A Drupal Distribution for Churches has been a long time coming. There has been plenty of discussion threads and podcasts regarding this topic.
This page exists for planning purposes. You can add feature suggestions, tutorial links, module suggestions by editing this page directly. From this information a Installation Profile will begin to emerge with the most basic features first and more advance features in the future.
Features should be listed by priority. The most important features should be a the top and the less important features (things most churches could survive without) should be at the bottom.
Current Drupal distibutions available as install profiles are Churches (recently deprecated) and OpenChurch.
| Feature Name |
Feature Description |
Suggested Modules |
Drupal |
Cost Estimation |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fundamental Features - Something we'd expect from a static website. | |||||
| Extended Core |
Drupal with all supporting modules for database back-ups, user-interface enhancements, updating... | Backup/Migrate, Admin, Admin Menu, Plugin Manager, WYSIWIG, Vertical Tabs | $2,000 | ||
| Address | Churches generally have at least one address, the distribution should include a way to include an address that includes a map. The system should cater for large churches with multiple locations. Could include address in theme footer as well as page examples with address, map, directions, parking instructions. | CCK, GMap | Basilea Ministries | $200 | |
| Service Times | Service times are common to all churches, it is suggested that this module would enable a church to post details of their standard service times along with special events. Suggest examples of service times in theme header or sidenav blocks as they are often uses. | Agenda, Event |
iCal Events | ||
| Sermons | There is nothing better to encourage people to come back to your church web site than current, valuable and relevant content. In most churches, the weekly sermon is a great source of content, This feature might include various media including video, audio, sermon notes, transcripts, keywords and even bible references. Custom fields could include speaker name, date, service, sermon series, sermon abstract, sermon audio file path, etc. Views would provide lists of available sermons, viewable or sortable by date, speaker, scripture, title, series, year, etc. The ideal solution would include an RSS and podcast feed for use in other systems like iTunes. MP3's to be optionally either playable on-page or downloadable. Includes pretty printing theme/option for sermon pages. | File Field Podcaster CCK, various CCK field add-ons, CCK custom content types and Views |
|||
| Online giving and payments |
Include the ability to enable people to make tithe and make donations to the church or its related activities. Include the ability to register for events and to pay for the event online. | ||||
| Staff directory | View of staff, and contact information, with photos and links to their ministries | User profiles, or their D7 replacement | |||
| Blog | Include the ability to include a pastors blog or a blog for certain members to post about their faith, their journey, and their devotional journals. | ||||
| Rotas | Many churches builds many volunteer rotas from everything to Band or Choir rotas to serving tea and cakes. We'd need a system that both integrates with however events are handled and also integrates with however people and staff are stored (Such as a Contacts List) | ||||
| Basic Features - Initial Web 2.0 integration | |||||
| & Groups | Every ministry is a group (example- Life Groups, Bible studies, Student Ministries, Men’s Ministry). Then people subscribe / join the various ministries or groups. Groups types should be like Facebook including Open, Closed & Secret groups. This would enable people to "Opt In" or be "invited" as they need. Similar to Facebook Groups. (This is really a request to support "social networking".) | Organic Groups | |||
| Prayer room | There should be a place to post prayer requests, as well as follow-up. It would be nice if this could be targeted for display within a specific Group - e.g. for each Group on the site, there may be a view in the sidebar that shows current requests that a requester is seeking prayer for from that group. Includes controls and options for privacy control. Consider this might be better done as a moderated email list, with forms and info for submission to the list and registration to sign up to be a pray-er. | (Likely a content type + view) | |||
| Event planning |
(Though this could be bundled under the Service Times feature, I think it's important to consider "Events" in general, and not have that concept limited by "just" Service Time thinking. There must be a way for an organizer (person) to plan an event, and then mobilize people around that event - whether the event is an organized outing (campout, etc.) or a ministry (e.g. ministering to a particular shut-in or shut-in group), etc. Bonus for ability for people to register/sign-up online for an event, and to use the online giving & payment features to pay any cost online. | Organic groups | |||
| Advanced Features - More Complex Features which will take sometime to incorporate | |||||
| Newsletter | Every church needs to communicate with their membership, the newsletter should cater for various types of subscription such as HTML, Plain Text, SMS Headlines, Events, etc. | Simplenews | |||
| Classifieds | An area where people can share abilities, stuff, or other things they can offer to other church members. | OG?? (Or Forums?) | |||
| Directory / Social networking |
Though Drupal has user accounts / profiles, a more carefully controlled profile / directory would likely make churches happier. Desired features probably include ability to describe more about one-self (vs. just email address), provide tighter access controls (for youth?), ability to connect with others sharing similar interests. | Advanced Profile Kit | |||
| Social Networking |
The ability to aggregate other streams such as twitter, friendfeed, facebook, etc. | Activity Stream | Brian and Bobbie | ||
| Cutting Edge Features - Things most churches wouldn't think of when consider website features | |||||
| Ask the pastor |
Seeking an answer to a question? The Ask the Pastor is a Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) engine. | Answers | |||
| Sermon collaboration |
For pastors who do sermon collaboration. Allow people to comment and update sermon outlines before giving the sermon. Might expand this idea to collaborative areas where a worship team can plan various details of a service beyond just the sermon. | Wiki page or Node with comments | |||
| Multimedia publishing |
(We should also smooth out how Churches using the distro will handle video transcoding, possible need for CDN integration, and whether a more sophisticated video player is needed. These are not Drupal modules per-se, but they need to be considered as part of the solution.) | Flowplayer video player | |||
| Metrics | Churches track attendance, giving, salvation's, and other things. They should be able to track this via their site. Alternatively may support integration via an API to a Church Management System (ChMS). | Fellowship One | Church Metrics | ||
| Analytics | Knowing where your visitors come from and what they are looking at helps churches identify successful elements of their web site. Popular analytics tools also help identify problems with your web site, assisting webmasters to improve performance. | Google Analytics | Google Analytics | ||
| Mobile Browser |
Accessing a churches web site is becoming more popular using portable devices such as the iPhone, Blackberry, Android, etc. Churches who cater for this method of access will have another way to communicate with their congregations, and help build community. | Mobile Drupal | Mobile Church Websites, Minehead Baptist Church | ||
| Denominations | Create a Drupal distribution that caters for an large denomination, imagine if there was ONE instance of Drupal serving many (100+) independent churches. Each "church site" with suite of standard features plus a series of add-on modules that cater for their individual needs. This might also enable the denomination to establish a "style" with flexibility. | ||||
Related references
- Modules that might be useful for newspapers
- The City (commercial SaaS alternative from Zondervan.)
- A commercial SaaS optimized for the playback aspects of video / audio
Church Drupal Best Practices - Wiki(deprecated)