Spirit Song, Peoria AZ

Thank you for the opportunity to reflect on what the Web Empowered Church and Vinehosting.com has enabled me to accomplish so far in the planting of my new church. I was appointed in June, 2007 to start a new church in the area of North Peoria, Arizona. I knew that the first thing I needed was a strong Internet presence. One of my first priorities therefore was to create a church website. I have created several websites in the past, both for my previous church and for my own personal use, and have always coded them entirely in HTML. As an old "C" programmer I never felt the need (or could afford) to use web authoring software like FrontPage. But then I attended a church conference where I heard quite a bit about this "Web-Empowered Church" and its ability to produce a full-featured website for FREE. Well, never one to pass up a free offer, I bought the book (okay, so not entirely free) and began researching what could be done through this system. Needless to say, I was impressed.

What sold me were the many interactive features which made the sites much more than the typical church electronic billboard. I liked the blog, devotionals, prayer list and interactive Bible studies. Having written my previous websites in HTML and then having to train someone else to take over when I left, I greatly appreciated the system that allowed individuals to easily update certain pages without running the risk of modifying the HTML code. I wanted a full-featured professional looking website and the web-empowered church provided all that I wanted at a price I could certainly afford.

I want to thank the members of the web-empowered support community who answered my questions as I was getting everything set up, including how to use the Flash plugin (which caused me some problems at first). Also I really appreciated the help from the Vine Hosting people who walked me through the setup and got me on-line quickly. My experience with both the Web Empowered Church and Vine Hosting has exceeded my expectations and enabled me to present a church website that I am extremely proud of. (Check it out at http://www.spiritsongumc.org)

 
Blessings,

Rev. Steve Marshall

Founding Pastor

Spirit Song United Methodist Church

Peoria, AZ