Perhaps its better to think of a continuum b/n “complete outsider” and an "insider" and site needs to help people along the continuum.

• Most visitors look at our website before coming. They aren’t usually interested in mission statements but want to know whats on this week and who is preaching – they want a "feel" for what to expect when they visit. Will this be a typical week? Will they get a feel for what normally happens? They want to know what kind of activities are regularly happening. To some extent they want a site writtern toward regulars.
  
• I think people get evangelised by church, but use the web site to work out “what can I expect at church?”

• The longer people are here, the more the question of "why are we here" (i.e. mission statement) becomes important.The About Us section is more likely to get visted by the Regular than the Visitor. We don't want two independant sites (one for outsiders, one for insiders), but rather provide a site for regulars that is open to newcomers to look through and see what we are on about.

• The site needs to have the feel of new information constantly appearing rather than a site that is feeling "stale". Even a slightly daggy site where information is fresh and people have confidence in it will do what people want. Swish graphics and flaming icons are not really relevant.
  
• The site needs to have a uniform look, so users don't feel like they have gone "off site" because a page has different font, colors, etc...
• A CMS (content management system) works well in allowing staff and others as regular contributors and updaters keep the site up to date and "turning over".
• Clutter vs Depth

1. The 3 click rule. Users will give up if it takes them more than 3 clicks to drill down to what they are looking for
2. The 6 second rule: if a page has so much stuff on it, it takes more than 6 seconds to find the next link they will give up.
3. The site needs to provide fast ways for returning visitors to get straight to the stuff they want to get to.
4. Obviously the first 2 points here are in tension! Have a look at a bank website to see how much stuff is on the front page - after that it gets uncluttered. The banks, who think a lot about getting us doing our banking webly not at the actual bank go for lots of info on the front page. On the other hand the people at Google know a bit about the web...how uncluttered is their front page!