Resources

Social Media PDF Files

Apps for Graphic Design That You Will Actually Use

• Canva – a great website and iPad app for creating social media graphics
• Shift Media Creator – Quick Worship Backgrounds and Graphics
• Fotojet – Create Photo Collages for Blog Posts or Facebook Covers
• Phonto – Add text on images quickly
• WordSwag – Add text on images to share on social media
• Replay – Make incredible videos directly from your phone using your own photos and videos
• Animoto – Make great videos from your computer or mobile device
• Zoommy – Zoommy helps you find awesome free stock photos for your creative product or inspiration
• Pixelmator – Great photo editing software for macs at a fraction of the cost of Photoshop

 Do It Yourself Website Services

• Bridge Element – No setup fee and $29 per month. Good service with nice templates
• Clover Sites – $1000 up front and $20 per month. Good service, especially now that they have moved from Flash based websites to HTML 5 websites
• ChurchPlantMedia – $1000 up front and $50 per month – additional features for multi-site churches
• FaithConnector Church Websites – starting at  $250 up front and $54 per month. Full featured with great templates.
• Ministry Designs – $1000 up front plus $20 per month. Great modern website templates
• LightCMS – no upfront fee, but price varies by size of website. Very powerful service with great templates. However, it tends to be a little expensive for smaller churches if you need a lot of pages
• Ekklesia 360 – Starting at $60 per month
• iMinistries – $700 up front and starting at $39 per month
• E-zekiel – from $19 to $75 per month depending on features required

Popular WordPress Themes (for self-hosted WordPress.org powered sites)

These are premium themes that have customized features for churches, so they all do have a cost, but the cost is much lower than a full custom design.

• churchthemes.com – A great theme company focused on Churches. They utilize a church content plugin that allows you to switch themes in the future. See their guide for compatible themes.
• ElegantThemes – only $69 per year for access to all their themes and support. They don’t have church-specific features, but they are a great starting point
• WPforChurch – Church Themes and WordPress plugins
• ChurchThemes.net
• Themeforest

Important WordPress Plugins for Churches

• Series Engine – Sermon Manager Plugin
• Prayer Engine – Add a Prayer Wall to Your Site
• Groups Engine – List Small Groups on Your Website
• WPforChurch – Sermon Manager and Church Pack Plugin
• Time.ly – One of the best calendar plugins for WordPress – I don’t recommend this plugin due to high resource usage. I now use recommend and use Calenderize It!
• WordPress SEO – A great plugin to help improve your search-engine-optimization
• Gravity Forms – A great way to collect information
• Blubrry PowerPress – Powerful plugin to create a sermon podcast
• Reftagger – automatically create Bible links for all scripture passages

Mobile App Providers

• FaithLink Apps – a Great solution for mobile apps. They utilize the information you already have on your website so you don’t have to continually update your app
• Como – What we use at Cornerstone. See here for more details

Recommended WebHost

• Me 🙂 I do technology consulting and web design and hosting. All the information is at FEDesign.net – I use a customized SSD VPS on the East Coast utilizing. My server has a large amount of memory and processor power. I provide all security, plugin, and theme updates, as well as all backups.
• Site5 – this is the service I previously used to host all my sites. I used the Reseller Cloud Hosting. I was impressed with their customer support and technical support.
• I simply can not recommend Godaddy for any services. I have experienced very poor support in the past and I cannot support their lack of morals in advertising. Others have recommended MediaTemple, Dreamhost, or Hostgator, but I don’t have personal experience with their services.

 Helpful Resources from the Blog

• Where to find it – A blog series on where to find graphic resources and other resources for your church.
• Why I recommend ProPresenter for Sermon and Song Projection
• Sermon Podcasting Tutorial – a little old, but still helpful in explaining the process
• Adding Sermons to Your Church Website – part 1 and part 2
• Other Great Church Technology Blogs – from ChurchMag

Online Web Services for Churches

• Planning Center Online – for worship teams and volunteer scheduling
• ChurchTeams – for tracking and managing small groups
• YouVersion – Online Bible. Check out YouVersion Live for sharing sermon notes during services
• PollEverywhere – Real time text message polls that you can do during services
• RightNow Media – online streaming of Bible Study Material and Training Videos

 

disclaimer: some of these links are affiliate links which means I will receive commission if you choose their service. However, I only recommend what I use and believe in. See my full disclosure policy here.