Your church building has some history associated with it, whether brief or centuries and people are interested. So this page is a fantastic opportunity to share that, but keep it mostly to this section, the rest of the site more about the current life of the church. Of course you don’t need to have this page, though having a history of people (even if you don’t have a building) can be really interesting and heart-warming.
Your Church Building
There are many ways to approach history, but on the web assume that interest is initially casual so give the main details first. Eg. Built in 1860 this mock-gothic building has been the site of a church since Roman times. The heart of the village it continues to be part of a local church trail†and then break it down using Headings.
The Belfry
Although the bells no longer ring, the conical belfry is unique amongst churches in our shire. Write the content first, but don’t forget to include a picture or two in this section – what your understanding of a ‘conical belfry’ is might not match that of people visiting the site and trying to determine if it’s the same church.
The Crypt/ Graveyard
Of course you can mention this, but a long list of who is dead and buried where is more appropriate in either a downloadable PDF or in historical church records; the details of how to access you can of course mention here, perhaps with a link to the Contact form so people know they can get in touch.
If that’s the case set expectations immediately, eg. ‘We respond to enquiries as soon as we can, though typically this takes a couple weeks’ otherwise you’ll get follow up emails saying ‘why haven’t you responded to my query 2 days ago’, unaware of the limited administration time available.
The Congregation
The other ‘church’ is just as important. While you’ve probably covered most of this under About, you could have a history of the Vicars, notable members of the congregation and of course when worship started. If you find yourself repeating things then the obvious thing to do is just to link to the About section. For example link on the words ‘our parish’ back to the about page.
Perhaps also discuss visiting the church (how that works if not on a Sunday) and leaving their comment a guestbook. Alternatively invite people to leave their thoughts again through the contact form, which you could then add back onto this page as a quote, for example:
“This church has a wonderful ambience and you can feel the sense of people worshipping throughout the ages. The roof is a wooden beauty, thank you for letting us into your church – Martha and Jim, Salisbury”
This might seem trite, but it adds a lot of heart to your church.