Episcopal Church Foundation Vestry Papers - for leading congregations

It all started back on October 23, 1995. That’s the first record of a conversation in which a member of the congregation asked the minister during the coffee hour “Do you think we need a homepage on the World Wide Web for our parish?”

The minister stared back blankly.

“Because I was thinking,” the parishioner continued, “I work in the MIS department at the college and I know a little HTML. I could set something up.”

“Why don’t you do that?” the minister responded enthusiastically.

And the first parish Webmaster was born.

And sure enough a few weeks later http://www.saint-church-on-the-web.org was launched complete with a MIDI loop playing “Nearer My God To Thee”, lots of text to scroll through, a web counter, lots of links (“because that’s how the Internet works”) and a “web ring”.

As the years went by frames were added, sermons were uploaded, minutes of meetings posted and pictures of the annual picnic 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 ....

Y2K came and went.

Then the new young associate minister arrived. He had done websites before. He knew about flash and was skilled at Photoshop and Dreamweaver.

The old website had to go.

The Webmaster was insulted. This had been her labor of love and part of her service to the congregation. The vestry felt sympathy and balked at the $15,000 price tag asked for by a web development firm.

The matter was shelved for 18 months.

But the associate rector wouldn’t let it drop and more and more people were realizing he was right.

The Webmaster retired from the local university and moved to Florida. Seizing the moment the associate pounced, but the vestry still shrugged at the $15,000 price tag. Eight months later they relented. By now it was 2007.

The contract with the web development firm was signed and the young associate rector got busy. Wire frames were designed and rejected and designed again. The new site would have a CMS (a CMS!) so all of the rector’s sermons (and the associate’s) could be easily published to the waiting world.

The calendar flipped again. 2008. The old site was still live, but aging badly. The last picnic photos were from 2003. But fortunately, someone (under the dark of night) had killed the MIDI hymn player.

And the web ring.

Oh, and even the counter.

It’s 2009 and the new site is finally launched. But the coffee hour immediately after the site launched bore an uncanny resemblance to the one back in 1995.

“Do you think we need a Facebook page for our parish?”

The minister stared back blankly.

“Because I was thinking … my son and all his friends are always on Facebook, so I decided to create an account for myself so I could see what he was up to. I could make one for the church and that way people could ‘like’ it.”

“Why don’t you do that?” the minister responded enthusiastically.

(As it says in the Good Book: “What has been will be again …”)

Editor's Note: The Episcopal Church Office of Communication offers affordable website services for congregations, dioceses, and organizations. Read about it here.