Items to attract new visitors: By all means include a picture of your building, a map, good directions that several people have reviewed for correctness and clarity. Let the public know what services you offer, what activities you're involved in, and an idea of your "spiritual posture." Quotes and artwork are appropriate (but not on the first page, please). You want to give them enough information to assess honestly whether this might be the right place for them.
Details of congregational activity: Ideally, your website should become the first resource for timely information for your own members. This won't happen overnight, but start by keeping several week's worth of coming programs and events on the webpage. Keep the information up to date; put the programs and announcements in the webpage as soon as they are known, even before the newsletter is printed--and update the page instantly when changes become known.
Privacy concerns: Since the material you post will be available (and searched automatically) world wide, be careful about putting sensitive information on your site. (And be aware that the sense of what's "sensitive" will vary from person to person: always get permission from someone before using the name, picture, intellectual property, e-mail address, or phone number.) In general, when transferring newsletter material to the web, remove home addresses, home phone numbers, and personal items (sickness, death, etc.). You might even organize your newsletter into a web portion and a "non-web" portion.
There are grey areas. For example, do you publish directions for getting to the house hosting the picnic? Members have a legitimate desire to know this, and it's the kind of information you'd like to make available electronically. One compromise approach is to publish an e-mail address or phone number where people can send for more detailed information about the picnic. That way requests can be filtered before the information is sent out. (But be sure the e-mail address is monitored daily, or that the people whose phone number is published know they may get calls!)
Plan for continuity: It is distressingly common to see someone produce a stunning website that shortly dies because no further work is done to keep it up to date. It helps to share the work: have more than one person available to work on the site, and have someone else designated to gather the changing information for the webmasters. It also helps to start small: put the important information up first, and get used to maintaining that before going on to grander things. Also consider involving your young people; they have an astonishing affinity for this medium.
Review the content: We recommend having a formal authority designated for periodically reviewing the website's content: for appropriateness, accuracy, and effectiveness. The webmasters should not be working in a vacuum. They need feedback, and your congregation needs to retain final control of what is published. Make the review an integral part of the process from the beginning; don't wait for an emergency. But don't sit on the webmasters either; they need a free hand within the guidelines set forth.
Work within your congregation: Keep the website URL in open view: in the newsletter, on the bulletin board, in the directory, in announcements. Encourage people to use it. Encourage people to write for it, committees to publish reports on it. Use it aggressively to reduce the volume of paper and postage you go through.
Work with other congregations and organizations: Take advantage of other electronic efforts going on in your area. You can share knowledge, techniques, software recommendations, link to one another's sites, and coordinate your information so that the general public (and your congregation) get a richer tapestry.