The advertising may or may not match your doctrine, and frankly can be diametrically opposed to your doctrine. An example would be Mormon links or advertising showing up on a Fundamental Baptist Web Page, or ads for Christian Rock performers on a conservative church web page. This is just something to be very aware of before you commit yourself to any "free" provider. The free FamilyNet web pages do not come with any advertising, there is a small notification at the bottom of the page that indicates the service is provided free by FamilyNet International (http://www.familynet-international.org). On the "unofficial" web sites (this will be a web site FamilyNet created for a church that does not appear to have a web presence) you will also find an orange square pointing to the FamilyNet "Top Sites" web page and the Baptist Top Sites web page.
FamilyNet International Inc
Free Web Hosting - I felt led of the Lord to help
get churches online. This actually started back around the 1994 time frame when
I put up a web page for Harvester Baptist Church in Columbia Maryland. I am
guessing at the time frame, but this is probably accurate within a year or two.
The web page (http://www.harvester.org)
was built from information provided off of a church bulletin. ( I did the same
thing around 1998 or so for Marquette Manor Baptist Church in Downer's Grove
Illinois). My wife and I were saved at Harvester, and it was actually Pastor Ed
Simpson of Harvester Baptist Church that led my wife and I to the Lord. I have been dabbling in online
endeavors (since Pastor Simpson said I could be an online evangelist and I never
looked back) since 1982 with dial up bulletin boards. In September 2005, I felt
led to start searching for independent Baptist Churches that did not have a web
presence, and simply but up a plain site with all the information that I could
find on the church. I started in Texas. There are an amazing number of churches
that have no presence on the web! I built the web sites,
printed out a copy of the web page and enclosed a letter to the pastor with a
their site URL (Uniform Resource Locator - or web site address i.e.
http://www.online-churches.org).
In the initial round of about 75 churches or so, about 5 letters came back as
undeliverable. One pastor asked us to take the site down, and two pastors
(including Pastor Boatman, of Faith Baptist Church in Aransas Pass, Texas) sent
me bulletins, updated information, and asked me to register special domains for
their churches. Pastor Boatman is also the inspiration for this guide, as he has
had a lot of good questions, and I have had to dig up plenty of answers!
Faith Baptist Church started off with the unofficial web page. Pastor Boatman
sent me additional information to include on the web site, and finally, a member
of the church stepped up and took over the web site, and is managing it via FTP. This is an overview of how we got here. Provider: FamilyNet
***** Advertising: ***** Updating and/or creating your own web page:
***** URL: ***** Look/Feel: ***** initial web page will be built for you
free, or you can use, Mambo, Postnuke etc. no advertising Individual non"FamilyNet" URL created. Registering an additional URL
costs money (registration cost for URL), can point to your existing web page
free by FamilyNet. updating your web page requires minimal amount of expertise.
Sitebuilder, FTP or Front Page extensions available
free. Front Page software costs up to $200, and can be less than intuitive.
To use FTP, you must build the "html" code on your own computer and upload
(File Transfer Protocol) to your web site (MS Publisher, MS Word allow you
to do this). Free web forwarding for available
network domain to your non-FamilyNet web page if you so desire. Provider: Geocities/Yahoo!
**1/2 Advertising: ** Updating and/or creating your own web
page: *** URL: * Look/Feel: *** Wrestled with requesting a password for
30 minutes, evidently due to blocked and/or old cookies. Popups must be
enabled. After I finally got logged in I clicked
on button "get it now." I was prompted for some initial
interests and then clicked on a button "Create my page." Imagine my surprise when I ended up
with a starting page on the internet instead of a web page. After getting a Yahoo! account log in,
go to http://www.geocities.com Click on "Geocities Free Web Hosting." Click on a couple of tabs, figure out
what your computer code is, and click "Submit." Welcome page comes up. Copy down your
URL. Click on "Build your web site now." Click on Yahoo page wizards. (If you
have some expertise in building a site you can click on "Page Builder and
give that a shot. I am offered 14 templates of sites. I
chose classic blue. Followed the wizard including uploading an image. I am offered the ability to define four
links. Default are yahoo links. The default web site is set up. You can
see it at
http://yahoo.online-churches.org. Total time 15 minutes, not counting
the problems I had getting a log on ID. Advertising on my initial web site:
"Website for your church" and "church and religious or web sites". Ended up with an okay one page web
site. You have the options of going back in
with "Page Builder," or can try another "Page Wizard." Page Builder
was not very intuitive. Provider: Tripod/Lycos
***3/4 Advertising: * Updating and/or creating your own web page:
***** URL: * Look/Feel: **** Free Plan Includes: Site Building and File Management Tools 20MB of Disk Space Blog Builder Photo Album Builder Go to
http://www.tripod.com Request a free site, fill out intrusive
questionnaire. Received two ad surveys, which I
declined. Was asked what I wanted to do... chose
to build a site with Tripod Sitebuilder. Chose a site with a multi-page template
since that is what I have on the Faith site. Chose religious organization template,
as we are talking online churches here. I put "Faith Baptist Church" as the
Title, and put the church address in the footer. I was offer a list of "pages" to choose
from. I chose "Directions" (we have a map today), blank page for Calendar of
Events (We have an activities button), "Clubs and Groups" for the
Missionaries Page we wave today, "latest news" for the announcements,
"Contact us" for the phone numbers and a "blank page" for the Plan of
Salvation button we have today. I was offered 184 designs for the page.
I did not see anything that would specifically be for a church. I was given the page to customize,
there are a myriad of choices here Images - I chose two girls
dressed up for Easter. I added the Worship Schedule on the
front page, as there was a template already there. I continued customizing the site, and
found it was easy to use and pretty user friendly. There were many site add ons available
as well. The site took me about 45 minutes to
build, it can be found at
http://tripod.online-churches.org. This site is really slick and easy to
use and edit. Again, nothing is free, and this site
buries you in pop ups and advertising! From mortgage, to credit card apps,
night life, you name it, it is there. Tripod would NOT let me just remove
text, I had to delete the text and picture fields. Provider: Freeservers ****1/2 Advertising: ** Updating and/or creating your own web page:
***** URL: **** Look/Feel: **** 12 MB .5 GB bandwith Site Builder and Site Manager Choose ad supported, free site. Went through a couple of attempts to up
sell to a paid hosted web site. Fill out minimal information form and
log in to the main site. You CAN register your own domain name. Click on "Build my site" then "Site
Builder." You we see several template options. I chose "Custom site." I was offered four templates. I chose
"Smooth Curves." Chose "Azure" for color. For standard pages chose Home page,
About Page, What's New, Contact and Favorite Links Page. You can then choose a page to work on. The look and feel is similar to Tripod.
You can blank out text fields, Tripod made you delete the text field. You have an option to not show an
image, again Tripod made you delete the field. Initial set up took about 10 minutes. I
only updated the home page though. There are 7 ad free days, so I can't tell
you specifically what ads will appear on our new site, but, on another
church using freeservers.com, there is a banner across the whole top of the
page (huge) with a Monster.com ad. Down the right side is a Keller Graduate
school ad. Not as bad as Tripod was though. It was easy to set up. Choice of URL gave more leeway than
Tripod, you can find one that does not advertise the freeservers.com domain. Web Page can be seen at
http://freeservers.online-churches.org Provider: Free Prohosting *** Advertising: ***** Updating and/or creating your own web page:
** URL: * Look/Feel: **** Go to
http://www.free.prohosting.com
select free and sign up for an account. Includes 100 Meg of disk storage and
1200 Megs of Bandwidth. Daily Bandwidth 40 MB You can register a new domain, or use a
domain.prohosting.com After lengthy questionnaire, I was told
my account is now set up. I logged into the web site, under
"build your site" I chose "Probuilder" option. I choose "Pro1" a free version of pro
builder. I enable probuilder. I am asked to log in again to the
probuilder web page. I cannot log in on my first try. I go through the
process again and I am logged in okay. I am offered one category, "Personal
and Family Related." I click the "View All" button and I get 57 template
page choices. I choose "Blue Shaft." I am prompted to choose a color and a
picture. I am prompted for a "Main Title," "Sub
Title" and an Email address. The next prompt is to add pages to the
web site. It appears I can only choose one page.. I name my page manually,
"Home" After a long time I get a "preview" and
accept it. I am now brought into a "page manager"
page. I edit the page (it was hard to figure
out how to accomplish this). There are very limited capabilities, I
typed in some text, but I have a basic one page web site, built on a
template. I publish the site, took about 15
minutes. I see no advertising on the site though. The site is published at
http://prohosting.online-churches.org Overall the setup was very clunky. The
actual domain assigned was mydomain.snow.prohosting.com which is also
clunky! Provider:
www.forministry.com (American Bible
Society). Advertising: Updating and/or creating your own web page:
URL: Look/Feel: Click on the opening page - you are
given the system requirements for setting up a website. Click on Startnow button. Choose language, country and what type
of ministry you are building a web site for. Fill out a personal profile Fill out basic Site Information form, I
chose Independent Baptist Church Listed under "Denominations"
They prompt for a second denomination. You can then choose a template. You can
then customize your template. You then have the option of subscribing
to newletters. You then go through an editor's
agreement. The site is created... I then find myself back on the screen
from the third bullet above... Not sure why. The screen said the "page would
continue to reload until your web site is ready...." back paging resulted in
the same results... I could not build a page. I don't know why. Will update
if I get an email or some contact from them. Provider:
www.achristianserver.com (Arkwebs) Advertising: Updating and/or creating your own web page:
URL: Look/Feel: The following is what you can get with this
free service according to their web site. • Get
10MB of FREE hosting space Click on the "register now" button. Terms of agreement comes up. Agree to
the terms. Click the new "register now" button. There is a HUGE questionnaire. I
believe most of it is not required. I receive a message that the membership
is on hold (12/03/05). I will update this page if I get approval to go ahead
and create the web site, it will give you an idea of how long you have to
wait. Provider:
http://officelive.microsoft.com (Microsoft
- yes Microsoft!) Advertising: Updating and/or creating your own web page:
URL: Look/Feel: The following is what you can get with this
free service according to their web site. • Free
domain registration (this worries me a bit). I can only choose .com, .org, .net. Click on the "sign up now" button. The first problem I ran into, is it
will not let you use a non-Microsoft browser. It told me I needed to upgrade
to a newer MS browser when I tried to sign up with Firefox. You are prompted to "Find a domain
name." I put in online-churches.us and find out I can only register .com,
.net or .org. I have to think of another one...
http://www.baptists-online.com Next I find I need a Microsoft Passport
Network Account. This is an account that handles all your passwords, I have
never set one up, but will now. I click on "I want to create a MS Passport
account." I now get a long intrusive
questionnaire including a request for a credit card. Against my better judgment I supply all
the information. There are THREE agreements I need to
agree to. Melbourne IT Domain name registration
agreement. It appears the domain name WILL be registered to me (a good
thing). It also appears that you will need to re-register your domain name
with them ($35 per year!) You can transfer the domain, subject to a 20%
transfer fee (not sure what that is 20% of). Anyway - it is a lot of
legalese, and I am not a lawyer. Microsoft Office Live Service
Agreement. Although the hosting is supposed to be free, I had to give a
credit card, and in this agreement you are authorizing Microsoft to charge
your credit card. A lot of legalese here also, but nothing else that really
concerns me on a quick read through. The service is in test. Microsoft Online Privacy Agreement. I accept the agreement(s). "This is a free service subscription.
The offer will end if I cancel my subscription, or when the beta concludes,
at which time you can continue through free or a fee-based subscription. I click "Next" to start using my
account. After a couple of minutes I am at the
members center. I go into site designer and build a web
page. Under "industry" there are no choices for church, religion or
non-profit. I choose computers and electronics. I click on "header." I type in "Baptist
Churches Online." I have six choices for Fonts. I choose Tahoma. I click on Navigation. I can choose
Left, Top, or Top and Left. I choose "left." I click on "Footer." I add a bunch of
links... so far pretty easy. I click on "advanced." But cannot do
much there. I click OK. I have three errors. I have
no idea what they are. They can't "decentralize" something. I close the boxes and look at my web
site. There is a menu bar down the left side, the links I added are on the
bottom. The colors are hard to read. I cannot remove the links down the
side. It was not that hard, it is free
including a domain name (at least initially). It comes with it's own email account
with your domain name. I will update this page when something happens.' I can't figure out how to add code
(banners etc).
• Only Family friendly banners are shown
• Your site URL is easy to remember and easy to share
• Easy to use web site editors and templates
• Use HTML, CGI and Java Scripts
• Get cool site add-ons, like guestbook's, ECards,
polls, chat, more...
• Put your Church, Ministry, Non-Profit of Family web
site online FREE