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My church’s new website
Published on 02/14/08
by Cory
After several months of planning and developing, my church’s website finally went live yesterday. Last Fall, I was approached by our church’s promotions team about creating a new web presence for the church. (Someone must have told them that I design websites for a living.) At the time, the site was a bit out dated because it was difficult to maintain. It was also nothing more than a basic informational website.
Being a Joomla guy, I immediately began brainstorming ideas for improving the functionality of the site. I knew right away that I wanted to use Community Builder to build a social networking site. The great thing about building a church website is that there is already a built-in community. The website just helps to facilitate that community by providing another outlet for social interaction. In other words, I don’t have to build a community from scratch, but I just have to give the existing community a place to “hang out” on the internet.
I won’t go into all of the nerdy details of how the site was built, but I will give a list of the extensions I used:
- Template: Custom
- Components: Community Builder, Group Jive, uddeIM, sh404SEF, EventList, JoomlaXplorer
- Modules: Extended Menu, Latest Events, Group Jive Newest Groups, s4j Newest Users, Rok Slideshow
If you have any questions, please feel free to post them, and I’ll do my best to answer them. Here is a link to the site: Harris Creek Baptist Church.
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Comments on My church’s new website
21 Responses
Sean Grant (slingshotsean)
15/02/08
Hi Corey
Found your site while researching an affiliate system for our Learn Joomla! site. Do you have anything to say about iDevAffiliate working with Joomla / Moodle?
We also were involved in redeveloping our church’s site, Thandaza Covenant Church and would be interested in your comments.
Since then we have come across a social networking resource for churches, MyChurch and have been very impressed with what it provides.
For any church who do not have in-house skills or capacity, MyChurch offers everything that a church needs itio online activities. I am certainly looking into the interoperability oif these ttype of sites (FaceBook etc.) and CRM’s such as VTIGER / SugarSuite with Joomla! as we are managing some sites for Walk Thru the Bible here in South Africa.
Would love to connect with you on some of these Joomla! and Christian topics.
Cheers, Slingshot Sean
Cory
15/02/08
Hi Sean,
Thanks for stopping by. I have never used iDevAffiliate, but I know a lot of the Joomla affiliate programs use it and it seems to work well for them.
Can you provide a link to your church’s site? I’d love to see it.
I’ve seen MyChurch.org. It looks like a great option. Being a Joomla guy, I preferred to build our own social networking site. We haven’t started promoting the site to the church, so I can’t say yet whether or not it is going well. I’m really pleased with the overall design and functionality, though.
Feel free to contact me any time… cory [at] corywebbmedia.com
Randy
13/03/08
Hi Cory,
I love your church’s wbsite’s design. Im new to joomla, and am working on developing the website for my church’s youth ministry, in joomla.
But I don’t know where to start. I’ve already setup a test website online, (my friend lend me his personal domain for testing) and in the process of getting good grips w/ joomla’s overwhlming features and settings.
Know what, I’m actually looking at asking your permission to “copy” your church’s template (if its downloadable) so I can use it for our youth ministry’s site, or if u could help me get my groundings so I can make my own I would really be overjoyed.
oh by the way, our youth ministry’s requirements is very similar to that of yours (lovelearnlive.org) i hope you can help me. thanks.
Randy
13/03/08
Sir, almost every detail of your church’s website is the exact representation of what I have in mind for our ministry’s website. The community, the events, the staff profile (w/ link to their community profile), the slideshows, everything!
I really do hope you can teach me how to make our website like this. As i mentioned, Im new to Joomla and the vast resource of generic tutorials/extensions is overwhlming for a beginner. But seeing your website, and getting to know u on the web gives me fresh hope.. thank God I finally found someone who I pray can help me use joomla from a Christian ministry’s perspective. More blessings to you and your family.
pastor abraham oyetunji
22/03/08
please my church is in need of this site,
pastor abraham oyetunji
22/03/08
for the first time i heard that my church is in need of website i was so happy i no that it is time for GOD to enlarge and proclaim the name of my church, i now remember what JESUS CHRIST SAID that we should go into the world to preach the word of GOD.
Joe Gallop
07/04/08
Hello Corey,
Greetings in the Lord. I’m doing my very first Joomla site for the Transformational Education Network (TEN3) which helps churches in Africa start Christian colleges. And have already been asked to do another for a brand new school called Northstar International Christian College in which I’m using Joomlashack’s free school template.
Thanks for sharing the list of components & modules you used on your church’s website. I noticed that you didn’t include Fireboard in the list, but its part of the site. My question is does Fireboard work well with the Community Builder user system, so that only one sign-in is required?
Hope you have time to respond. If not I understand.
Thanks for the excellent howtojoomla.net Its a big help.
Your fellow servant in Christ Jesus,
Joe
Cory
07/04/08
Hi Joe,
I added Fireboard after I wrote this post, which is why it is not in the list. It works very well with Community Builder. It was built to integrate with Joomla and Community Builder, so the integration is fairly seamless.
jim
25/05/08
ok, dumb question… how do you get the google map to work? I tried copying the HTML code from google map and pasting it in an article (using the google link to this page button). If I paste it in the editor window, the output is simply the HTML text. If I hit the HTML button in the editor and paste the google code there, the editor deletes the image code and only leaves the “click here for larger image” link.
Cory
26/05/08
Hi Jim, I have the WYSIWYG editor turned off. When you paste HTML code into a WYSIWYG editor, it just pastes the code as straight text.
Jason
30/05/08
Cory, I like your church’s web site. I’m about to deploy my church’s site using Joomla this weekend.
Like you, I have my BS in EE, and volunteer with the youth group.
My question for you is how do you ensure the of your pages all begin with “Harris Creek Baptist Church”, followed by the page that you’re on (Welcome, News, etc.)? My titles are always the article title.
Cory
30/05/08
Hi Jason…I am using Joomla 1.0 for my church’s site. That is just how the titles work in 1.0. In 1.5, it works differently. I think there is a way around this, but I’m not sure what it is off the top of my head.
gerard johnson
08/06/08
Hello Cory. Who custom designed your church website? Great job. email me I have a few questions. I was tasked to starting building a website for my church. Look forward from hearing from you.
Jimmy
25/06/08
Cory, any chance you will post your custom template for download? I’ve been trying to find a good chuch theme for my father-in-laws chuch site and yours is the best i’ve seen.
Bishop
12/11/08
Hi cory i luv wat u ar doing am in nigeria pastoring a student minitry in the trouble region of niger delta. I need a web site 4 my church pls how do i go about it expecialy now we ar not financialy bouyant.the name of the church is living word of faith minitries(reigners chapel) thanks and god bles u.
Mike
07/01/10
Cory, I’ve just started to learn joomla and plan to redesign our church web site. You’ve done a great job on the template. Is it available? Do you online giving on your site?
Mike
Mike
08/01/10
Cory,
If possible, I would also like a copy of your template.
Cory
08/01/10
Hi Mike, which template do you want? The old one that’s pictured above, or the one that is currently on the church’s site?
Sam
13/05/10
Hi Cory,
Your original template (pictured above) inspired us to move our site over to Joomla. It’s been a learning (& painful) process however, and since people seem to be asking, I was wondering if I could get a copy of the old template as well?
Peace,
Sam
Mike
21/07/10
Hey Cory, What extensions are you using to manage your Podcast and Events?
Cory
21/07/10
Hi Mike, I’m using Podcast Suite from http://jlleblanc.com and EventList from http://schlu.net
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