gospel.

We realise that not every church can afford to have a bespoke website built. So we decide to design a template that looked bespoke, was easy to navigate, and had an easy-to-use home page. We wanted to design the template so that where churches used ChurchSuite, the church's events would be integrated into the home page seamlessly.

It was also important to provide the ability to add in an Instagram feed on the home page, if required, as this media platform is used by all generations, and provide links to other social media platforms as required. We wanted to ensure that a YouTube video could be embedded on the welcome page of the site, and that information regarding Safeguarding could be added into the footer if required.

After some discussion the Isaiah Template was created, and it has been our most successful template to date amongst churches and Christian charities not just because of the cost (£425 + VAT), but because it looks great!

Examples of the Isaiah Template

• St Matthews Church, Bristol
• The Coach House, Kilmuir
• St Mary Magdalene Church, Wandsworth
• St. Martin's Church, Guernsey
• Funchal Baptist Church, Madeira
• St Margaret's Church, Iver Heath
• Royal Wootton Bassett Methodist Church
• St. Saviour's Church, Guernsey

The template works well for both churches and charities and works well on all devices.

Please contact us at Church Pages if you would like a new church website based on the Isaiah template.