The overall winner of the 2009 Surefish Local Church Website of the Year Award was announced on Wednesday as St Andrew's Church in Manchester which is designed and managed by an 18 year-old, Nick Salisbury.

The site www.st-andrew.co.uk was short listed by a panel of experts, then visitors to the Christian Aid Surefish.co.uk and Church Times websites voted it as the final winner.

St Andrew's which is in Rochdale, was one of six website winners named at the award ceremony yesterday. There were also two special awards and three entries that were highly commended.

Hosting the awards in London, BBC Songs of Praise presenter Pam Rhodes said: "We're getting information on everything now from the computer. We reach for the mouse and not the directory. What we've seen today is excellent in terms of innovation, business enterprise, imagination and technical skill."

Nick, of Alkrington, Manchester, who has just completed his A Levels, was not at the award ceremony because it was being voted on up to midnight of Tuesday night and so he learned about his success when his local vicar, the Rev Ian Fellows phoned - and at first thought it was a joke.

Nick said he spent a couple of hours a week on the St Andrew's Church site after relaunching it for Easter Sunday. "I've been designing sites since I was eight years old. I suppose it's like designing a house - you get the same sort of rewards."

He said a popular feature of the site was Little Ian, a cartoon character of the church's vicar.

Among the winners was another A level student, 17-year-old Sam Matthews from Itchen, Southampton, who won the youth website category with the site, Connect Southampton.

Sam said he devotes about 10 hours a week to maintaining and upgrading the site. "Our team represents churches across Southampton," he said. "It's a labour of love for me. We are about linking everyone into Connect Southampton."

Andrew Jackson, editor of Surefish - Christian Aid's community website - said: "These awards are a celebration of the online presence of churches locally, regionally and nationally, as well as recognising the best Christian blogs, the best youth website and the most innovative church website."

Paul Handley, editor of Church Times, which jointly organised the award with Christian Aid, said: "There were tons of brilliant ideas in the sites that we judged - and I hope people will look at these winners and be inspired by them."

In addition to the publicised categories, the ceremony gave two special awards. The first went to Langside Parish Church, Glasgow, in recognition of the use of its website following a devastating fire in the church's sanctuary.

The website rapidly began posting pictures and details about the fire and providing information about the new temporary locations where Sunday worship and other church activities would take place - providing a real service to the community at a time of crisis.

The second special award went to USPG - Anglicans in World Mission - which works in direct partnership with Anglican Churches in more than 50 countries, helping to support vital church work, including healthcare, education, leadership training and action for social justice.

The judges said they wanted to consider the website for the national website award, but were constrained by the rules of the competition. They said that next year they would introduce a additional new category.

The awards were sponsored by the Christian think-tank Ekklesia, which offered a consultancy day worth up to £300 as a prize, Christian Technology, which offered free web hosting for a year for each of the six winners, worth up to £1,500, and Divine Chocolate, which donated a hamper of fair-trade chocolate for each of the winners. Each winner also received a trophy and certificate and the overall winner - Nick Salisbury - also received a family ticket to the Greenbelt festival, worth £231.


The complete list of winners is:

Church Website of the Year
St Andrew's Church, Higher Blackley, Rochdale, Manchester

Best Christian Blog
Winner: The Sophia Network - a site for women in youth work
Highly Commended: Church Mouse - whose author wishes to remain anonymous

Unfinished Christian, David Coleman

Innovation award
Pray As You Go - A Jesuit site providing prayer and reflections to download to an MP3 player

National Church Website
The Church of England

Regional Website Award
Winner: Network Norwich and Norfolk - a website for Christians in Norfolk
Highly Commended: The Diocese of Manchester

Youth website winner
Connect Southampton