We are currently using http://www.dreamhost.com, which was the previous webmasters choice.
I believe the decision to switch was largley based on the fact that with the service we had previously could not handle the load on the attempt to send people to our site as the landing page for the Anthony Burger funeral we attempted to live stream. Also, the plan includes unlimited storage. I am sure there were other factors.
We began using them on 7/6/2006 and to get a better rate we went with 2 year contracts.
Currenlty we pay $1534.80 every two years ($63.95 per month). It appears that can be changed to monthly or yearly for $79.95 per month, which must be decided before 7/5/2010. (Update: set to monthly on 7/1/2010)
UPDATE: I changed our hosting plan to the “Happy Hosting” plan which is only $10.95 per month. Dreamhost has assured me this will not effect our hosting plans functionality.
If your church or non-profit organization has a 501(c)3, you can apply to get free hosting.
http://www.dreamhost.com/hosting-nonprofit.html
The service has been fair but has also gone down several times.
We are in search of a web site host that can be easily updated by our staff while still maintaining the look and feel of the website.
Also, the web site should have the ability to tie back to our church database somehow and not be independant.
I see the ability to easily create and manage Campains would be key. The ability to tie back to our database and specifically engage volunteers is paramount.
The choice we make should be as complete of a solution as possible. The idea is to not have each ministry seeking services to do functions because what we currently have is not able to do what they want or is not intuitive. I do not believe we want more than 1 database for anything, if this is possible.
Our online bookstore is hosted on Dreamhost also, using ZenCart for the software.
In my opinion, the ideal solution would be Shelby Arena software. Cost is prohibitive currently.
http://www.arenachms.com/compare.aspx
Here are some web hosts to check out.
http://www.peopledrivensoftware.com/
https://www.faithconnector.com
Wayne Dismuke is interested in this Spiritual Formation service
http://monvee.com/
Questions:
1: Is this service attempting to do something that could be done by a holistic service?
2: does it tie into our existing database?
I will create a seperate blog for analyzing our ChMS (Church Management Software) and link it here.
Update:
https://egbertsitblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/02/choosing-changing-or-analyzing-your-chms/
The reason is that, like with Shelby + Arena, the current thought is that CMS and the website should be tied together.
Church Related Information Technology Blog 
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