The Articles Archive
Articles & Ideas for Church Websites
A weekly editorial archive of 1,640+ original articles on church website design, copy, and conversion — pairing real screenshots from 2,100+ working church sites with the prompts and templates a volunteer team can ship on a Saturday.
One issue every Tuesday. Unsubscribe in one click. Read by 38,500+ pastors and comms directors.
From the Editor's Desk
What an issue actually contains.
Every Tuesday we publish one new idea — not a list, not a roundup, one piece written for the pastor or communications director who has a website to ship this weekend and a volunteer team that needs to know what to do next.
Each issue opens with two or three annotated screenshots from a real, working church site. Not stock photography, not wireframes — a small church in Indiana, a mid-size congregation in Birmingham, a multi-site network in Houston. We point at what they're doing well, what we'd change, and why a first-time visitor would either stay or leave in the first eight seconds.
Then we hand you the copy. A headline you can borrow, three variations of a "Plan Your Visit" prompt, the exact wording for a Statement of Faith module, the subject line for a second-giver email. These are written so a volunteer can paste them in on a Saturday afternoon, swap the church name, and publish without a committee meeting.
At the foot of every article you'll find the Ship-it-This-Saturday template pack — the actual page layout, the first-time-visitor email sequence, and a Statement of Faith module you can drop into your CMS. No theory, no gated course, no "book a strategy call." Just the working files.
— Brian Whitfield, Editor & Founder
Recent Issues
The latest four ideas, hot off the press.
All written in the last four Tuesdays. Browse the full archive in the Library or subscribe to get each new issue in your inbox.
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The eight-second homepage test, applied to 40 real church sites.
We pulled the homepage of every church under 200 in our screenshot library and graded them against a single question: in eight seconds, does a first-time visitor know what to do next?
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Writing the second-giver email — without sounding transactional.
The first gift arrives on Sunday night. By Wednesday, the moment has passed. Here's the three-email sequence eight congregations are using to turn a one-time donor into a recurring one.
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Sermon pages that get read on Wednesday morning.
Most church sermon pages are designed for the person who was there. Here's how twelve congregations redesigned theirs for the much larger group of people who weren't.
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The about page almost no one reads — and how to fix it in an afternoon.
Your about page isn't a resume. It's the place a first-time visitor decides whether you sound like a church they'd actually attend. Twenty annotated before-and-after screenshots.
Every idea in this archive comes out of a real conversation with a real pastor about a real website that wasn't quite working. Eleven years in, I still learn something from every church that lets me look under the hood. The archive is just a way of passing those notes along.
Browse by Lane
Five ways to find your way into the archive.
1,640+ articles, sorted by the page of the site they're about. Each lane links to a curated index you can read top-to-bottom.
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01
Homepage Design
The eight-second test, hero copy, what to put above the fold and (more importantly) what to leave off it.
312 articles
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02
Giving & Stewardship
Giving pages, recurring gift toggles, second-giver emails, year-end letter prompts, capital campaign copy.
241 articles
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03
Sermon Pages & Media
Sermon archives, series pages, transcript patterns, podcast embeds, and the difference between listen and watch.
289 articles
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04
About, Staff & Beliefs
Leadership grids, Statement of Faith modules, what not to put in a pastor bio, and the “why we exist” page.
198 articles
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Ship It This Saturday
Every article closes with the working files.
Reading is fine. Shipping is better. At the bottom of every issue you'll find the actual page templates, copy blocks, and email sequences — the things a volunteer team can install this weekend without a meeting.
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Page Template
First-Time Visitor Page
Welcome copy, three service times, parking notes, a kids' check-in primer, and a single low-pressure form.
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Email Sequence
Second-Giver Email Series
A three-email nurture sequence — the thank-you, the story, the quiet invitation — written so it doesn't read like a fundraising ask.
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Beliefs Module
Statement of Faith Block
An eight-point statement of faith you can drop into any page, with a pastoral intro and three “why we wrote it this way” notes.
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Page Template
Events & Announcements
A clean, scannable events page with three upcoming, one featured, and a sensible archive — so the page still makes sense in two months.