In this instructional video, Joshua Riggs of WorshipResources.Church explains how churches can effectively use photography on their websites to attract visitors. He outlines three categories of images that should be featured—real photos of congregation members, diverse smiling people of all ages, and high‑quality edited images—and three categories to avoid—generic stock photos, prominent exterior shots of the church building, and outdated or low‑resolution pictures. Riggs illustrates each point with examples from recent church sites (rejoicechurch.com and crossroadschurchjinx.com), stresses the importance of authentic representation to answer a visitor’s question, “Do I fit in here?”, and recommends hiring a photographer if needed. He also offers a free downloadable checklist of required photos in the video description and provides his email for further help, encouraging viewers to like, subscribe, and use the resource.
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Hey, what's up everybody? What kind of pictures should you use on your church website? In this video, I'm going to share with you 3 types of pictures you should use on your website and 3 types of pictures you should not use on your church website. Ready? Here we go. Hey everybody, I'm Joshua Riggs. I'm the creator of WorshipResources.Church.. We help you discover and learn how to use quality resources to make your church better. I hope you'll take a minute to like this video and subscribe. And I have a free download in the description below. It's a list of all the pictures you need for your church website. I put together this list to help you, so grab it. It's free. You can get it in the description right now. Well, let's look at the types of pictures you should use and the types of pictures you shouldn't use on your church website. Let's start with what you shouldn't use. You shouldn't use stock photography. So I'm here on my website, worshipresources.church, and if you go to Explore Resources and then Free, you will see a list here under Stock Photos. You will see a list of all kinds of places for you to get free stock photography. But don't use stock photography on your website. The point of your website is to help your guests or visitors see what it's like to be a part of your church. So instead of using stock photography, you need to use real pictures of real people all throughout your website. You see, you want to accurately portray what it's like to be a part of your church. And if you have a bunch of stock photography of people that you've never met, they don't look like the people that are in your church, you are not accurately representing what it's like to be a part of your church. Let me show you a couple of examples. So this is a website that I recently finished, rejoicechurch.com. This is a picture you can see right now. They have video, and this is real pictures, real video of their church family. If I scroll down, I see some more pictures. These are pictures of their actual church family. Here and more pictures. So just on this homepage, I can get a sense of what it's like to be a part of this church. And really the question that guests are asking when they visit your website is, will I fit in there? Will I fit in at this church? So if I go to their kids section, I can see here's more real pictures of their kids and what it would be like if I have kids, this is what my kids will experience at this church. So don't use stock photography. Do use real pictures of real people in your church. Now the second type of pictures that you should not use on your church website, or at least don't use them very much, and this might surprise you, is your church building, especially the outside of your building. Here's the deal. Nobody really cares what the outside of the building looks like. Especially on the home page of their website. You see, your church is not really a building. That's just where your church meets. Your church is a body of believers, and you want to show your actual church family, not your church building. Now, if somebody wants to find what your church building looks like, they can look it up on Google Maps, or maybe you include it in your Contact Us page or your About Us page. But please don't put pictures of the outside of your building as the very first picture that I see. I want to see pictures of smiling people, and that's what you should use— pictures of smiling people enjoying the life of your church. Pictures of kids and students and adults and older adults and babies and volunteers and worship. All of the things that happen in your church, get pictures of those things and then post them on your website so that as a guest I can see what it's going to be like to be a part of your church. Okay, so pictures of real people and pictures of smiling people enjoying the life of your church. The third type of picture that you should never use on your church website are outdated pictures or pictures that are poor quality. You see, your website is a representation of who you are as a church, and you should put your best foot forward. Now, this is not fake. You're not putting a fake representation of who you are. You're putting a real representation of who you are. But that doesn't mean you can't put your best foot forward. So take some really good pictures. Maybe you have to hire a photographer, that's okay. Pay them a couple of hundred dollars to come in on a weekend and take 1,000 pictures of the people in your church and take a few minutes to edit the pictures, crop them effectively, make them look as good as they can look, and then put them on your website. So don't use poor quality or pixelated or stretched images Use quality photography of real people in your church smiling and enjoying the life of your church. I'm gonna show you one more website. This is another website that I've recently finished. It's crossroadschurchjinx.com. And if I scroll down, I can see this is a real picture of their people. It's not fake. It's not trying to be somebody they're not. This is, this is who they are as a church. And here's some more pictures. So as I'm scrolling through, I can see what it would be like to be a part of this church family. And that's really what you want your pictures to do, is to accurately represent who you are as a church and to encourage someone, a guest. Remember, a guest is asking when they visit your website, they're asking, do I fit in there? Does my family fit in there? Will my kids like it there? Will my students like it there? So accurately portray the life of your church, put your best foot forward, use pictures of real people, smiling people, good quality images on your church website to accurately portray who you are as a church. Hey, I hope this video was helpful for you. I want you to download that list of all the pictures you need to take on your church website. You can print it off and hand it to your photographer and say, "These are the pictures that I want to get for our church website." It's free to you. Download it today in the description below. And if I can serve you in any way, send me an email, Joshua@worshipresources.church. And I hope you'll take a minute to like this video, subscribe to this channel so you don't miss any of the new content we produce. Hey, I'll see you next week.
