Of the 13 content management systems reviewed for building church websites, I found that each of them would be a suitable choice for some church or ministry. However, none of them was a standout choice and was suitable for every church. Your ministry team will need to carefully lay out the problems they are trying to solve and the people they are trying to reach with their website and use that in narrowing their choices for selecting a CMS for their church.
Success in leveraging opensource technologies in any field relies heavily on getting assistance and connecting with other people also using the same system. Each system included in this article does have active community forums for getting help.
What I was hoping to find were active groups in each of the various communities that were specific to churches and ministries. (Drupal and Typo3) where I found that to be true, and 1 of them (Typo3) had created a separate website and distribution system for the CMS. The barrier to entry seems a bit high for both of these and having a knowledgeable person available for these systems would be something I would add as a requirement before recommending either of these 2.
If you are building a rather simple site, with just a few pages, or if you are not looking for any interactive features, there are a few content management systems that would do nicely. CMS Made Simple, Pixie and Concrete5 would be good choices here. If you are just looking for a blogging platform - WordPress is the hands-down winner.
A few just had some initial barriers that might stop you before you really get into the features and functionality. I just didn't have a smooth introduction to MODx, DotNetNuke or SilverStripe that made me want to dig any further. If you have someone in your organization that is familiar with these tools and has the patience and ability to train your online team, they certainly are capable platforms.
After having a look at Pligg, I wouldn't classify it as a content management system. It may have an application within a certain ministry area, but as a primary vehicle for building a church website, it doesn't provide enough functionality to do that well.
That leaves us with Joomla!, XOOPS and ImpressCMS. All 3 of these have extensive communities supporting them, you'll find Christians in their forums or on sites dedicated to leveraging each content management system for a ministry.
I have learned a lot from my researching the various content management systems and their viability for creating and maintaining a church or ministry website. It certainly was worth the effort to view and try several different systems and discover the different approaches to publishing and managing online content. What I hoped I would find is vibrant Christian communities in each of the top CMS's, helping and guiding others to create websites for their ministries. You may have other experiences with each of these systems and I would love to hear from you - let us know what you've found and how you've chosen the web platform for your church or ministry.
Once you've decided (or, if you already have), flip over to our quick poll and let us know which CMS you used to build you church website.
