The primary role of a church website is to share details about your location and service dates and times. After that, it has several jobs, including religious education, welcoming visitors, streaming sermons, and collecting tithes and offerings. We’ve shared 11 of the best church websites to help inspire and encourage you to create one of…
The primary role of a church website is to share details about your location and service dates and times. After that, it has several jobs, including religious education, welcoming visitors, streaming sermons, and collecting tithes and offerings. We’ve shared 11 of the best church websites to help inspire and encourage you to create one of your own.
There are several ways to inspire website visitors. As you visit each site, check out how they educate, excite, and entice people to give.
Unity of Boulder is unique because of its focus on spirituality instead of religion. This organization offers prayer services and support, community service opportunities, LGBTQ+ inclusion, spiritual counseling, and several community groups.
With all the services this church offers, their website is easy to follow and find what you need. Their donation page gives donors several different donation options, information on how to give via their online donation form, text, and their app. They also clearly show where donors’ gifts help in the community.
That’s not all! If donors want other giving options, all they have to do is click on a link, and they’re transferred to a page that further explains how members can participate in Planned Giving for the church. This is a fundraising area that’s often ignored by other churches.
Honestly, there isn’t much to improve with Unity of Boulder’s website. It’s an eye-catching website that’s full of information. The only addition they may want to make is a personalized welcome message from church leadership on the home page.
Sheridan Church was formerly known as Sheridan Christian Center and is one of Tulsa, Oklahoma’s most influential churches. Since 1951, this non-denominational and multi-cultural church has inspired the start of 30 other churches in the community.
Sheridan Church’s website shows the multi-cultural feel of their church with pictures of different ages and races on the “Who We Are” page. They continue this feel with their Connect Groups for youth, young adults, seniors, men, women, and more. This church also shows a significant interest in sharing biblical knowledge with their members. Their Bible College helps parishioners who want to take their faith in God to the next level enroll and participate in a twelve-course program.
This church has added several donation options to its online donation page, but they are missing reasons for people to give. Instead of giving nine different amounts, ranging from $20 to $10,000, they should limit it to six amounts and include specifics on where donors’ money will go. The Donorbox donation form being highly customizable, this would be an easy task.
The mission of Macquarie Life Church is to make disciples of all nations and baptize them in the name of God. They do this by supporting missionaries, pastors, and teachers locally and internationally.
This church website is the perfect concoction of the right colors, ample CTAs, crisp content, and innovation. Read on to find out what we love about it and what we think can improve.
We love this church website through and through – from the choice of colors to quick links to social media post updates to a neat navigation menu at the top, everything looks perfect.
Their giving page does an excellent job of listing different CTA buttons for their campaigns. People can decide how they want to help and click a button to go to the respective online form.
Macquarie Life Church’s social media has gone above other churches by sharing updates, links to events, pictures of church members, and videos. All these are easily accessible on the website’s Home page.
Another simple thing this church has added to its website is a calendar. Visitors can link on days or scroll down to view sermon topics, prayer meetings, and other events. Each event links to a separate page for more information. They’ve also added other ways to connect with local visitors through coffee orders and signing in on their church app!
This church does not include a donate button on the homepage. Adding it will enable visitors to easily find their giving page.
The Gathering is a church located in Moravian Falls, North Carolina, but they’ve used the popularity of streaming to reach more parishioners worldwide.
Their focus is on spreading God’s word locally and abroad. They even include rental spaces where people can enjoy the mountains and nature while worshiping God.
The website has a neat look with contrasting CTA buttons in place to grab attention.
The Gathering’s “About” page gives quality information on the church’s purpose, staff, and services. They also make it easy for people to contact them and receive more information.
As an outreach organization, they’ve done an excellent job sharing enough to make people feel involved on their website. They continue this information with the Ministries page, where they lay out and explain their baptisms, outreach, and children’s ministries.
The Gathering’s website also stands out because of the giving options. They’ve included 2 different options – text-to-give and an online donation form. We love how they’ve added the steps to make using Donorbox Text-to-Give even easier for their congregation.
Their Donorbox donation form also includes the donation designation option which is great for empowering donors, at the same time helps with fund accounting.
The donation page could go further by giving examples of where their donations go. They could use the empty space next to the form to talk about past impact, add an image, and make the page look more appealing to donors.
Christ Embassy Alexandria is a global ministry founded thirty years ago by Pastor Oyakhilome. It is based in Alexandria, Virginia, but all services are online since Oyakhilome was also a television personality.
Their mission states they’re bringing men and women into their inheritance and fulfilling God’s dream for their lives.
If you’re looking to create a modern church website that can hold attention with stunning images, CTAs, and contrasting colors and designs, this is the place to get inspiration from.
Christ Embassy’s website catches your attention immediately. The first thing you see when you click on the website is a link to their live stream and a link to a form for new visitors. This is a significant benefit for anyone outside of Alexandria.
They also make it easy for people to donate to the church. A red “Give An Offering” button is at the top right-hand side of the page. When you scroll down the page, Christ Embassy also gives visitors two different giving options with two embedded Donorbox donation forms; Rhapsody or Reality sponsor and their InnerCity Missions.
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While their homepage includes a lot of information, it also has three images of Pastor Oyakhilome. This focus on their pastor may get tricky. Religious organizations that focus too much on a single personality risk losing followers if the pastor gets bad publicity.
The first donation form on the homepage should include suggested donation (or sponsorship) amounts that help people quickly decide how much to give. Since the form is built on Donorbox, it’s very easy to customize it and add donation amounts along with other giving options like donation designation, tribute giving, and more.
Pioneers Church is in downtown Durham. Most people in the area come from other cities, so Pioneers Church focuses on building a solid community. They do this with events, groups, and a church app, Alpha, where people can share their opinions and ask questions.
The website’s subtle look gives out a sense of calm and makes one want to learn more.
There is a lot to love about this website. The minute you land on their website, you feel a sense of community. Statements like, “You have a seat at the table” and “find your people in downtown Durham” speak to those needing a home away from home.
Pioneers Church continues community-building with pages where people can book a coffee date with the pastors or sign up for their app and share their opinions.
A church’s giving page must be clear and inspiring. Pioneers Church does an excellent job with its donation page – by sharing details on how funds will be spent to pay for a new building and help grow its community. They also include several more links where visitors can get more information on the church. They also give a financial goal and share how close they are with a donation thermometer and a donor wall where people can share their thoughts.
Their website giving page fails to grab attention. Our suggestion would be to embed a Donorbox donation form in there and use the Donorbox crowdfunding campaign they have right now to raise money for a specific campaign.
This makes giving easy for most people as they’re not redirected to another page outside of the website. And if they want to give to a specific church campaign, they also have the option to click and go to that page.
Finally, their focus on community puts them in an excellent position to create a membership program and ask members of their church to give monthly or annually. They can easily start one with Donorbox Memberships which helps create membership forms and campaign pages to run and maintain effective membership programs.
Holy Trinity is part of the Catholic Church in Australia, located in Embleton, WA. It came into being in 1964 and has evolved over the years under various leaderships.
We love this website for more than just how it looks; It discusses the current dire situation of declining church attendance and the need for giving. They also make it very simple to understand just how much Catholics can give to Make Disciples.
This website is excellent for new visitors! Visitors to Holy Trinity’s Home page are personally welcomed by their senior pastor with a heartwarming message. They’ve also added a “Welcome” page to the website, which is something that all churches should do but don’t.
We also love that they leveraged the Donorbox QR code to add to their website to help people easily navigate to the donation form.
This church website includes a Donate button on almost every page regardless of its purpose. Which can be great to help people easily find the donation form.
We love its dedicated giving page which talks about giving in detail. It explains how much people should give to the church to help its mission. This precise content is paired with a popup Donorbox donation form which enables quick and easy online giving.
This website is very detailed and easy to follow. There is very little we’d change.
The “About Us” page is the only one we’d suggest updating to at least include a location map and more on the parish.
The Apostolic Faith Church is a Christian church in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin. They have in-person sermons, live streaming, and ministries for children, women, men, and young adults.
This church website uses the most simplistic design with every important information right in place while also not making visitors scroll indefinitely to search for information on one page.
The Apostolic Faith Church does something that other churches rarely do. At the bottom right of their website is a link entitled “Let’s chat.”
Many companies have this to encourage viewers to get customer service, but a church can use this and connect with its parishioners on a deeper level.
Their donation page has a lot of information on giving but lacks sufficient CTAs or Calls-To-Action. Our suggestion would be to add clear CTAs (buttons or links) under each of the giving options they’ve talked about.
These CTAs should redirect people to their online donation forms or pages or other relevant landing pages. They can also embed the Donorbox form that they’re using on their website.
Mennonites are a peaceful Christian denomination. The Faith Mennonite Church in Minneapolis also promotes inclusion. Their vision is to encourage followers to question and be honest about their doubts and work to find ways to connect outside of Sunday services.
This church website has a soothing look with stunning design elements, high-quality images, and a neat top navigation menu that is easy to navigate.
Faith Mennonite does an excellent job providing information about the church and its partnerships with other Mennonite and Anabaptists communities.
Their Service and Justice page offers detailed explanations about their Ministries and includes a link to the Donation page to catch visitors when they want to give.
We also love what they’ve done with their “Give Online” link at the top menu. It directs people to their Donorbox donation page which includes a brief description of the giving process and a simple-to-use donation form.
Their donation form also includes a wide range of suggested amounts for donors and lets them give one-time, weekly, monthly, and quarterly.
Another way that this church could increase the impact of its donation form is by including explanations of how each suggested donation amount helps the church or its mission program.
They could also include more CTAs (links or buttons) to the donation form throughout their website.
Southern Cross Centre is a Christian church in Balga in Perth, Western Australia. It focuses on creating disciples for Christ and offers members several opportunities to serve throughout its website.
This website follows a simple design and structure that doesn’t overwhelm visitors, yet provides links to all information they might be looking for via the navigation menu and dropdowns.
Once again, this church does an excellent job of making visitors feel welcome immediately. The home page starts with a personal welcoming message from senior church leaders John and Alaine McElroy.
Their website also gives visitors access to past sermons, member handbooks, monthly updates, events, programs, and more.
Southern Cross Centre’s giving page stands out for several reasons. Parishioners immediately choose between tithing and offering, and mission support. Donors that choose tithing and offering can set up direct deposits with their bank account or use the Donorbox donation form to make a one-time or recurring gift.
Donors can also designate their donations on the church donation form. This helps the church increase trust and transparency among members; at the same time, they can manage their finances more efficiently.
Southern Cross Centre misses an important opportunity on its “Mission Partners” giving page because they don’t include a donation form or a CTA to the donation form on it.
Donorbox allows churches to create unlimited donation forms and pages. Plus, with our donor and donation management system in place, your church can easily manage all gifts and segment data for effective use.
Boerne River Church is a Christian church in Boerne, Texas, with Saturday evening services and a children’s program. They also enable website visitors and their members to connect with the church online via YouTube and other mediums.
The website design is simple, the content is crisp, and the pages refrain from overwhelming visitors with a lot of menu options and information.
We love the fact that their top navigation menu includes only what they want their visitors to find right away – an option to give and contact the church. The rest of the options are available inside the side menu.
There have included a welcome video from the pastor, which makes people feel connected right away.
Throughout the homepage, the church has added multiple CTA buttons to help people reach where they wish to go – be it the map, the children’s ministry, an option to volunteer, listen to their podcast, send a prayer request, give, and more. There’s also a QR code on the footer which quickly takes people to the giving form.
Website visitors can also easily find various ways to give to the church. Their giving page lists 4 unique ways to donate, including the Donorbox Text-to-give option and online giving. We also love how the Donorbox online donation form opens up on a sidebar when “Online Giving” is clicked.
Boerne River Church discusses the security and volunteer needs for its kid’s programs, but there is a lack of details on the actual program. We’d recommend including more information and pictures of that program to encourage more involvement.
An effective church website keeps visitors interested and informed and directs them to act to benefit themselves and the organization.
Images and videos are the easiest way to catch website visitors’ attention. Your church can include paintings, pictures from services and activities, and other powerful visuals.
Including text that explains the pictures and providing a link to a donation page will help your church better connect with website visitors and turn them into long-term parishioners.
Many visitors to your church’s website will have no previous experience with your church and may never set foot in your building.
An easy-to-find and understandable welcome page gives visitors an immediate connection to your church and walks them through the process of learning more.
This also helps them see that you care about your new visitors and have dedicated resources to guide them through your church’s work, its mission, history, and the giving process.
There are several things you should include on your welcome page, like:
Adding a donation button to the top right-hand corner of every page makes it easier to give to your church. Visitors may come to your website just to donate. If you make it hard to find your giving page, you’re in danger of losing these supporters.
A lot of visitors don’t plan to donate before visiting your website. Adding a “Donate Now” or “Make an Offering” button will catch their eye and encourage them to give.
Other ways to encourage donations include
Donorbox makes it easy for churches to build embeddable donation forms. You can simply use a copy-paste code to add the customized donation form to your website. Donorbox also makes it possible to add a donate button to your website. You get 2 embeddable donate buttons, including –
Bonus: We have written a guide to help you build the best church website by including 10 essential elements that you should definitely not miss!
Websites are responsible for educating visitors about religion and the individual church. They must also inspire visitors and members to attend services and other activities. Finally, they give parishioners more opportunities to support the church financially.
Each website on our list does all of these in creative ways. We hope they inspire your church to improve its own church website, include better design and content, add more actionable CTAs, and make giving easy for all.
As you build your church website, check out Donorbox for an effective way to build embeddable donation forms and donate buttons. It requires no coding knowledge – we offer you simple copy-paste codes to make it work! Learn more about Donorbox and its powerful features on our website. Sign up for free to start fundraising today!
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Kristine Ensor is a freelance writer with over a decade of experience working with local and international nonprofits. As a nonprofit professional she has specialized in fundraising, marketing, event planning, volunteer management, and board development.
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Kristine Ensor