Church Blog

Starting a Church Blog - Part 2

In our first article in this Starting a Church Blog series we wrote about using one of the free blog options available to start a church blog. While the free blog services we talked about in our last article will work well for some Church Blogs, there are many churches that will be able to accomplish their goals more effectively by registering a domain name and getting a web host for their Church Website or Blog. We will start the process by talking about domain names. A domain name is the web address or URL that locates your site on the Internet. You can purchase and register a domain name for about $10/year. Before you get a domain name there is a few things you should know about domain names.

You need to get a domain name that is specific to your church or topic. Stay away from abbreviations. A well chosen domain name has potential to create the most amount of traffic to your site from people using the search engines. Let’s say we were starting a Church Blog for the First Christian Church of Fairbanks. Do not get a domain name like FCCF.com. You would be better off getting “FirstChristianChurchFairbanks” or “FairbanksChristianChurch”. Why? It seems that it would be easier for people to type in FCCF.com than FirstChristianChurchFairbanks.com. The issue is about how people who don’t know your domain name find your Church blog or website. With the right domain name, people could find you by searching for Fairbanks Churches or First Christian Church or Churches in Fairbanks. Since your domain name contains those words it has the potential of showing up on the search engines.

Once you have decided what you would like your domain name to be, you have to see if its available. To do this, I like to use Good News Domains (www.goodnewsdomains.com).

I also use Good News Domains for web hosting which we will talk about in a future article in this series. Once you are at the Good News Domain site look for the “Start a Domain Name search” box:

Now just type in the domain name you would like to have, like this:

If the domain name you want is available, you will see the following screen:

Sometimes the domain name you want isn’t available. When that happens, Good News Domains will provide you with some possible suggestions. Stick with it and you will eventually come up with find the domain name that is right for you. Once you find a domain name, follow the instructions on the Good News Domain site to get it registered. Once you have your domain name registered, you will need to get a web host. We will talk about that in our next article in this series on Church Blog.

Starting a Church Blog

A Church blog can open a lot of doors for ministry. Not only can a Church blog serve as your main church website, you can develop all kinds of other ministry opportunities with a church blog. The Internet can give your church access not only to the local community, but will provide you with opportunities to impact people all over the world. You can start a church blog that offers daily devotionals, or a church blog that offers advice on Christian living. You could start a church blog for your youth group or childrens’ ministries. The possibilities are virtually limitless. Every church should have an Internet presence.

There are a lot of different options when it comes to starting a church blog. For a lot of churches, you can accomplish all that you need to using one of many free blogging services available. Our two favorite ways are Blogger (www.blogger.com):

and Wordpress.com (www.wordpress.com)

Both of these services are free and fairly simple to use. For many churches they will provide all the blogging capabilities they will need for their ministries. As you explore the Internet you will discover that a lot of church blogs are using one of these options.

For some churches, however, it will be a better fit to register a domain name and have your church blog hosted on the web. This will generally cost no more than $60 to $100 dollars per year. Using this method will allow you some greater flexibility in designing and implementing your web ministry. We will be writing articles in the near future to help you with this process if it is the option you choose.

Go ahead and try out one of the free blog services now. It won’t cost you anything financially and it is a good way to begin to learn what avenues of ministry you can establish by using a  church blog.

Welcome to Church Blog

Welcome to the Church Blog!  The Internet provides an amazing opportunity for ministry.  When you start your own church blog you will be able to send your message all over the world.  You can start a blog that looks like a traditional church website, or you can get more creative and use your holy imaginations to take your church blog in new directions.  You can target your blog to your existing church members, or you can create a blog to reach out to new people, or even to people on the other side of the planet.  The options are virtually limitless.

You will also quickly find out that the Internet provides the most economical way of multiplying your ministry that there is.  You can start a blog with amazing impact for free.  There are also a number of very inexpensive options that might serve you better, but it would be a very rare situation where you would need to spend more than $100/year for your web ministry.  If you take the right steps, your church blog can actually become a revenue stream.

Check out some of the articles from existing church blogs that are available in the RSS feeds on this site.  You will also find information on how to get your own church blog started in the articles here.

As Jesus said, “Come follow me, and I will make you fishers of men”.  Get your church blog started, the fishing is great!