Thank You for an Amazing 20 Years!

This month marks OurChurch.Com’s 20th year of service.

Back in November of 1996, I was working as an electrical engineer in Maryland while my brother, Mark, was working as an assistant manager for an office supply store. We had already started two businesses together while growing up – a lawn service in middle school and a mobile DJ service in high school and college – and had been talking for months about starting another venture.

After mulling over a few ideas, we realized that the Internet was a great opportunity for churches but there were very few churches with websites. At that time, the only way a church could get a website was if they just happened to have a HTML programmer in their congregation or they paid a professional developer thousands of dollars.

I thought… what if we could make creating a church website easy enough that anyone could do it?

What if we created a series of online forms a non-technical person could fill out – pick a template, select the pages , type in the text for those pages – and our system created the church’s website for them?

Mark and I sensed God leading us to do that, so we created OurChurch.Com, I started writing the software for our first website builder, Beacon. I resigned from my job in Maryland and moved back down to Florida. Thanks to the Wayback Machine, here’s a look at our first website.

Be nice, it was the 90s. 🙂

The last 20 years have been a tremendous adventure!

We’ve been blessed to be able to work with thousands of Christian churches, schools, ministries and businesses, helping them leverage the power of the Internet and live out their mission online.

There are few things in life as meaningful as being able to use your God-given gifts and talents to serve God and fellow followers of Christ.

This Thanksgiving all of us at OurChurch.Com would first like to express our deepest thanks to God for giving us this opportunity, providing for us, and leading us each step of the way. Second, we would like to thank every person and organization that has entrusted us with their web design, hosting or SEO. And finally, we would like to thank every organization we’ve collaborated with, every person who we’ve interacted with on this blog and in social media.

You’ve enriched our lives in ways you can’t imagine, and we hope God has worked through us to things you couldn’t have done on your own.

Happy Thanksgiving!

If you have a few moments, we’d love to hear how God has used OurChurch.Com in your life over the last 20 years.

Paul Steinbrueck

Co-founder & CEO, OurChurch.Com

Paul has been the CEO of OurChurch.Com since its founding in 1996, combining his passion for faith and technology to lead the organization.

An accomplished writer, Paul has authored over 2,000 articles on faith and technology, featured on platforms like ChurchLeaders.com, The JoyFM, and his personal blog, LiveIntentionally.org.

Beyond his professional achievements, Paul serves as an elder at Journey Community Church and is deeply engaged in his community through his involvement with the Florida Sheriffs Youth Ranch and the Safety Harbor Chamber of Commerce. He is a contributing author of the book Outspoken! Conversations on Church Communication.