Most
ministers understand the need for them to have a website. However, due
to failed attempts, perceived costs, and perceived difficulty, many
ministers have opted to do without a ministry website.
Today it is more important for a ministry to have
a website than it used to be to have business cards. You are in the
people business and people need, at the very least, to be able to find
out where you are, how to contact you, where and when to come to your
services and how to get donations into your hands.
The Tim Greenwood Ministries website www.tgm.org
began in earnest in 1999 with one page: the testimony of my healing
from terminal heart disease. Since then Marcia and I have added
articles and tools one by one to the site. As I write this today the
site has grown to more than 400 on-site pages plus there are several
hundred more off-site pages that can be viewed through the TGM website.
During that year, I thought that our hit counter
was broken since it seemed to be stuck in the single digits. Then as
the site grew, the number of hits seemed to grow exponentially with the
counter reaching one million overall hits in 2000. By 2002 the number
of hits increased by an additional one million hits for that year. And
by 2003 we were receiving well over three million hits a year. It took
us until 2011 to increase that number to four million hits a year. And
as of March 1, 2013, we have received nearly thirty-three million hits,
(32,908,524), since we started the site. In addition, back when giving
internet awards was popular the TGM website received dozens of
different Christian web site awards.
The site is pleasing to the eye, has more than
100 anointed teachings in the form of articles, great Christian tools
and content and it is functionally simple to navigate. And we have thus
far been able to accomplish all this on a budget of less than $300.00 a
year (that’s around $25.00 a month), which includes hosted web space
and one or more domain names. This combination of factors has caused a
lot of inquiries for advice by other ministries desiring to build their
own website.
I would have loved to tell them that I built the
TGM website but that would not give honor to whom honor is due.
Actually, the Holy Spirit designed it, right down to its colors and
told me how to do it all - I just did the work. I’m not just being
humble, I mean this quite literally. When I started the web page, I
neither had the skill nor the knowledge to build it. I’m a Spirit
filled, Spirit led, born-again, baptized Christian minister. I just did
and continue to do what I am led by the Holy Spirit to do. The Spirit
would show me what it should look like and then would lead me to
resources to find out how to make it happen, step-by-step, one piece at
a time. And as I learned what did and didn’t work, I increased this
skill set.
I have seen it time and time again. A ministry
puts a website up on the web only to have it, for whatever reason, fall
into disuse. Whatever the stated reason, the real reason is most often
that the website was difficult to maintain, inefficient and too
complicated for anyone other than a computer wiz to work on.
That is why I have written a new book titled, “How
To Build A Simple, Efficient, Easy To Maintain Ministry Website On a
Start-up Ministry Budget”.
If you are a Pastor, I know what you are thinking:
“I just don’t have time to build and maintain a website.” But I say:
“You cannot teach what you don’t know.” And by knowing this
information:
1. You can teach others to build and maintain your website
2. No one can tell you what can’t be done on your website, and
3. You will end up with a long-term, simple, easy to maintain website
that you can grow along with your ministry.
I believe that God has given me the gift of making
what seems complicated, simple, easy to understand and easy to
accomplish; and do it in a way that will fit almost any ministry budget.
“How to Build a Simple, Efficient, Easy to
Maintain Ministry Website – On a Startup Ministry Budget” is now
available for purchase for only 10 dollars plus shipping per copy, I
don’t see how any ministry could go wrong buying this book.
In “How to Build a Simple, Efficient, Easy to
Maintain Ministry Website – On a Startup Ministry Budget” I step
through each attribute and principal that has made the TGM website the
success that it has been.
In it I also provide a step-by-step approach and
guide for duplicating the all of the basic components of the website,
and do it in a manner in which you will be able to insert your own
text, images, colors and etc. At the end of the book I even provide
many examples and explanations of html code, with which you could begin
creating your own custom pages for your website, once you get it built.
How to Build a Simple, Efficient, Easy to Maintain Ministry Website
On a Start-up Ministry Budget
by Tim Greenwood
NOW AVAILABLE at the TGM Resource Center www.tgm.org/store/
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