This is the first post on the HLPR Journal, and it exists for a simple reason: most of the advice written for churches online is written by people trying to sell software, not by people who have sat with a pastor at 9pm trying to figure out why the giving button stopped working.
Who this is for
Pastors, ministry leaders, church admins, and the volunteer who somehow became "the website person." If you have ever been handed a login you didn't ask for, this is written for you.
What we'll publish
- Straight numbers on what things cost, with no vendor spin
- Checklists you can run against your current site in an afternoon
- Plain-language explanations of search, giving, and social tools
- Honest comparisons, including the times the cheap option is the right one
What we won't publish
No fear-based marketing, no invented statistics, and no post that exists only to rank. If a topic doesn't help a ministry make a better decision, it doesn't go up.
What's next
The next few posts cover what a church website should cost, the pages every ministry site needs, and how small churches get found in local search without paying an agency.
If there's a question you keep running into, send it over — the best posts here will come from real questions, not a keyword tool.