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And let them judge the people at all seasons; and it shall be that every great matter they shall bring unto thee, but every small matter they shall judge. So shall it be easier for thyself, and they shall bear the burden with thee. - Exodus 18:22
Soon after the children of Israel left Egypt Jethro went to Moses and saw the burden that Moses had. Moses was spending much of his time judging. Jethro recommended that Moses select men to carry out the task and only the most important things would make it up to Moses. The judicial system in the United States is based around this concept.
There are a couple of things related to Jethro's recommendation that apply to church website development. One is that Moses was trying to do it all himself and he was getting overworked. Church websites are often a one person task and there is no one to help when that one person becomes overworked. The other is that Jethro recommended a system that allowed for people to do what they knew how to do and to allow others to do the rest. The chosen men could judge what they knew how to judge, but if they didn't know then they would pass the case on to someone else. Eventually, Moses might ask God directly.
It is often the case that the person who will develop the church website and the person who is the biggest supporter of the church having a website are the same person. At the time of this writing, I am the webmaster for South Park Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas. I am not the original webmaster. When we first decided to have a website our associate pastor was a big proponent of the idea. After the church agreed it was he who set up the original website. My own contribute came later when other commitments made it impossible for him and others to properly maintain the site.
When working with volunteer labor it is not always easy to select the person who is the most qualified for the job. The person who is qualified may be unwilling or unavailable. The people who are willing may be unqualified. Often someone has a desire to develop a website, gets a small taste of HTML and assumes himself to be an expert webmaster. There is much more to developing a quality website than the ability use HTML tags. On the technical side, HTML has gotten to the point that even though it is essential it is almost a minor part of many websites. More than that, a quality website requires more than just the technical skills to code the website.
Since you are reading this book it is likely that you have some influence over who will be involved with the web ministry. You might be the designated webmaster and are looking for guidance on how to do your job. You might be a pastor, staff member or some other church leader who is trying to figure out what is needed to get your church on the web. Whatever the case, you have some influence in who will be involved.
When considering the personnel who will be involved, first look at the people who have expressed a willingness to be a part of this ministry. This might be one person. It might be you. Ask yourself some questions about this person. What skill does this person have? Does this person have any experience in developing a website? Are thess websites similar to what a church might need? Does this person have a history of following through on his commitments? Is this person grounded in the faith? Has this person demonstrated good taste and artistic ability?
A nice looking website requires that some artistic skill be used. A church website needs to have content that is created by people who are at least doctrinally sound enough to teach an adult Sunday school class. Some technical ability is a must.
Sometimes we run across people who are technically skilled, doctrinally sound and are artistic, but this seems to be rare. People with an interest in technical things are often not as aware of what things look nice. There is also the problem that technology tends to be the realm of the young but wisdom and doctrinal knowledge tends to come with age. This can be a problem, but it is one that can be handled.
If I could build a web ministry dream team I would have a minimum of three roles. In rare cases one person might fill all three, but it might require three or more people to fill all of the positions. The three roles are a ministry leader, a webmaster and an artistic director.
All successful ministries have someone who leads the ministry. Some are put in charge by a formal process like the vote of the church and some lead informally because of the respect of the other people working in the ministry, but there is always someone who is ultimately responsible or the ministry will fail from lack of direction.
The purpose of the Web Ministry Leader is to help the other workers work together. The ministry leader will also be responsible for determining what content should be permitted on the website and what content should not be there. For this reason it is important that the ministry leader be doctrinally sound. A person who does not understand and agree with the doctrinal statement of the church should not be allowed to serve in this role.
Because of the technical nature of website development, the webmaster is usually the first person chosen. The webmaster does the majority of the work that is required to develop and maintain a website. In this role a technical mindset is important. It is also important that the webmaster be willing to make a commitment and stick with it. Depending on the nature of the website, a webmaster may need to spend hundreds of hours a year working on the website. This is not a job that can be taken lightly.
Selecting the first person who jumps at the chance is not a good idea. The ideal person may be someone who is someone reluctant at first because he recognizes just how much work is required to do a good job. People who are anxious to take the job tend to have no idea just how much work is really required or they have the intention of producing a website that has very little use.
Though the web was once primarily about content, presentation plays a very important role in the websites that are available today. How the information is presented helps the user to know whether the information is worth his time or if he should move on to another page. An artistic director can help with this.
The role of the artistic director is to ensure that what is presented to the people viewing the website is attractive and not offensive. When some people learn of the fascinating things that can be done they want to try them all. There are many very ugly websites that have flashing text, moving images and blaring music. It is the responsibility of the artistic director to make sure that the webmaster pays attention to how things look instead of always looking fro ways to show off what can be done.
The roles described above do not have to have a one-to-one correlation to the people involved. For the work I have done on the South Park Baptist Church website I have pretty much filled all three roles, but I frequently seek advice from other people. The role of webmaster is filled primarily by me, but some of the features of the website have made it possible for some of the responsibilities of that role to be parceled out to other people. I have a lot of control over the content of the site, but there are others who are actively involved in the decision making process. How your church fills these roles will be based primarily on who is available, the skills of these people and the content of your website.
This is a chapter from the book Church Website Design: A Step By Step Approach.