Earlier this week CWM community member bunced recommended Church123 from within the CWM forum thread topic: EZ to build site, nice layout: which web host would you recommend for

What interested me was the statement by bunced that Church123 is:

"very powerful, and a professional company with a good customer service record and a nice product".

I have to say that after checking out Church123 for myself, I absolutely agree with bunced.

I signed up for a free 30 day trial account and here is what I saw:

• Sign up was very easy and it really only took three steps
• I received an automatic contact and then a personal contact from Church123 within a short period
• A church website was easy to setup and the system provides very clear guidance

• Very nice usability in that each step had clear directions, and hovering over items provided more explanation (for example instructions about editing content)
• In three steps the church website was ready, including some helpful default pages ready for adding content
• The Church123 website in general has helpful links and information for church websites. I often come across their site pages during Google searches for information
• Included with a Church123 account, Church123 provides free, professional website templates for churches

In my communications with Gordon, from Church123, regarding my comments about how easy is is to use their system, here is part of what Gordon said:

Our system is not crammed with as many features as some CMS's. We've concentrated on getting the core functionality really, really good. Our strengths are certainly ease of use and support (we genuinely care). In truth if you stick lots of features in the CMS then churches will think they should use them and they litter their sites with all sorts of widgets that actually distract visitors from the reason they came to the site. I go to a church of about 100 people, our site is clean and information rich (it was used as an example by the World Web Evangelism Day). On average we get two new visitors through the doors on a Sunday directly because of our website.

Church123 is a company who provides a nice, easy, yet powerful system for churches to get a website up and running. The company cares about church websites and has the experience of running their own church site. I am glad to have found this service from our forums and it was very nice to communicate briefly with Church123. May God continue to bless their ministry!