MINIMAL IS BETTER THAN MAYHEM

This is part 6 of a 10-part blog series on HOW TO GET YOUR MINISTRY ONLINE. You can follow the DIGITAL SKATEPARK tag or go back to the intro post for links out to the rest of the series.

< See the previous post in the series

MINIMAL IS BETTER THAN MAYHEM

If you’re not a designer, don’t pretend to be. If you are unable to find a designer in your community – be content with a simple minimalistic website.

WordPress comes with many great and simple free themes as well as a good range of paid themes at affordable prices.

Christians have been known to perpetually commit the most grievous of design sins: using the universally banned typeface Comic Sans. Youth leaders have likewise committed other design faux pas in choosing and using ugly themes for their websites. Go for simple and minimal.

The weekly newsletter that I send out to youth and youth leaders has statistics on who opens it and how they opened it. More than 50% of them open it on a mobile device and this number is increasing. That means you need to have a website that works well on mobile browsers. Lots of the newer themes on WordPress are “responsive”. This means they will automatically adjust the layout depending on the browser. They look good on a computer screen, tablet computer or smart phone. The best way to know is check how your site looks like on these devices.

One way to add a little bit of colour to your minimalist design would be to plunder the bounty of free (and legal) designs available at www.creationswap.com.

See the next post in the series >

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This series forms the basis of a chapter I wrote in a forthcoming Youth Ministry book to be published by Anglican Youthworks. The rest of the book is written by Scott Petty (Youth Minister from Christ Church St Ives) and is published here with permission.