WEBMASTER'S ADVICE TO CHURCHES:

If people are moving house or are beginning a family they may consider finding out about local churches. The aim of this site is to make basic information about Baptist Churches in South Wales easily available. Where is the church? when does it meet? and how does it cater for my family situation?

Where is the church?

If you type in the postcode of your church into www.streetmap.co.uk you will see an arrow pointing to your street. If you move your cursor to the exact location of your church the page will refresh with the arrow where you clicked your cursor.

If you look towards the bottom of the page it will have a long reference "to link to this map". If you click the right hand button on you mouse on that reference you will be able to "copy shortcut". If you paste that reference into an e-mail and send us that shortcut we will put that into your site to show the exact location of your church.

Other information that is very helpful is 'where to park'. Free parking on-site is best, so point out the nearest and cheapest parking. If you have limited on-site parking you may wish to discuss in a Church Members' Meeting the possibility of encouraging members and regular attendees to park off-site and having a sign made to welcome first-time visitors to park on-site.

When does it meet?

Obvious question - but in addition to 'when?' you need to answer the question 'what for?' - Worship? Sunday School? Communion? etc.

How does it cater for my family situation?

Some things that you may take for granted may need to be explained to someone from outside your area or from overseas.

Some churches have programmes for children on Sunday morning, Sunday evening, or midweek. A visitor from overseas seeing a "Sunday School" advertised may assume that it has Bible classes for youth and adults, as well as children; as is the case in a number of churches here in the UK. This is especially helpful where there are young families who find it easier to attend a Bible group on a Sunday when their children are also catered for, rather than trying to get out on a midweek evening - making sure everyone eats first, then trying to settle the kids before the babysitter arrives - sometimes Sunday morning or afternoon is easier for the whole family to attend together.

Some churches have children's groups during the week (Boys' & Girls' Brigades; AWANA, Covenantors, etc.) while other churches use Sunday afternoons or evenings for such things. Imagine that the person reading your site has never heard of these things: explain what they are and what age groups they are for.

What nursery facilities do you have for young couples with their first child? A clean, warm, nicely decorated room with carpet, cots and soft furnishings makes a good impression on new parents. (Get some of your more practical members to buy a roll of co-axial TV aerial cable and run it from the Worship area into the Nursery and stick a camcorder and VCR on one end and a TV on the other to have a live relay for those looking after the babies and crawlers.)

What kind of music can people expect - pipe organ or drums? Forewarned is forearmed!

A lot of people are interested in local history and for this reason we offer the chance to put something of your church's history on the site. See it as your church's testimony to the community and use it to show the visitors to your page that God is at work among you.

We have suggested pages such as:

Find us: Where to find the church and where to park.

Ministries: The Sunday and midweek ministries of the church.

About us: What's the fellowship like? Why do people come? - Use this for personal testimonies about God's work in your church.

History: Where you've come from, where you are, and where you're going!

Leadership: Pastors, Deacons, etc.

(If you can think of additional pages, just send them in!)

Sending us info:

Please send us your information that you'd like us to include - not forgetting to tell us which is your church. Our preferred way to receive information is by Word attachments to e-mails (that way we can 'cut and paste'). Otherwise just send it as an e-mail. We are not keen on Publisher - it is too difficult to use with our programs.

Photographs - we love photographs. Send them as e-mail attachments. Our preferred format is jpegs.

What about our own web site?

If you already have your own web site we are more than happy to post a link to it. Just send us the details of your web site and we'll do the rest. If you have a church logo send that as well and we'll link using that. (Likewise if you'd like to post a link to our site you are welcome to do so. Our link is www.swba.org.uk

If you would like a wed site of your own, it should not be difficult to find someone who will help you put one together - someone in your church or a member of your family perhaps. If you are looking for a good ISP (Internet Service Provider) who will give you e-mail addresses and host a website then we recommend Force 9 who host this site. They will ask you for a user name so think about this carefully. If you choose for example "ourchurch" then you will have a site called "ourchurch.f9.co.uk". If you want a domain name such as "www.ourchurch.org.uk" they can do that for you too.

If possible check to see if your town or village name is already in use, if not use that. When Brackley Baptist Church we setting up their web site rather than calling it www.brackleybaptistchurch.org.uk they simply called it www.brackley.org.uk when anyone is looking for anything to do with the town the name is one people will find high on search engines' lists.

Our hope is that our www.swba.org.uk site will help you get more first time visitors into your church.

Keeping them coming regularly is up to you!

Pob bendith!

If you need to contact us by snailmail - send it to:

Revd. Peter Idris Taylor, 12 Ellesmere Close, Brackley, Northants., NN13 6BU