Create Your Own Sunday School Web Site
Use these tips, resources, and links to create your own Sunday School web site.
Don’t forget to link to the national Sunday School web site from your new Sunday School page. We are constantly adding and updating resources, articles, training information, and more—we are here to serve you. With permission and credit, you are welcome to use link any resource on our web site on your own web site. You may link to any resources on our web site without permission.
Disclaimer: the Assemblies of God Sunday School Department does not necessarily endorse all content within the web sites referred to below.
NOTE: Ask permission from church members before using any of their information on your church web site (ex: email addresses, birthdays, pictures, etc).
Why Should I Have a Sunday School Web Site?
- more communication with your church and community
- promote your Sunday School ministries
- online resources for Sunday School students
- the Internet can be an alternate form of community for any group of people but is especially valuable for people who are limited in transportation or health
Where to Begin
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WEB ADDRESS. Word your address so it is short and easy to remember. Also, it costs a little bit of money, but it’s worth it to purchase your own domain name, or, web address (example: www.smithvilleassembly.com) rather than taking a free web address that is unprofessional-sounding and hard to remember (example: www.firstassembly-smithvillecounty/201.websites4free.com). An additional benefit to purchasing your own web address is that you can switch Internet Service Providers and still keep the same address name and page.
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MAINTENANCE. Consider the upkeep involved in maintaining a web site. An out-of-date web site emphasizes the notion that a church is out of touch. Appoint a person or a team of people, whether professional or volunteer, who are willing to take on this enormous task.
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DESIGN. Professional-looking design is important; an unprofessional-looking web site might harm people’s perception of your church or even stop them from ever visiting. Consider your web site to be a form of promotion for your church. You wouldn’t design a promotional ad or brochure with misspelled words and poor-quality or irrelevant pictures, so try not to allow those mistakes on your web site.
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AUDIENCE. Decide who the central audiences of your web site will be. Do you want to increase Sunday School attendance and attract unbelievers to the church? If so, your audiences will be people of all ages currently attending your church and unbelievers in your surrounding community. Cater materials and information toward those two audiences.
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PICTURES. Include good quality, compressed graphics, but don’t overload the page with them as too many pictures slow down page loading time, a constant frustration for modem-users. On the homepage, include pictures of Sunday School teachers and students smiling happily and looking welcoming. Read more tips on choosing good pictures below.
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CONTENT. For your Sunday School web site or page, you will want to include many printable pages and downloads, from teacher training PDF’s to permission forms for Royal Rangers float trips. Your web site should also include a place for people to build community. A bulletin board can connect church members to one another. Online Bible studies can also be good tools for building community.
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PROMOTION. Once the web site has a reasonable amount of information, begin promoting it everywhere, continually. Just as your web site must be updated regularly, it also must be promoted regularly. People won’t come to your web site if they don’t know about it. Here are some ideas for promoting your Sunday School web site or your general church web site:
- ideas from our promotions page:
- church bulletins
- promotional posters (in church and community)
- lawn signs
- have online sign-up for Sunday School rallies or projects
- register site w/ search engines (Yahoo, Google, AltaVista…)
- newspaper ads
- highlight all big church events on the web site and direct congregants there
- church letterhead
- keep promotional fliers in the Sunday School classrooms as a reminder; update the fliers once a month with additions that have been made to the web site
- put out a quarterly “newsletter” mailed to all congregants promoting Sunday School and offering more information on your Sunday School web site
- run a poll on the web site about an issue discussed during Sunday School and ask attendees to go online and vote (with responses to be read during next week’s class)
- suggest church members make the web site their homepage
- run a contest online (Biblical knowledge related to a Sunday School lesson, etc) with a small reward or simply a class-beginning or pre-service congratulatory announcement
Important Tips
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EDIT. Once the web site is up, have several grammatically-inclined people proofread it thoroughly for spelling and grammar mistakes. The more people that check it, the more professionally-worded your site will be.
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CHOOSE GOOD PICTURES.
- 72 dpi — eliminate pictures with background distractions
- no red eye — eliminate fuzzy, out-of-focus pictures
- no glasses glare — edit pictures in a photo program (such as Photoshop Elements)
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BE A VISIONARY. Use your Sunday School web site to promote a new vision or mission that will help redefine this ministry to church members and breathe new life into it. To define your own Sunday School vision, keep in mind the most important aspects of Sunday School: to bring people back to the Word of God, to disciple others, and to focus on evangelism. Feel free to use the NEW national vision as your own Sunday School vision.
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LIMIT CHRISTIAN-ESE. “Christian-ese” is a slang term for language that is familiar to those who were raised in the church but is confusing to those who weren’t. Examples: “washed in the blood,” “anointed,” “prayer closet,” etc. If your target audience includes new Christians or unbelievers, you will want to limit the “Christian-ese” you use on your web site or at least footnote those words with explanations.
- don’t make links out of graphics; visitors who are visually impaired won’t know they are there without ALT tags to describe them
- don’t word links so visitors who are visually impaired can’t follow them (example: “Click the arrow to go to the next page”)
- include captioning or a transcript-only version for video clips so people who are hearing impaired can “hear” them as well
- explain how church facilities are accessible to people with mobility impairments
- some people with mobility impairments can’t use a mouse—keep this in mind
- give people the option to view the page in FLASH or not in FLASH
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MAKE IT ACCESSIBLE. Enable visitors with disabilities to access your site. First of all, it is already considered standard for governmental web sites (Section 508, a part of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, was effected by the United States government in June, 2004, giving stricter standards for federal web site accessibility, and the UK passed the Disability Discrimination Act, a part of which—the “Code of Practice”—mentions web site accessibility). Secondly, it is important to show potential visitors with disabilities that your church is one where they will feel welcomed.
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SEARCH. Your Sunday School resources will be easier to navigate if people have a way to search for them. Putting a web site-wide search tool on your Sunday School homepage or church homepage will enable visitors to do just that.
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GRAPHICS. Professional graphics can make or break a web site. Consider purchasing a stock CD or catalog that your church can own and use; many of these are not expensive. You can also visit some of these web sites to download free graphics:
- National Sunday School promotional animations
- Any graphics from the national Sunday School web site (with permission)
- PicStyle
- Stock.Xchnge
- Free Christian Images
- Free Christian Clipart & Graphics
TIPS FOR ACCESSIBILITY: |
Internet Regulations (keep your web site above reproach)
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Don’t take graphics, information, etc from other web sites unless it is clearly offered for free or you have permission. However, you may link to anything on a web site without permission.
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“Give credit where credit is due”; if you have permission to use an article/resource, be sure to cite the author and give short bio information about him or her.
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Accessibility: like buildings, web sites need to be accessible to people with disabilities.
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Protect children on the web site: never put children’s email addresses on your web site. You also shouldn’t put anyone’s email addresses on a web site without their permission.
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Ask parents’ permission to use pictures of your church’s children on the site or simply use stock pictures from your photo catalog or free photography web sites.
Programs That Can Help You Build a Sunday School Web Site:
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AG Churches — This FREE web publishing service and content management program is offered by the Assemblies of God to all AG denominational churches. It is easy to use for even the most inexperienced web user.
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Dreamweaver — This web development program requires lengthier web training. It enables users to design web sites from the bottom up.
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Netscape Composer — This program is easy-to-use for most people with word-processing efficiency.
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Microsoft FrontPage — This program requires more web knowledge training. It is comparable in some ways to Dreamweaver, enabling users to design complete web sites.
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Microsoft Publisher — This easy-to-use program allows users to design simple web pages.
Points of Interest for Visitors to Your Web Site
Non-Christians/Newcomers
- I’m interested in giving Jesus control of my life. What do I do? Who do I talk to?
- What do Christians believe?
- How has Sunday School helped other people in this church? (create a student testimonies page—but don’t call them “testimonies” (Christian-ese), instead, call the page “Our Stories” or something similar)
- Why should I go to Sunday School?
- What Sunday School ministries do you have for different ages (nursery through adult)?
- How do I find the right classroom(s)? (provide a map/pictures of your classrooms)
- What if I want someone to pray with me?
- I’m not sure I understand my new faith. Do you have Bible studies for me?
Christians
- Sunday School Vision or Mission Statement page
- Email list for Sunday School teachers
- Bible studies online (LINK HERE)
- Resources to help people grow in knowledge of the Bible, evangelize, and disciple others
- Sunday School volunteer/events calendar
- Sunday School lessons or lesson ideas
- Links to Sunday School curriculum sites (especially helpful for teachers or even parents who want to have extra Bible study with their children). All our curriculum includes introduction to the lesson, Bible study, life application, and homework. Our suggestion for linking: Gospel Publishing House (online curriculum store).
- Individualized Sunday School class pages (include items like class news, assignments, birthdays, email addresses (with permission), prayer requests board, pictures of students in that class)
