Outside of regular services, what else does your church offer? After learning a little more about your church, the next stop for many visitors is your church ministries page.
Since your home page doesn’t really provide room for you to list all your ministries and activities, a separate page works best.
Of course, like any other page on your site, you have to know what to include to ensure visitors get all the information they need without feeling overwhelmed.
Start With Your Overall Mission
While you already have your mission statement on your About Us page, it’s also a good idea to add it as the headline of your ministries page too. A single, short statement helps to inspire anyone looking to become a part of your church, whether it’s in your church or online.
If you don’t want to use your mission statement, use a single statement that best describes how your church connects everyone together. Whatever you do, include a main header to instantly grab attention.
A great example is Good News Church. While their ministries page is a sub-page of their About Us page, the church has a header with a real image of a ministry group along with a brief statement about getting involved in the community and connecting with others.
Introduce Each Ministry
The most important thing to include on your church ministries page is, of course, each ministry program. The layout can vary greatly, but we’ll get more into that later on.
After your header, you should introduce each of your ministries. List the name and at least a brief description. While something like “Teen Ministry” is self-explanatory, your “Outreach Ministry” might need a few more details.
A good idea is to include either a short paragraph, usually two to three
If you need some inspiration about how to list your ministries, Cornerstone Community Church has a great layout. However, instead of listing all the details on the main ministries page, the church uses an image with basic details and links to a separate page with more details for each ministry group.
Introduce Each Activity
Often times, visitors aren’t just coming to your ministries page to view ministries. They also want to see what type of activities are available, such as choir, sports, classes and more.
Ideally, you’ll want to list your activities in a separate section. However, it’s perfectly okay to list everything together. Some churches place their activities on a separate page or on their About Us page. While either of those works great, it’s also a good idea to at least list your available activities and groups on your ministries page.
The main reason to include them here is many visitors might jump directly from your home page or your blog (if they discovered your church’s site here first) to your church ministries page.
If there are any costs to join an activity, such as paying for equipment, make this clear with the activity. If you want to get more in-depth with your information, include the basics and link to a separate page for each activity, much like the Cornerstone Community Church example.
Include Welcoming Imagery
While it is easy to just list all the relevant details and be done, your church ministries page would look pretty bland like that. In fact, it’d probably give your page an outdated look that could drive visitors away. Basically, avoid anything these sites from the 90s did.
The best way to connect with your audience is to include real images of your church, ministry groups, activities and more. However, there is one thing you should keep in mind – getting permission.
Make sure your members and church leadership agree to having their pictures posted on your church’s website. In most cases, it’s not a problem. Pro Church Tools gets more in-depth into how to obtain photo release forms and why it’s necessary.
Even if you can’t get permission, you should still have images on your church ministries page. After all, you can take pictures of your church, different rooms, the grounds and more. Just get a little creative.
You could always have an image of your church or the room where the ministry group meets as your base image. All you have to do is edit the photo to include the name of the ministry and suddenly, you have an attractive image that draws the eye to it.
If all else fails, get engaging stock photos or free-use images that look like they’d fit in with your church.
If you don’t want to provide an image for every ministry or activity, take the approach some churches do. Have a few large images to separate the sections on your ministry page. Each section uses your church’s brand colors with easy to read text. The image sections include the title of the section or a statement about the section, such as a testimonial or scripture.
Provide Contact Details
You could have the best designed church ministries page ever, but if it’s missing contact details, it’s missing the mark entirely.
Imagine you have a visitor on your church’s site. They’re interested in learning more about your ministries and activities. They visit your page and get excited about a particular ministry and want to learn more.
Without any contact details, they’re left to find a general contact form elsewhere on your site (the footer is always a good place). This means more work from the visitor. Sadly, this could also lead to the visitor leaving your site entirely.
Anything that makes it easier for your visitors to engage with your church is a must. That includes adding relevant contact details for every ministry. All you have to do is add a name and email address and/or phone number. If you’re using phone numbers, include a time when the person can be reached.
Explain The Benefits
Listing the name of your ministry group is great, but what makes it special? While many churches have a teen ministry group or a kids ministry group, they rarely say much about what’s involved.
If you have numerous ministries, this can lead to a rather crowded page. If you want to keep everything on a single page, bullet points are your best friend. You can condense paragraphs into short snippets that still get the point across. Plus, people love lists and bullet lists are incredibly easy to scan.
You don’t have to list 10 or 15 benefits, but just a few. For instance, for a kids ministry, you might list:
- Meet like-minded kids
- Do faith-based crafts
- Read Christian stories
- Discuss issues and questions
The idea is to give a simple overview to help someone see if the ministry is right for them or not. Outside of your sermons, your ministries are one of the top things that attracts people to your church.
List How To Get Involved
In most cases, simply adding contact details is enough to let visitors know how to get involved. However, you can also include online applications to make it easier for people to get involved, whether they’re long time members or a new person visiting for the first time.
Of course, don’t forget about any online ministries you might have. For instance, you might have a social media group, special areas on your website (often password protected) or open online groups, such as a prayer group on your website.
Simply calling or emailing someone might not be straight-forward enough. Linking to an application or saying what’s required is always helpful for any online ministries.
Organizing Your Ministries Page
Organizing your church ministries page may come down more to personal preference than anything. However, you should try to at least group similar ministries together.
For instance, you may place online-only or international ministries in a section labeled specifically for those ministries.
If you have several ministries for families or couples, group those together. If your church ministries page is longer, list all the different sections in a list at the top or as a sub-menu under your Ministries menu head.
Many churches opt for sub-menus for multiple ministries just to keep their pages cleaner and less cluttered. Of course, this all depends on how many ministries you have.
List Any Social Media Ministry Groups
Ministries don’t have to be limited just to your church. After all, many visitors to your church website may not live anywhere close to your church. Yet, they still turn to your site for guidance and community.
The great thing is you can give it to them. Many churches have social media ministry groups. For instance, even if you have a church Facebook page, you can still have other pages or groups for different ministries. Perhaps you want to help people to deal with their grief after losing a loved one. Create a group just for that and list it on your church ministries page.
A good idea is to list any social media ministries separately if they’re only available on social media. If the social media group is an extension of a ministry inside your church, list the social media link in the ministry description.
Separate Each Section For Easy Visibility
Since your church ministries page can become crowded quickly, it’s a good idea to separate each section with ample white space, an image, a colorful section head or anything else that helps to break up the text and/or individual ministry images.
If you want to learn more about white space or negative space and how it creates an easier to read page, UX Planet’s description is a must read. However, it can be kind of technical, but trust that white space makes your ministries page much more engaging.
Add A Testimonial From A Member Of Each Ministry
While a description, benefits and an image are enough for most people, others want more proof. This is where testimonials come into play. Sure, you say your ministry for seniors is wonderful, but what do the members actually think?
In fact, in the marketing world, social proof is the most valuable marketing tool available. Even though you’re not trying to sell a product, the same psychological need to hear the truth from others works for your church.
Think about it this way. A TV ad tells you the newest flavor of Coca-Cola is incredible. However, you’re just not sure it’s right for you. Then, a friend tries it and tells you how amazing it is. Suddenly, you’re much more likely to try it because your friend said to try it versus the brand.
Ask members, even those in online ministry groups, to provide testimonials. Use one or two of the best to show site visitors what your ministry groups mean to those who are actually a part of them. The words from those involved carry more weight than anything you could say.
Include Details For New Groups
This is a completely optional section, but useful if you want to allow others to create new ministry groups or activities. For instance, a member may want to create a new ministry group that reads Christian-based stories to people in hospitals, nursing homes and anyone who is homebound.
While they could just create a group on their own outside of the church, they’d love to have your backing to give them extra credibility. The same holds true when it comes to someone wanting to create a social media or online group.
Sometimes, if your church doesn’t have a section about creating new ministry groups, it may seem like your church is closed to the idea.
Show the you’re open to hearing about new groups by including a section at the end of your church ministries page. List the requirements for creating a new group along with who to contact to get started. You could also include a link to an application (it could be a form on your website or a Google form).
Want to create a well-designed church ministries page? Contact us today to learn more about our experience in creating church websites that engage visitors.
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