A Report on the FCC Website for Its First Anniversary

Ruth asked me if I'd ordered anything from Wix. No, I hadn't, but it had come up on the church's credit card bill. Rick asked what Wix is. Oh, that's our web hosting service. If we are getting a bill from them, it means that a year has gone by since we launched our new website!

The project to build this website came about when I learned that First Christian Church actually had a website that nobody went to, because nobody promoted it. It was hosted on a European platform that was hard to figure out or contact. The website and the URL were technically owned by people who were no longer connected with the church, and they had login credentials with a then-defunct email. And we were paying way too much for the service. The design looked like it was from the 1990s, and was incredibly hard to change. We needed to start over.

But that took a while, as we had to decide what we wanted our website to be. It had to be owned by the church, or at least accessible if personnel changes. We needed a URL that was simple and easy to remember and share. It had to be modern and pleasing to the eye. It had to accessibly carry all necessary information for a first time visitor. I consulted with a web designer, who suggested the long scroll on the main page instead of lots of buttons and links, to accommodate the many users who surf the web on their phones. But I also wanted a menu to accommodate those who are used to buttons and links. The wording of each section had to be worked out. And we needed a web host that could do all that plus host videos of our sermons, without charging an arm and a leg.

Wix appeared to offer all that functionality at a manageable price, but I was still apprehensive, because I have worked with various platforms that come in many levels of difficulty. After a year of overthinking the project, we took the plunge. Paula came up with a URL on the spot as we were signing up (fcccorbin.com), and it was so short and clear that I know she had to have been thinking about it for some time. We assigned Paula as the owner, myself as the administrator, and Pastor Tibbs joined in later as an author. If anything happens to either Paula or me, the other can re-assign the roles.

I had never built a website from scratch before, but Wix made it easier than I expected. I studied other church websites and experimented for weeks last year, and once Paula and the guy I was consulting approved, it was launched for the congregation. Once the congregation approved (after a few tweaks), we began to promote our new site. That wasn't the end of it, however. The front page is dynamic, and gets changed all the time. You might not notice it at first glance, but the core information is constantly being refined and updated.

Our website is one leg of a three-legged internet campaign. It is our internet home base, so to speak. Another is our YouTube channel, where the Sunday morning sermon is livestreamed at 11 o'clock and then archived. The third leg is our Facebook group, where church members and friends get automatic notices in their feeds. Together, they represent service in providing a church connection to the home bound, outreach in welcoming everyone to join us, and communication in letting people know what's going on at First Christian Church. As far as traffic goes, the website seems to be doing okay for a local site, although I really don't know what to compare it to. Our top referral source is the Facebook group, but Google Search is slowly gaining.

Then there's the blog, labeled News & Updates. Our sermon videos are posted each week, and I try to post at least one new thing every week in addition. This gives us a way to relay new information that's not necessarily permanent, celebrate our people and events, and archive our activities and history. Crucially, it gives the FCC family and friends a reason to keep coming back to the website, which boosts our rank in web searches. If our search rank is good, more people will be able to find us. Every visit, every comment, every share, and every ❤️ helps us climb to a higher rank.

The first post on our blog was on June 25th, 2025. Since then, there have been more than 100 of them. The most popular of all so far was Congratulations to Joyce Fox! when she completed her radiation therapy, thanks to friends and family who shared the post. Other articles that proved quite popular were the explanation of Deb's knee surgery and its complications, that time Ronnie got in trouble for vandalizing the governor's house, the saga of saving our pipe organ, how we found Frances, and Joyce's loving address to the FCC congregation.

The thing is, though, I'm not qualified to be the only one posting. Everyone at FCC should be involved. One of our most popular features was when we published Christmas memories from the congregation, taken from old Advent publications. Those were personal and inspiring, and a joy to read. We need to do more like those. There are also parts of our church history I'm not familiar with. And there's nothing like a good testimony to draw people to our faith in Jesus Christ.

Do you want to share your testimony? Or maybe you have a story to share, or information from church history that should be saved for posterity. It doesn't have to be long or fancy. You don't even need to be a good writer, since I can proofread and even edit if you like, and I will be responsible for posting it. We are all called to share the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ, and if that takes a small, personal viewpoint, it all adds up to letting the world know that FCC is a dedicated, vibrant community of Christians who welcome all to join us.