As far as web design is concerned, churches have come a long way in recent years. It wasn’t too many years ago that most church websites were several years behind the times. Apparently a growing number of churches today are recognizing the importance of their web presence.
This gallery isn’t only for those who design church sites; these examples are excellent sources of inspiration for any design project. Many of them involve excellent use of color, images, and graphics that draw attention right away. In addition, most church sites have a lot of content that needs to be displayed and easily navigated. The layouts and methods used here can be applied to other projects with similar requirements.
If your church is looking for an affordable and professional website, please see our information about church website design..
Here are some of my favorites. Let me know which ones you like in the comments.
(Note: their website has changed since this was originally posted.)
Missionary Baptist Church
(Note: this website is no longer active.)
(Note: this website’s design has been changed since this was originally posted.)
The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection
St. Gregory’s of Nyssa Episcopal Church
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
Trinity United Methodist Church
(Note: this website’s design has changed since this was originally posted.)
(Note: this website’s design has changed since this was originally posted.)
Island Evangelical Community Church
Lake Ridge Church
(Note: this website is no longer available.)
Calvary Bible Church of Kalamazoo
Rolling Hills Community Church
(Note: this website’s design has changed since this was originally posted.)
Fellowship of the Woodlands Church
If your church is looking for an affordable and professional website, please see our package that is available for churches.
March 17th, 2008
Wow! Amazing what an impact the website can have on one’s impression of the church. Love the look of Watermark Community Church’s site.
March 17th, 2008
Hannah,
Thanks for your comment. Yes, I think a church can really send a specific message and use a website to show visitors that maybe they don’t fall into the stereotypes that the visitor might have.
March 17th, 2008
I think that’s true. That Generation Church website has been passed around so many times that I can’t help but think that web designers in the area might go check it out just to see what kind of client asks for that. LOL.
As always, a great round-up. Awesome work!
Erika
March 17th, 2008
[...] 50 of the Best Church Website Designs [...]
March 17th, 2008
Im glad people get interested on their website!!
March 17th, 2008
hay alot of these webpages look good but alot of them don’t even look like church webpages
March 17th, 2008
Love the site designs. I love the fact that there is no ’stereotype’ here and it appeals.
March 17th, 2008
asha its SO right!!
March 18th, 2008
50 of the Best Church Website Designs | Vandelay Website Design…
Looking for the best church website designs Here is a collection of 5o…
March 18th, 2008
Exactly most of them doesn’t like church web pages.
I love the designs, they are Great!
March 18th, 2008
Wow - I happen to be working with our church right now to re-design their website. Very timely, and very nice designs! Thanks!
March 18th, 2008
[...] Vandelay hicieron una lista con 50 de los mejores diseños de webs de iglesias. Realmente algunos muy buenos. [...]
March 18th, 2008
I love those, but you missed another good one.
http://www.ligonier.org/
In Christ, Don
March 18th, 2008
These are not just great church websites, but great websites, period.
March 18th, 2008
WOW, what a great list… it is really amazing what kind of services they can now offer through a great design. Scott
March 18th, 2008
The company I work for has done some great design as well. Check us out-www.detailscom.com. However, some of these put us to shame (due to the fact we are a bit limited being tied into a CMS that isn’t as flexible as HTML/CSS only).
March 18th, 2008
I love the clean look of Bethlehem Baptist Church. Great use of typography and color to make key elements “pop”
March 18th, 2008
[...] expect Church website designs to be pretty boring, but looking over 50 of the Best Church Website Designs selected by Vandelay designs I was very pleasantly [...]
March 18th, 2008
[...] 50 of the Best Church Website Designs Related Stuffbeautifully : : webdesign - linksInspiration Overload: 100 CSS Galleries You Need to Check OutUniqueCSS.com | The Most Unique CSS Designs. Here.Niche GalleriesHow to ruin your website in 10 easy stepsGet More Traffic: 17 Social Media Sites for Web DesignersPresidential candidate web design reviewWeb Design Forums.net - Get your web design and development questions answeredCSS & Web Design Forum - Powered by vBulletinOpen Source Web Design - Download free web design templates. [...]
March 18th, 2008
thegeekboys,
I think that’s the point with a lot of them, and personally I like that.
Don,
That’s a nice design too, although I wouldn’t have included it on the list. It seems to be a ministry site rather than a church site, and everything else on the list is actually a church. Nice design though.
March 18th, 2008
Missed Jubilee World harvest…
Problem with a lot of these church websites is that they are so busy and cluttered and appeal to the churchie instead of the person interested in visiting a church.
Years ago, church websites were too simple and rubbish but now they are way to complicated and busy.
Good list however.
March 18th, 2008
All are very nice design..
These are insprational design..
Thank You..
March 19th, 2008
What about
Hillsong - http://www.hillsong.com
PlanetShakers - http://www.planetshakers.com
Lakewood - http://www.lakewood.cc
Thanks for collecting it
March 19th, 2008
Thanks for a very interesting choice of good designs. My concern with many of the sites is not their great design, but the fact that they will only attract the church members, or ‘already believers’ in the area looking for a new church. Sadly, many of them seem much less accessible to outsiders in the community. Yet it is possible to make a church site that is prioritized for such outsiders - one that aims to demonstrate that church is not about a building with meetings, but a bunch of people wanting others to join their family.
We’ve created a church site self-assessment tool to encourage churches to build this sort of ‘outsider usability’ into their sites, and value thoughts on improving it.
Best wishes
Tony
March 19th, 2008
[...] Enlace: 50 of the best Church Website Designs [...]
March 19th, 2008
What I like best about this list is that they not only have appealing designs and a logical structure that avoids the typical “brochure” navs so popularized in the 90s, but most of these have a good structure to support SEO as well (not that most are taking advantage of it, but at least it’s there)
March 19th, 2008
Matias,
Hillsong is nice, although I don’t like flash intros personally. The others look good too. Thanks for commenting.
Tony,
Very valid point. There are definitely two different markets that a church site targets, 1) the members/attenders, and 2) everyone else that might be a future attender. My point with the gallery was really only focusing on the design itself, but I appreciate your feedback.
March 19th, 2008
[...] saying what is important and what are the top designs out there. I have two lists for you. One is a top 50 from a designer and the other is a top 80 from a church [...]
March 23rd, 2008
My picks:
Stonebriar
The City Church
The Community Church
Generation Church
Far Hills Community Church
Westside Family Church
What I wanted to see was something that interested my eye and also gave me a peaceful feeling like, if I were looking, this might be the place for me.
Recognizing that you chose 50 very fine designs, within them some seem too hip for their own good (almost like sites for a band), some were so calm they didn’t hold my interest. The six I mentioned really worked for me. Nice to look at on Easter. Glad I waited until the weekend!
Regards,
Kelly
March 27th, 2008
[...] that a website can do for a church. Recently I came across an article from Vandelay Design, called 50 of the Best Church Website Designs that shows just how far church websites have come, and how important they now are in the tech and [...]
March 29th, 2008
Check out http://www.theembasyofgod.com - just launched in March 2008
March 30th, 2008
Hey Vandelay! Thanks for the post and also, thanks for the props! I’m honored that you chose the site I built as the number two best church website! Blessings from Tacoma.
March 30th, 2008
[...] 50 of the Best Church Website Designs - from Vandelay Design [...]
March 31st, 2008
Hi Josh,
No problem. Thanks for stopping by.
April 7th, 2008
[...] Los 50 mejores diseños para sitios religiosos. La verdad: Uno nunca sabe que tipo de clientes llegarán algún día. FrogX3 me salvó la vida porque no tenía punto de comparación alguno para realizar un trabajo así. De hecho, creo conocer a alguien que necesita visitar el enlace urgentemente… Compartir Post Posts RelacionadosTrascendió en la Mercadotecnia Interactiva…Trascendió en la Mercadotecnia Interactiva…La Publicidad en las Redes Sociales, ¿No Funciona?HP, Pablo Coelho y YouTube en Promoción para la Bruja ExperimentalBlogs, Mercadotecnia Interactiva y Tendencias [...]
April 11th, 2008
i had to pass this on to a colleague, who is working a churches web design! Some great design work here!
April 11th, 2008
This is an amazing set of websites, I’ve been learning about web evangelism for a few months now and hold Stonebriar in my top three sadly you’ve missed another beautiful site http://www.pemburybaptistchurch.org Kent, UK and the best church site I’ve come across http://www.southsidelife.org Canada.
The amazing thing about Southsidelife is it’s excellence in evangelism/marketing, it comes top in its area for regular searches such as weather and jobs. Also its use of the most under used resource in church or secular marketing “testimonials” and it’s apologetics section.
In the real world of soul winning its not about how nice the site looks but how effective it is in getting people to attend our services or if they can’t physically get to our services then to explain the gospel and encourage their spiritual growth.
I’m actually working on my churches web site right now.
April 11th, 2008
The designers of Southsidelife did an excellent web seminar at the Internet Ministry Conference last September. You can watch it online, complete with PowerPoint - it’s the third video link on this page:
http://ied.gospelcom.net/internetministryconference.php
Best wishes
Tony
April 14th, 2008
To clarify the end of my last message I’m looking for a web designer to put an evangelistically focused site together for my church. Can anyone help?
I saw the video around a week ago, it gave me a greater understanding of how amazing their site really is.
I’ll be viewing the other videos as well, thanks for the link.
In His service
Ray
April 14th, 2008
[...] community is expanding the scope of creative limits. I found this great (subjective) list of the 50 Best Church Websites and was really impressed with a number of the entries. In particular, I noticed that a few were [...]
April 21st, 2008
[...] Website Design, I occasionally post a collection of websites that have something in common, such as 50 of the Best Church Website Designs. This is a small gallery of designs that is intended to serve as inspiration for designers. [...]
April 22nd, 2008
[...] 50 of the Best Church Website Designs [...]
April 25th, 2008
[...] Coming Soon: Premium WordPress Theme For Churches: Patrick Daly plans a premium theme for churches. It’s an interesting idea; does anyone remember Vandelay Design’s recent post about church websites? [...]
April 27th, 2008
[...] Buenas compañeros navegando por internet como de costumbre, eh accedido a una pagina web que raro es el dia que no entro por lo menos una vez, para enterarme de las últimas noticias sobre el mundo del diseño, esta web es muy conocida y es Digilicious, pues navegando por esta web e encontrado un post muy interesante sobre los 50 mejores diseños de sitios religiosos, y me a parecido un post muy interesante, y como dicen en la web de Digilicious en este post ” Todo un ejemplo que de cualquier tema se puede hacer un buen trabajo no?” y creo que tienen toda la razón. Bueno aqui os dejo el enlace donde pueden ver los 50 mejores sitios de diseños religiosos. [...]
April 30th, 2008
[...] http://vandelaydesign.com/blog/galleries/best-church-websites/ [...]
May 2nd, 2008
great site for a german church: http://www.freikirchliche.com
May 6th, 2008
I designed the Hopechurch.tv site so thanks for the props…thought I would add one to the list. It’s our youth ministry’s website…Generation Church (gcmvmnt.com). Let me know what you think.
May 6th, 2008
Brandon,
The site looks nice. You’re a talented designer and a pastor. Very impressive.
May 9th, 2008
[...] Digilicious Enlace: Vandelaydesign Tags: , CURIOSIDADES, DISEÑO Puedes seguir las respuestas de esta entrada en RSS 2.0 feed. [...]
May 16th, 2008
A good collection of best websites.
May 16th, 2008
[...] - top 5 celebrity mugshots)? Really…you could do one more? Are you sure? OK - here you go: the 50 coolest church websites. Feel free to add some more in your [...]
May 16th, 2008
[...] - top 5 celebrity mugshots)? Really…you could do one more? Are you sure? OK - here you go: the 50 coolest church websites. Feel free to add some more in your [...]
May 17th, 2008
All of these websites are gorgeous. I just love the layouts of them, plus the use of color. If I were to pick a favorite, it would probably be the Westside Family Church. Lovely. (0_o)
May 21st, 2008
[...] este link sobre los 50 mejores diseños de páginas web religiosas. Este blog dice que las religiones no se han quedado más atrás y han surgido al mundo de internet [...]
May 31st, 2008
I just checked Dr. Stroll’s website mentioned above. I love to listen to Dr. Stroll on the radio, but the website looks like a sales tool and nothing more.
I am looking for a new look, but since I have to do it myself, I need something simple.
My website is ourladyoffatima.us
It is bi-lingual, multi-cultural, and absolutely of no charge to the church. I would not mind some direction from others.
Thanks,
MAM
June 12th, 2008
Hi, I saw some incoming traffic from this site so I thought I’d check it out. I’m the designer/developer of the Memorial Baptist Church website - http://www.memorialbaptistpa.org“. Nice article. I’m honored to be listed among so many great designs. Thanks Vandelay.
June 13th, 2008
Nathan,
Nice work. Thanks for taking a moment to visit and comment.
June 21st, 2008
[...] example of the importance of knowing why your visitors are coming to your site. Imagine you run a website for a church . Almost every church now has a website, and most of them contain fairly similar information about [...]
June 21st, 2008
wow, great designs.
June 21st, 2008
[...] 50 of the Best Church Website Designs [...]
June 22nd, 2008
[...] Vandelay Website DesignLooking for the best church website designs? Here is a collection of 5o.http://vandelaydesign.com/blog/galleries/best-church-websites/The leader as Christian Website Designers, Christian Website companies …… Services, church [...]
June 23rd, 2008
Awesome list. These sites are amazing.
August 5th, 2008
[...] http://vandelaydesign.com/blog/galleries/best-church-websites/ [...]
August 8th, 2008
[...] and Visually Appealing Designs 50 Beautiful CSS-Based Web-Designs in 2006 30+ Unusually Awesome Best Church Websites Tags: Diseño Web | [...]
August 14th, 2008
[...] just launched Fresh Church Sites, a web design gallery focusing on church websites. The quality of church websites has really improved in the last year or two, so this site could be interesting to follow if it [...]
August 29th, 2008
Non-Profit Organization for Enumclaw, Washington
September 2nd, 2008
[...] http://vandelaydesign.com/blog/galleries/best-church-websites/ [...]
September 9th, 2008
The website for the First Baptist Church of Hammond is up for consideration
http://www.fbchammond.com
September 25th, 2008
Crosspoint isn’t flashy, but its clean.
http://www.crosspoint.tv/
Great list!!!
October 2nd, 2008
[...] http://vandelaydesign.com/blog/galleries/best-church-websites/ [...]
October 3rd, 2008
Love this set! Thanks for posting…great source of inspiration…
October 18th, 2008
[...] 50 of the Best Church Website Designs [...]
October 23rd, 2008
I like revolution’s design. Some clever art with the wings and the city. We also are doing web design for churches in Africa. Check out our CMS system at http://www.scribacms.co.za
October 31st, 2008
Check out this one!
http://www.ccgulfbreeze.com
November 8th, 2008
These are some awesome websites. But what about baby churches? For years now my heart has been with churchplants. I have helped start 2 churches in the Boston area and baby churches just dont have the money or the talent to produce and maintain something like these. Bridge Element http://www.BridgeElement.com is a new web design company that has amazing flash websites for churches and best thing is they have a content management system that allows you to update the entire website yourself!!!
Check it out and tell me what you think
November 9th, 2008
Brian,
Why do you refer to Bridge Element as they when you’re affiliated with them? It looks like spam when you’re promoting something of your own as if it’s an unsolicited testimonial.
On the subject of new churches, I agree with you that most don’t have the resources for these types of websites. Personally, I would prefer one of the church themes for WordPress over a flash-based site.
November 10th, 2008
Fabulous collection of Church Designs. I really think these pseak volumes to a world influenced by visual appeal.
November 10th, 2008
Good work on collecting these sites. I also enjoyed your other collections.
November 17th, 2008
I think http://www.churchplantmedia.com deserve a mention when it comes to Church websites. Their designs are a nice mix of Web 2.0 & grunge designs. Just a little grunge which gives them a more rustic feel. I suggest you check them out if designing a Church website.
November 18th, 2008
Conor,
Agreed, that’s an awesome design. I’ll probably do a second set of church websites eventually, so I’ll keep that one in mind.
November 23rd, 2008
[...] 50 of the Best Church Website Designs [...]
December 6th, 2008
Love the functionality of Kingsfield, but the art on the Generation church was very eyecatching to me.
December 9th, 2008
Simply amazing, it really shows what time & talent can produce. I’m truly surprised these churches had the budget or time to produce these.
December 13th, 2008
[...] If the website you’ve imagined is full of modern design and cutting edge technology (see these examples)then you might be better off consulting an [...]
December 17th, 2008
[...] months ago I published 50 of the Best Church Websites, which has been one of the more popular posts on the blog. Since I published that collection [...]
December 18th, 2008
Great resource for church design ideas. I noticed some comment about most of them not looking like a church website? What does a church website look like?
December 21st, 2008
[...] is a great list of the Top Web Designs for Churches from the kind folks at Vandelay [...]
December 22nd, 2008
You should take a look at generatelife.com
December 22nd, 2008
[...] 50 of the Best Church Website Designs [...]
December 24th, 2008
[...] 50 of the Best Church Websites [...]
December 24th, 2008
[...] 50 of the Best Church Websites [...]
December 24th, 2008
[...] 50 of the Best Church Website Designs submit_url = ‘http://vandelaydesign.com/blog/galleries/25-incredibly-artistic-websites/’; [...]
December 24th, 2008
[...] 50 of the Best Church Website Designs [...]
January 5th, 2009
If I may make a suggestion: http://www.fbchammond.com. They got a new website up just a few months ago, and it is a tremendous website. Has a lot of resources, the design is very crisp, clean, and professional, and also includes a mobile website, which they just released on January 1 (m.fbchammond.com).
Please take a look at it, and see if it is worth mentioning in your next article.
January 7th, 2009
[...] 50 of the Best Church Websites [...]
January 9th, 2009
Thanks for the props on Zion!
What a great list to be mentioned in.
January 17th, 2009
[...] 50 of the Best Church Website Designs | Vandelay Design Blog [...]
January 20th, 2009
Great designs. YOU chould also check out some more at great church sites
January 23rd, 2009
[...] came across this blog while looking for other ideas today. In it Vandelay Designs comments on the improvments that [...]
January 25th, 2009
check out http://www.alamocity.org for a great church website
February 3rd, 2009
[...] 50 of the Best Church Website Designs [...]
February 4th, 2009
Great designs…
God Bless
Tina
February 5th, 2009
This is a great list. They are colorful and still look clean. I have to agree that I have seen the Stonebriar site on like 4 other websites as well. Most of them have that grunge look which is different from the traditional church website design
February 6th, 2009
Need inspiration?
ChurchDots - Church Website Design Inspiration Group
February 28th, 2009
Fantastic Designs….!!!
March 4th, 2009
[...] Design has a list titled “50 of the Best Church Website Designs“. I agree, most of them are quite [...]
March 12th, 2009
[...] 50 of the Best Church Website Designs [...]
April 2nd, 2009
[...] 50 of the Best Church Websites [...]
April 2nd, 2009
amazing work of art!
I was really surprised for all the work
God bless all!!
April 3rd, 2009
please help our church with some free website building software…
God bless…we are living in a third world country and some help will do
regards
Ian
South Africa
April 3rd, 2009
Ian,
You could try Wordpress (http://wordpress.org). It’s free and it will help you to get a site up easily.
April 13th, 2009
These are some very good looking web sites. Keep up the good work. We are all in this for the glory of God.
April 15th, 2009
Although the one that I co-developed is not one of these 50, I think it is worth looking at; I am an independent web site developer. What I love about ours is all of the dynamic feeds to the home page including the Sermoncasts, upcoming events, news, image banner, etc.
Church of the River: churchoftheriver.org
April 17th, 2009
hi Guys, you see this web site: http://www.admaringa.com.br
April 22nd, 2009
Amazing list of sites here. Great designs. Keep up the great work. Do you do Indian Temple designs as well ?
April 23rd, 2009
Ramit,
I didn’t design these websites, it’s just a collection of great church sites from various designers.
April 23rd, 2009
Hi there.
First off, great collection of sites.
What i was wondering was, when you were looking for these sites, what was your criteria, or were you generally looking for nice sites?
When you look at a church website, what do you like to see or think captures people to look further?
April 24th, 2009
Hi Nathan,
The list was based strictly on design and aesthetics. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular. There’s nothing in particular that I like to see, but various churches have completely different groups that they target or that tend to be a part of the church, so it’s important for a church website to connect with those people.
April 24th, 2009
Thanks for the reply, i agree with that by looking at the sites. Each church does target a different range or people or a certain target market.
It is interesting to see what churches are doing and how they promote what they are doing.
May 1st, 2009
No Mars Hill Seattle?
While these sites look good and feel trendy, many of them are hard to navigate because of the clutter, lack of good hierarchy, and over-information presented on the main page.
A few good one’s I thought were appealing to navigate while I scanned the list were Calvary Church, and City of Grace (a lot of info, but well designed.)
Thanks for this list!
May 2nd, 2009
[...] (Source:vandelaydesign) [...]
May 9th, 2009
[...] 50 of the Best Church Website Designs | Vandelay Design Blog [...]
June 4th, 2009
[...] 50 of the Best Church Website Designs [...]
June 4th, 2009
Thanks for this post on church website design.
I use it frequently as a reference for ideas.
June 7th, 2009
Awesome websites!
Check out our church website at:
http://www.victory.net.nz
June 7th, 2009
[...] 50 of the Best Church Websites [...]
June 10th, 2009
[...] 50 of the Best Church Website Designs [...]
June 10th, 2009
[...] 50 of the Best Church Website Designs [...]
June 17th, 2009
[...] BlueFox on Friday, December 19, 2008 · Leave a Comment Several months ago I published 50 of the Best Church Websites, which has been one of the more popular posts on the blog. Since I published that collection I’ve [...]
June 23rd, 2009
i could never in good conscience help to promote a church. they are probably the only kind of business i would turn down without consideration.
still, in terms of design, some of those websites look great.
July 1st, 2009
very nice works, looks good…
July 2nd, 2009
Although there are some terrific ‘looking’ sites listed here - and without going ‘off-topic’ for too long - I’d like to offer a point: you can have a site with maximum eye-candy levels, but if it’s not easy to navigate and doesn’t have the right information, the hefty design bill will have been paid in vain. (Having looked at the Vandelaydesign portfolio of church sites I would say overall that they would be more effective than the top 50 list.) Design is nice and content may even be King, but without a clear navigation you’re just going to end up on a walk withut arriving at a desired destination. But back to topic, if we can have great design incorporating great content and great navigation, then fantastic!