I think a really big banner is fine for the front page of that site, but when you get to content pages I'd lose the banner entirely in favor of some other, smaller branding.

Tony

Best size for a logodesign on letter head is about an inch high. If you translate that rule of thumb to the screen you come up with about 100px (about 1/8 of the available page vs about 800px in screen height - 1024x768 being about "normal" these days) though you can go a little larger because screens are always getting larger.

So target 150px as your max and you should be OK. I'd even keep to that on the front page, and use the extra space for larger images showing off church activities.

Do you remember the old rule about thirds on a piece of paper. That if you folded it into 3rds both ways you end up with something like a tic-tac-toe board. People look around that top like first. The same holds true for a web page. So, your banner placement needs to fit with your other content in that grid correctly.

If it's too big, it throws the other stuff off, or it's out of place it will be ineffective.

The hard part about this is guestimating screen size. Sheets of paper were ones size for this stuff. Browser displays aren't.

I think it's a littler large personally. Maybe cut another 1/3 off the size. But either way the site looks good. I agree with Tony. For the front page it's fine.