A pastor I know is looking into adding online giving to his church website. He is having a hard time justifying processing fees being taken out of the tithe. All credit card processing companies charge a small fee per transaction, usually 3% of the total transaction. So this raises an interesting question: Is it wrong to pay 3% of a church member’s tithe to a credit card company?

Let’s look at it from both sides of the issue.

The 3% of a tithe should go to the church.
As someone who tithes, I can understand why this would be an issue. I want God’s money to go to His church, not a third party. Looking at the math, the super easy math, if someone is giving $200 a month, that’s $6 that won’t make it to the church. Now, that is only $72 dollars a year, but if you have 50 people giving online, the total is $3,600 a year.

To me that seems like a lot of money. Think about how your church’s youth group could benefit from $3,600. Or that would go a long way to replace your existing church website with one that, well, works.

3% is a small price to pay.
Being an American, I can say that we are inherently lazy. I tend to not do things that I don’t want to do, or might be out of the way. For me, this includes leaving my check book at home on a Sunday. I always forget. And if the church I am attending does not have online giving, it’s rare that I give. There I said it. For me, the 3% is worth it, because without it, the church just wouldn’t see my tithe, it would go somewhere that allows me to give online.

If the fee is an issue for some people, they will find away around it.
I believe that in regards to tithing, churches should give people the most options to give as possible. Have a box in the back of your church people can put a tithe in, have online giving, and pass around a bucket. People will find the best and the most convenient way possible for them to give to the ministry they are apart of.

Another idea.
While this might be annoying to members of your church, you could put the credit card processing fees on them. You could have built into your site the ability for your tithe system to add an additional 3% to the tithe amount. But you might make your church the Arco of online giving.

Large Online Processors
Paypal
Authorize.net
Merchant Express

Church Focused Processors
Holy Processing

CSS is the style guide for all websites, it tells the browser what the page should look like. Today I share with you 22 resources to help you with your CSS layouts. These tutorials and tricks range from liquid columns to adaptable view design concepts. Enjoy and if you have a link to share feel free!

Multiple CSS Backgrounds and Gradients
Great article about how to use multiple background and gradients using nothing but CSS.

Sexy CSS Tool Tips
A nice sample of how tool tips can help your user experience and pack more information into your design.

Correcting Orphans with Overflow
A few tutorials that demonstrate how to clear up some common issues using the overflow property.

Facebook Style Footer
Learn how to re-create the Facebook admin footer for your website.

Adaptable View
This tutorial explains how to allow users to make manual adjustments to the look of your site.

Easy Layout Switch with CSS and jQuery
Simple way to switch layouts.

Resizing Images Based On Browser Window Size
Changing fluid width with CSS is simple, but images do not function the same way. Us this technique to re-size them based on the browser window size.

CSS 100% Height
A simple technique for creating a div table that stretches the full height of a browser.

CSS3 Drop-Down Menu
A clean, simple a nice navigation menu, .

Fluid Images
Another tutorial on how to make the images you use on your site fluid.

Scroll/Follow Sidebar
A site sidebar the follows you as you scroll down the page. Simple concept using CSS and JQuery.

Vertical Centering With CSS
Good article on vertical centering using just css.

Create YouTube-like adaptable view using CSS and jQuery
Adaptable view YouTube style.

How To Create a Horizontally Scrolling Site
One of the latest trends we have seen is to create a site that scrolls horizontally. Very cool tips on how to get this done.

Create Sidebars of Equal Height with Faux Columns
Having issues with your columns not being the same height due to lack of content. Don’t let it get the best of you. Check out this method to code your site!

Quick Tip: Centered Fake Floats
Cool way to center items without using floats!

6 Flexible jQuery Plugins to Control Web Page Layouts Easily
Six jQuery plug-ins to manage your page layouts easily.

Four Methods to Create Equal-Height Columns
Create three equal height columns that work in all major browsers.

CSS Large Background
Various techniques for using CSS to use a large background on your sites.

A Nice Little CSS Positioning Technique
A basic unordered list, with left-floated images where the text doesn’t wrap under the images. Very cool if you are looking for a unique look to your content.

Perfect Full Page Background Image
Fill your background, no whitespace, with a large background image.

Smart Columns With CSS and jQuery
A great article about the use of fixed and liquid columns with CSS and jQuery.

Studio Press is a WordPress template company that has over 20 different WordPress themes that are ready for your WordPress site. StudioPress is also one of the few providers that have created and are actively selling church themes. All their themes are build on the Genesis framework, which provides first time WordPress users the ability to easily update and modify their site.

We want to let you know that our reputation of bringing high quality content is the most important thing to us. We never show ads or promote products we have not used before. After using the Genesis framework and the Outreach theme we highly recommend StudioPress and their themes to our readers. You can order this theme as well as others here.

What is the Genesis framework?

Like other frameworks, StudioPress’ Genesis framework provides a few major benefits to users:

• SEO Optimized – One of the biggest hurdles for churches is the ability to get any type of ranking in Google. The question I get asked the most is “How do I get my website to show up in Google?”  My response is always good content and a SEO friendly system, which Genesis provides.
• Fine Tune Settings – Genesis will let you modify your site the way you want it. Change the text, your logo, just about anything.
• Custom Widgets – Genesis provides you custom built widgets that let you take your website to the next level. Because these widgets can live outside of the sidebar, you can make your site really stand out.
• Layout options – Don’t like the sidebar on the right? You can easily move it to the left in seconds!

The Outreach Theme

The Outreach Theme works with the Genesis framework to help make your site run great. The Outreach theme provides you with 6 different layout options, featured images, contact us page, and threaded comments. When you order the site, Studio Press will also install the demo content if you need it! Also included is their great support forms, SEO help (depending on the package), and their advanced plug-ins!

We have all been there, upset, angry, and really, downright pissed off. It happens for all sorts of reasons, missed deadlines, unreasonable requests, endless after hours phone calls, pointless meetings, lack of caffeine and about 10,000 more reasons. Here are 10 reasons you should try not to upset your web designer or the person in charge of your church website. (These are for fun, not like any of us would really do these. Right?)

1. We run your email server. Unless you want all your emails to bounce back, or get marked as spam, please don’t upset us.
2. We can change the church address to the church down the street.
3. Have 4 services? No? You do now.
4. Your children’s ministry website now points to disney.com
5. How do you feel about the colors pink and neon green?
6. Your podcast is now full of old episodes of Loveline.
7. I Can Haz Cheezburger cat is listed on your staff page.
8. This guy is now listed as the new youth pastor.
9. Rock Band Tournament is now a recurring all church event.
10. Your online sermon notes are replaced with articles from StuffChristiansLike.com

Have a fun one to add? Let’s hear it!

PSD to HTML conversion services are nothing new to the industry, but if you enjoy design more than coding or if you don’t have the time, they can be useful services to any designer. Also, most services offer to code your sites to work with a variety of content management systems, which is great if you’re not so great at PHP and want to develop a WordPress site! I have been using coding services for most of my projects over the last year for two reasons: 1) I don’t enjoy coding and 2) I don’t have the time to code all my projects anyway. I have found my share of great, good, and downright awful coding companies and coders. I have compiled a list of coding companies that I love and hate. As well as a list of questions you should ask your next potential HTML coder.

Elance.com
Elance is a site that connects freelancers to clients and helps facilitate the management of your next project. As a freelance designer, I spend a lot of time on this site and I get a decent amount of work from Elance. I have also hired a lot of coding companies through Elance with mixed results. Here are a couple of tips:

• • Be as detailed as possible with your job posting, you’re going to be bombarded with people wanting you to hire them, it’s important to set your expectations and needs up front.
  • Be open about your budget. Don’t waste your time and the providers time by setting a large range for your budget. If you can only afford $200, tell them that. I find a lot of providers are willing to work out a deal.
  • Read reviews, not just their scores. Make sure you look at all the review of the provider you are interviewing.
  • Make sure they will code to W3C Standards. The main benefit of looking for a web coder, is that we have standards which we can use to make sure that our code works in most browsers and is universal.

Rapid XHTML
Rapid XHTML is a service I can recommend 100% as long as you are not concerned with a quick turn around time. They offer the best prices for one coded page at $50, but you will have to wait 7 days to get it. I use them for most of my initial designs that don’t need a quick turn time.

P2H
PSD to HTML offers great service and support for their designs. While prices can get expensive here, I find their code to be well done, and best of all, well commented. I use their services for WordPress and Magento coding and haven’t had a problem yet.

W3-Markup
W3 is a great service for those of you with a higher budget. I notice that they are one of highest priced in the group, but their code is great. Highly recommended.

Markup 4U
A reasonably priced service with good turn around times. Their code has always been good and service is great.

CodeMyConcept
Oh man. I really had high hopes for this group of coders based out of Costa Rica. Their pricing system can be confusing and they charge for all sorts of add-on coding (Extra for sFIR, something that rapid has yet to charge me for). Out of the two projects I have sent them, both were late, and really not coded that great. I have a feeling that they have taken on a lot of work recently, which has caused the issues I have. Nice part is that they do have a money back guarantee and their project management system is great. Was nice to be able to ask questions to the coders handling my sites.

When it comes down to it, you get what you pay for. When working with your coding team, it is important to be up front about your needs. Outline your projects as much as possible (something I forget from time to time) and plan accordingly for time lines set by the coding company. Are there any companies you use that you would recommend or avoid?

Planning church events can be time consuming and overwhelming. Today we bring you 8 tools that will help you manage your next church event, party or concert. From simple party planning to selling tickets to that youth concert you have next month, we’ve got you covered.

Tungle
Tungle is a online scheduling and management application. It has iPhone and Blackberry applications so you can manage on the road. This is not another calender application, it helps sync and manage people to your existing calendar.

Eventbrite
Holding a paid church event or concert? Need to sell tickets? Eventbrite can help you create a page for event, promote it via social networks, manage tickets and sales, and help you sell out your event. If your event is free, Eventbrite is free! Great service!

My Punch Bowl
My Punch Bowl takes a different approach to party planning. It will help you send out invitations, you can see who looked at your invite, find local vendors to help, and you can even order party supplies! Great for Youth groups who need to setup smaller parties on a regular basis.

Amiando
Amiando is Europe’s #1 online event registration. Features include: registration forms and ticketing, participant management, payment processing, marketing, and reporting tools. Great for your next church concert event.

Anyvite
Anyvite is another invite system that will help you coordinate invites for your next church party or event. Use their online tools to create great looking invites, send them to your guest lists and manage who is attending.

Regonline
Regonline is a tool used primarily by event planners, but would function well for larger church events. Helps with invite management, event marketing, payment processing, online registration and social network promotion.

Image Credit: SugarBloom