In Autumn 2011, the Five More Talents team had the privilege of developing a new, standalone website for the Committee on Home Missions and Church Extension (CHMCE) of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. By God’s grace, OPC church planting efforts in North America continue to flourish and prosper. This new OPC Home Missions website is designed to put the stories and prayer requests of OPC mission works on center stage to stimulate the continued growth and expansion of the church.

One of our favorite projects of 2011 has been developing a new website for Christ Covenant Presbyterian Church (OPC) in Amarillo, TX. The new design of ccopc.org uses an earthy color scheme with subtle textures and gradients to communicate a sense of growth, vitality, and warmth. The design also features distinctive typography in the navigation menu. Ccopc.org features a massive sermon library chock full of sound teaching (including a series based on the Westminster Shorter Catechism). A component on the homepage highlights the most recent sermons. This “Recent Sermons” component also allows website visitors to listen to sermons without leaving the homepage.

Image by 96dpi on Flickr

When you hire Five More Talents for a church website development project, we begin the process by asking you questions and listening to your answers. Your local congregation is unique. Our goal is to develop a website which reflects your specific mission, vision, calling, and personality. To achieve that goal, we need to get to know you first — which is one of the greatest privileges of our work.

So once you have decided to develop a new church website, we do two things: First, we give you a series of questionnaires to fill out. Second, we set up a project kick-off meeting, typically a phone teleconference. The questionnaires include a variety of important questions addressing all aspects of the website development project. Questions range from “What domain name(s) (if any) have been registered for the church?” to “What is the overall message you want your church website to convey to your target audience?”

Once we have received the completed questionnaires from you, we schedule the project kick-off meeting. In this meeting, we review your input on the questionnaires and clarify anything that is missing or unclear. We also provide you with access to the website development area, so that you can monitor the progress of your website throughout the duration of the project. Finally, we discuss the project timeline, which is usually at least four to six weeks. Above all, we strive to keep the lines of communication open throughout the project.

Here’s how the church website development process proceeds after the kick-off meeting:

Step One – Choose and customize a design.

You will get to select a design template from our extensive library. Based on your input in the questionnaires and the project kick-off meeting, we will provide you with two or three options. From there, you will select which design template you like the best. Then, based on your input, we customize the template for your church. The extent of customization depends on which service package you have chosen. Contact us for more details. However, we are able to customize all aspects of the site design: logo, color scheme, typography, and textures.

Step Two – Create or adapt content.

The content — text, images, and audio — is the core of your website. We begin by identifying the content you already have. Your existing content may include photos, sermon recordings, and text content such as vision statements and staff biographies. Once we have inventoried what you already have, it is easier to see what is still missing. Then we work with you to develop a plan for creating the desired content for your new church website. If desired, we can draft text for pages and provide stock photography ideas.

Step Three – Develop functionality.

“Functionality” means the more advanced features of the church website which engage website visitors. These features include sermon media libraries, upcoming events calendars, web forms, photo galleries, and “featured content” slideshows. The purpose of these components is not only to create a good first impression, but also to keep visitors coming back for more by providing them with useful tools. For example, sermon media libraries serve a dual purpose: First, they give prospective visitors a taste of the preaching. Second, they give regular attenders and members an opportunity to listen to a sermon they missed, or listen to a sermon again. Upcoming events calendars are particularly useful for churches with mid-week meetings or activities. These calendars can be closely integrated with Google Maps to make it easy for people to quickly identify “What? When? Where? How?”

Step Four - Fine tune usability.

Make sure the church website is easy-to-use on both the front-end and the administrative back-end. Our goal is to make it as easy as possible for you to update your church website, and as easy as possible for users to navigate your website and find what they want. To accomplish this goal, we think carefully about things like page layouts, navigation menus, and placement of sidebar components. Workflows are also important. For example, if you ask us to put an event registration form on your church website, we test and examine the event registration process to ensure that it flows smoothly.

Step Five – Ensure findability.

Finally, we want to make sure that it is as easy as possible for people to find your church website if we are going to spend all that time and energy customizing the design, creating content, developing functionality, and fine-tuning usability. Otherwise, all that time and effort is wasted! Findability, which includes search engine optimization (SEO), is actually a key consideration throughout the development process:

1. Design: Is the underlying HTML code friendly to search engines? Remember that search engines are text-based. All those beautiful images, colors, fonts, and textures in your design — they mean nothing to a search engine.
2. Content: Text content is the heart of findability. Generally speaking, the more original text content you have on your website, the more likely it is to be found by people searching for matching keywords.
3. Functionality: Great features are more likely to generate interest and buzz among website visitors, making it more likely to return to the website and to share it with their friends via social media sites such as Facebook.
4. Usability: Page URLs, page titles, and site navigation systems influence the ease with which people are able to find your site via search engines.

Wolf River Presbyterian Church (OPC) is an Orthodox Presbyterian church plant near Memphis, TN. Five More Talents developed a website for Wolf River featuring a bold new logo, a featured content slideshow on the homepage, robust sermon library management capabilities, and an attention-getting Announcements component. Wolfriverchurch.org is now a powerful communication tool for this growing congregation.

Cornerstone Presbyterian Church (PCA) in St. Louis, Missouri launched their new website at the beginning of June. Five More Talents designed and developed the new site, which features a beautiful Featured Content Slideshow on the homepage, a robust Sermon Library module, and an easy-to-use Upcoming Events module. We were delighted to work with the session of Cornerstone PCA on this site.

Mike Robinson is a creative, prolific Reformed evangelist, pastor, and author in Las Vegas, NV. Our redesign of Mike Robinson’s apologetics blog and online bookstore at theLordGodExists.com went live in April 2011. We’ll let Mike’s comments speak for themselves:

I want you to know how much I appreciate the way you have built my website and my online business. My site is now much more appealing and much easier to navigate. Several visitors have commented on how engaging and attractive my website looks.

In my business, I continually require an increase in traffic and new customers. I rely on an attractive and informative online location that helps me find new shoppers and satisfy our customers; Five More Talents is helping me accomplish these goals.

Since your company operates with integrity, creativeness and always with my best interests in mind I heartily recommend Five More Talents.

I want you to know that I appreciate your exceptional work and thoughtful effort as I look forward to continuing our business relationship.

Thank you for your first-rate service.

Pastor Mike Robinson
Author of Truth, Knowledge, and the Reason for God

The Covenant of Grace church website was re-designed by Five More Talents in early 2011 and launched on March 2, 2011.  Covenant of Grace is a growing Presbyterian church in Batavia, Illinois.

Pastor Jim Megchelsen of Covenant of Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) met Doug Vos of Five More Talents when both men attended an OPC  Regional Church Extension conference during the fall of 2009. Doug gave a presentation at that conference about how to maximize the effectiveness of church websites.

It took some advanced planning and budgeting by Pastor Jim and the elders at Covenant of Grace before they could initiate a project with Five More Talents to re-design the church website.  In the fall of 2010 plans came together and a small team began working on the new website design.

Historical Background and Web Design Case Study – Before and After Snapshots

Covenant of Grace registered the covofgrace.org domain name back in 2003 and their first website appeared on the internet back in December of 2003 – after a small group in the Fox Valley area began a Sunday evening Bible study with hopes of planting a church in the area.

Old homepage - Covenant of Grace church website

Looking back in time, using the Internet Archive’s Way Back Machine, we can catch a glimpse of what the website looked like back in April 2004.

The old website continued with the same design through February of 2011. The old home page looked like the screen image to the left. The website was functional, with pleasant shades of blue and gray, however the “2003 style boxiness” was showing it’s age.

The old homepage design had navigation tabs on the left labeled ‘Home’, ‘About Us’, ‘Sermons’,'Church Life’,'Contact Us’, and ‘Resources’.

The new web design:

Covenant of Grace church website - new homepage

“I wanted to write and thank you again for the wonderful work y’all have done on our new website. It looks fabulous! The congregation has given it rave reviews, we can not thank you enough for helping us get this off the ground. We have been wanting a website for several years and you made it easy to accomplish that goal. Your team was professional and very accommodating to all of my suggestions and requests. It was a joy to see how you could bring concept to reality for the technologically challenged. I thank the Lord for His marvelous providence in linking us together for this project and hope to maintain this relationship for years to come!” – Rev. Brian Davis, Pastor, Bay Street Presbyterian Church (PCA), Hattiesburg, MS

“The web site is looking GREAT; thank you for all your efforts.” — John Fernsler, Providence Presbyterian Church (PCA), East Lansing, MI

In July 2010, Providence Presbyterian Church (PCA), East Lansing, MI turned to Five More Talents for a church website upgrade. They wanted a site which made a great first impression and also made it easier for them to manage their sermon library, events calendar, and online church directory. We think the result speaks for itself.

Ketoctin Covenant Presbyterian Church (OPC) in Purcellville, VA wanted an easy-to-update website with a beautiful design, so they turned to Five More Talents. Rev. Charles Biggs has a multi-faceted ministry of preaching, teaching, and writing. Ketoctin’s new website makes it easy for Rev. Biggs and volunteers from the congregation to post resources, events, announcements, and newsletter. The result is an engaging experience for website visitors.