Hi, I'm Jeremy Goldsborough.

For over 15 years now, I’ve been building church websites and coaching pastors, church staff, and volunteers through about every media tech hurdle you can imagine.

I’ve spent thousands of hours in phone conversations, email threads, and online chats with hundreds of church leaders.

When you do the same thing for this long, patterns begin to emerge.

Circumstances begin to repeat, and you start seeing what the real problems are.

The point of this page you are reading is to share my discoveries with you and suggest real solutions that will solve your actual website problems for good.

If you’re anything like the average small church in America, you don’t feel great about your church website.

It’s sort of like a pair of cheap underwear.

You have to have it, but wow is it ever uncomfortable.

As a pastor, you don’t have the time to deal with it. You delegated the website to your assistant pastor, but just about the time things were looking up, he left the church.

You asked your secretary to handle it, but she over-handled it, and the website became a repository for animated GIFs and obscure 1990s font faces.

When you dig a little deeper though, it’s more than just aesthetics.

The website not only looks out of date, but it’s really not working.

Sure, it loads in a web browser, but it doesn’t actually do the job it’s supposed to do.

Your church website is not introducing your community to the best things about your church, and it’s not turning website visitors into church visitors.

The entire church web presence is a thorn in your flesh, and you’ve about had it.

You’re this close to just deleting the website entirely and reminding everyone that “God is bigger than the internet”.

You're not alone.

That feeling of regret associated with your church website is not unique to you.

This is a widespread, commonly encountered problem that I’ve observed time after time over my past 20 years of small local church ministry.

In my early years of ministry, I felt the same pain. I knew what I wanted the church website to be, but felt powerless to do anything about it.

I wasn’t a “coder” and I had no experience. So I tried to focus on other things that I could control, and just hoped that the mediocre website wouldn’t do too much damage in the community.

This was a sad strategy, but it was literally where I was at.

Ignorance isn't bliss.

Whoever said “Ignorance is bliss” (I’m looking at you Tom) was most definitely not referring to a church website.

The cost of ignoring this feature in today’s world is incredibly high!

Recent studies show that around 97% of all local organization discovery is made online rather than in person.

In other words, only 3 out of 100 people are going to find your church by just showing up because they “happened to be in the neighborhood.” The other 97 are going to search for it on the internet before deciding to try it out in person.

When those 97 arrive at your church website, what will they see?

Does your church website accurately portray your actual church?

Ignoring your church website is not a strategy.

Avoiding your online presence and hoping for the best is not a solution.

The frustration is real, but the price of ignorance is even worse.

I wasn't asking for much.

As a busy staff member at my northern Michigan church, I knew what I wanted, and the bar wasn’t that high.

I was looking for a clean, effective, stable church website that just worked.

I needed a website that I didn’t have to spend hours of time and mental space on. It needed to be fast, look great, and result in getting people through the door of the church.

A dream feature would be if the website was “self updating” so that I didn’t have to wrestle with it all the time.

Oh, and it really needed to be cheap too. Did I mention that?

Maybe that was too much to ask.

So, I started making mistakes.

Like most other busy pastors and church staff members, I just started trying stuff.

I Googled “best church websites” and tried copying what other churches were doing.

I remember calling another ministry who had a website that I liked, and asking where they got it. They gave me a dollar figure that took my breath away and left me pretty discouraged.

So, I started playing the “features” game. I tried getting better tools. Bigger bells. Louder whistles. Which one was going to be my silver bullet solution?

My church website had to:

• Look neat, clean, and professional
• Always be up to date and relevant
• Give site visitors easy access to information
• Not take a ton of time to manage
• Be reasonable in cost
  

I tried just about everything.

I didn’t have loads of free time, a big budget, or a technical background, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me from my pursuit.

Self-education and better tools offered some relief, but it seemed that the website was always a step behind my ideal reality.

Every time a ministry peer would launch a “new website” for their church, I would play the comparison game, and come up short in my own mind.

Like most other churches I’ve worked with over the years, I had fallen into the “trap of tools.” 

You know the drill - always feeling like I just didn’t have the right tools to make my dream a reality. I was always just one new feature away from church website utopia.

If I could get that magic plugin, that consistent volunteer, or that unicorn site builder, then I’d finally be “playing with the big kids.”

It wasn’t until many years later that I discovered the reason why these solutions never worked.

Think about your church building project.

You wouldn’t build a new sanctuary and then just stand back and admire it for the next ten years right?

You’ve got to maintain it.

The bathrooms need to be cleaned every week. It will need new carpeting after awhile.

The PA system will need to be upgraded.

As technology improves, and as your church family’s needs evolve, the church building will have to be modified to accommodate the changes.

You can’t “set it and forget it.”

The typical church website is treated like a snowman (or a sand castle if you’re one of those people).

Lots of time, energy, and care is spent in crafting the details. It’s a beautiful thing to behold.

But then, time takes its toll.

Day by day parts fall off.

A squirrel eats the carrot nose.

The sun comes out and the whole thing slouches. After a couple of weeks you’re left with a crusty lump of ice.

Technically it’s still a snowman, but boy is it ugly.

Why? Seasons changed, and the snowman failed to adapt. Now you have another restoration project on your hands.

The same thing happens with most church websites.

Once “the project” is completed, it’s checked off the list, and it’s on to the next thing. There’s no real plan for maintenance, no adaptation to changes in technology, and no allowance for ongoing improvements.

With that discovery, I had a light bulb moment.

The church website isn’t just a one-time project. It’s an ongoing plan.

So, here's what I did about it.

I didn’t need to complete a project, I needed to initiate a plan.

The thing I was missing all of those years was a consistent system that would address the number one problem with church websites: they don’t get updated.

The best church website out there is only as relevant as its last update.

It’s so easy for the church website to be out of sight and out of mind.

You know it’s there and that it probably needs attention, but you’re not looking at it right now. 

There are a dozen other priorities that are staring you in the face, so you cheat on the website again.

And another button falls off the snowman.

I’m no longer a church pastor, but I do own a church website agency, and I talk to pastors every single week. The patterns I experienced years ago are still being experienced by others.

The frustrations are real.

I engage with church websites every day that haven’t been updated in months. These websites are still promoting Vacation Bible School ... “coming summer 2023” ... but now it’s 2024.

Right now I am aware of more than one church website that still lists the former pastor, because when the former pastor left the church, he took all of the website access with him, and nobody else knows how to change the website.

There has to be a better way.

After years of hit and miss, lots of trial and error, and starting two website agencies, I’ve created the ultimate solution. And it’s working.

Here’s what it looks like now.

Turn embarrassment into confidence.

Rather than avoiding your church website and hoping it doesn’t come up in conversations with others, you’ll be confident that it’s always fresh, and always up to date.

You will stop burning through “webmaster volunteers” and finally put the weekly website maintenance in the hands of trusted professionals who have a seasoned ministry mindset.

No more wondering if your church website is doing its job, because weekly or monthly reports will give you all the facts.

You’ll move from doing church web disaster recovery every few years to enjoying a steady top notch web presence that is never out of date or out of style.

You’ll put glitchy confusing content management software in the rearview mirror, freeing up your time and energy to focus on other aspects of your ministry.

It's called Spirelight 365, and it's a game changer.

These church website issues are real, and they’re consistent.

You see, I’ve built hundreds of church websites over the years, but so many of them were a “project” without a “plan”.

After years of first hand experience, I can say confidently that most small to medium churches struggle hard with their web presence.

That’s why I created the Spirelight 365 program.

It has worked for me, and it works every day for churches just like yours.

Spirelight 365 is a total-package, every-day, full-service, always-on church website plan.

For a flat monthly cost, you put your website design, maintenance, and responsibility firmly in the hands of professional ministry-minded individuals who have the skills and patience to make your church website top notch every day.

You have options.

There are other options outside of Spirelight 365 that are worth comparing.

You can hire a secular website agency.

There are plenty of top quality organizations out there who could help with the maintenance and upkeep of your church website.

They have solid technical skills, and may be great graphic designers.

The tough part about this arrangement is that it can be difficult to communicate the culture and dynamics of your particular church ministry and style.

Most likely, the people working on your site are not believers, and don’t share the purpose and vision of your church.

Also, you’ll pay top dollar for these services.

Dollar Cost = $500+ per month

Stress Cost = low to medium

Results = good to great

You can do it yourself.

Some pastors love doing graphic design and website technical work. It’s therapeutic to them.

In my last 15 years working with churches, I can count the pastors that fall into this category on one hand.

Most pastors that take on the church website personally end up frustrated and disenchanted with it as other, more pressing matters crowd out their minds and schedules.

Dollar Cost = around $400/mo (2-3 hours per week)

Stress Cost = medium to high

Results = tolerable to good

You can delegate it to a staff member.

I was this guy.

The staff member who got the church website delegated to them.

The challenge with this solution is that the staff member has a dozen other responsibilities that demand their time.

Unless they just love creative design and technical problem solving, it is likely that the church website responsibility will end up quite low on the priority list.

The other reality is that just about the time you think the website is humming, the staff member is going to move to another town, another church, another ministry, and you’ll be starting all over again with the website.

Dollar Cost = around $300/mo (3-4 hours per week)

Stress Cost = medium to high

Results = tolerable to good

You can let a volunteer to do it.

Here’s a common solution that rarely turns out to be ideal.

Someone in your church approaches you and volunteers to be “the webmaster”.

They are “the IT guy” or “the tech girl” at their workplace, and they would love to save the church some money by volunteering their time to overhaul the church website and keep it up to date.

So many things can go wrong in this scenario, but the biggest one is this: it is very difficult to press accountability on someone who is freely volunteering their time.

It can go sideways very quickly, or (even worse) very slowly.

Dollar Cost = minimal

Stress Cost = very high

Results = chaotic to tolerable

What's the real cost?

As most all churches do, you can experiment with these different solutions.

Take a few years and give them a spin. Averages say that you will probably not be thrilled with the results.

However, you’ll save a lot of money, right?

The reality is this.

If your first-class Spirelight 365 website presence results in just one giving/tithing family unit joining your church this year, it will more than pay for itself.

There are families and individuals moving into your community every month that are looking for a ministry like yours to become part of and contribute to.

They are looking you up online first, and your website is making some sort of statement to them.

What is the real cost of allowing that statement to be underwhelming?

Let me take all the risk.

I believe the Spirelight 365 program is the best value available for your church website.

I’m convinced that it will not only pay for itself financially, but it will provide your church leadership with peace of mind, reduced stress, and more bandwidth to do the hands-on work of the ministry.

To prove this, I want to take all of the risk away from you and your church and put it on myself. 

Here’s my guarantee:

Jump into the 365 website plan, and turn over the church website responsibility to the Spirelight team. We’ll make it great and work every week to keep it great.

If at the end of your first year you feel like it was a mistake and a bad investment, we’ll give you all of your money back.

That’s right, all $7,164.

That would be a big check for me to write, but I believe in it enough to take all of that risk.

What is this worth?

After examining the benefits of the 365 program, it’s pretty easy to arrive at this conclusion:

Spirelight 365 won’t end up costing you anything at all.

If the only thing it did for you was…

1. Brought in one tithing member per year.
2. Provide you with peace of mind about the church web presence.
3. Free up one staff member for more hands-on ministry.
4. Allow you to say goodbye to frustrating tech headaches.
5. Reach one lost person with God’s message of hope.

Any one of those benefits would be worth investing $597 per month.

But Spirelight 365 can deliver not one, not two, but all FIVE of these things.

Bonus #1 Join the Spirelight 365 program today, and we’ll include a fully managed church app. This alone is worth $297/mo.

The Spirelight 365 program is worth every penny.

However, as a limited-time special offer, the next 10 churches that join the program will also get a full-featured, fully-managed church app included with your services for no extra charge.

We’ll build a custom phone app for your church that will be available on iTunes for Apple devices and the Google Play store for Android devices.

This app will allow you to keep in touch with your church members with push notifications, provide online giving, announcements, sermon audio, digital bulletins, and much more.

Plus, we’ll manage it all for you, and make sure it’s up to date every week.

If you were to hire an outside company to do this and manage it for you, you’d pay at least $297 per month just for the app & service.

But, I’ll include this at no extra cost for the next 10 Spirelight 365 churches to join the program.

Bonus #2 Join the Spirelight 365 program today, and we’ll also include our ongoing Spirelight SEO service. This is a $79/mo value included at no extra cost to you!

Search engine optimization still matters.

With the Spirelight SEO service, you can rest assured that we are systematically monitoring and tweaking your church website each week to perform at a high level on the major search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo.

Technical optimizations such as robots.txt submission, sitemaps, page content, image optimization, alt tags, directory listings, and more will be addressed and optimized by our team. 

This service is typically a paid add-on, but for the next ten church signups, I’ll include it for free.

Bonus #3 Join the Spirelight 365 program right now, and we’ll set up and manage a “Pastor’s Blog” for your church. This is a $29/mo value at no extra cost to you.

Blogging is alive and well.

For churches, it has a number of technical benefits such as search engine optimization, but perhaps even greater is the opportunity to utilize yet another channel to get the good news of the gospel not only to your community, but to others around the world.

Whether your pastor is doing a weekly sermon summary, or simply commenting on current events, the Spirelight Blog platform makes it simple and easy to get your message of hope to the world.

And, since it’s part of the Spirelight 365 program, we’ll make sure all of your posts look good and are fully optimized for the best reach and performance. I’m including this for free today.

Bonus #4 Sign on with Spirelight 365 program now, and we’ll optimize and manage your Google Business profile. This $79/mo service is included.

The Spirelight 365 program is worth every penny.

However, as a limited-time special offer, the next 10 churches that join the program will also get a full-featured, fully-managed church app included with your services for no extra charge.

We’ll build a custom phone app for your church that will be available on iTunes for Apple devices and the Google Play store for Android devices.

This app will allow you to keep in touch with your church members with push notifications, provide online giving, announcements, sermon audio, digital bulletins, and much more.

Plus, we’ll manage it all for you, and make sure it’s up to date every week.

If you were to hire an outside company to do this and manage it for you, you’d pay at least $297 per month just for the app & service.

But, I’ll include this at no extra cost for the next 10 Spirelight 365 churches to join the program.