At this point every church should have a website. If your church doesn't have a website, get a website. You can set a website up for free or mostly free. Free comes with some sacrifices, but you can make something happen without costing your church a dime.

For most of us though, we have a church website. Many churches choose to pay a small fee for hosting and install WordPress and a cool church theme, but when church office staff are asked to update the website, it can be a real headache trying to figure out how to do this or that. Often times the office staff are more concerned about messing something up than about actually updating the website. I have found that even tech savvy people can get frustrated trying to update a WordPress or even Joomla website.

What if there was something better. What if you could update a web page just as easy as a Microsoft Word Document? Point, click, edit, done... That sounds nice doesn't it. Well for a few years now, website editors have been working on developing WYSIWYG interfaces. (IE What You See Is What You Get).


There are quite a few options on the market today that make website editing simple and easy. Some of them are even built specifically for churches. With that said, the system that I have used over the last few years is called Weebly. I currently manage 15 different Weebly websites. Weebly isn't a church specific website builder, but they have a ton of backing, they are always working to make their product better, you can change and alter your website's design easily, and they are pretty cheap.

Editing a Weebly website is extremely simple. You drag text boxes, photos, videos, and other elements onto the webpage and arrange them in columns or stack them on top of each other as you see fit. Everything resizes to fit the space automatically. You can even edit your website from your phone or tablet.

Once you have everything set, you just click publish. Boom! Website updated.

Weebly has a free version. The only downside is that you can't have a custom domain, and there is a "Powered with Weebly" icon in the footer of your website. For a small monthly fee, you can set your website up to look a little more professional.

Click here to see how Weebly's website pricing works.

There are certainly other options out there that you can research, but this is the system I have used. I have found it to be reliable and rewarding. I can't think of any reason to go back to my WordPress days.

God bless,

Pastor Nate Cress

Image from www.thefluidapp.com

Back when AT&T had the iPhone exclusively, I remember AT&T produced some commercials with the phrase "There's An App For That." In the years since then, we have seen a major mobile revolution. People who never had access to the internet now have immediate access almost anywhere they go. Things have changed and communication has changed. People text instead of talking. Many young people don't use or even have an email address, but they use SMS and messaging apps. How do we reach this next generation? How do we reach the current generation who are also spending increasing amounts of time on these mobile devices?

Thus, our church began looking at publishing a mobile app for our church. After searching through the many mobile church app companies to find someone to partner with, we chose The Fluid App. I actually found out about The Fluid App from a friend whose church started using it. I was really impressed with the app from their church. The Fluid App features an updating news feed for the home page, interactive messaging groups, a media section for sermons and promotional videos, an events stream for upcoming events (much better than bulletins and emails), and the best built in app donation system I've ever seen. I won't say this app is perfect, but it is a great app, and the developers are easy to communicate with. I love that.

One of the things that I really love about this app is the group messaging feature. If you want people to interact with your app, you need something other than just regularly updated content. Having a feature that allows our church to communicate with existing church groups is a fantastic use of our app, and as far as I know, this is the only other app that has this feature for churches.

Another thing that really sold me on The Fluid App is the price. The app is priced at $29/month plus a one time set up fee of $349. For the quality of app that is produced, this is an excellent deal. Other apps in this price range have subpar user experiences, but The Fluid App knocks pricing out of the park for churches on a tight budget!

Check out our app at onelink.to/thelakes and let me know what you think.

Visit The Fluid App's website to find out more www.thefluidapp.com

While I think The Fluid App is the best choice for our church and many churches, you may find that another app works better for your church.

Other custom church apps that I've looked at include:

• The Church App
• Custom Church Apps
• The Table

I've looked at others but these three were among the ones that I really debated on when we decided to go with The Fluid App. Regardless of which app platform your church chooses to use, I encourage you to utilize this tool for your ministry!

- Pastor Nate Cress