The website for Valley Shepherd Church of the Nazarene needed a lot of help, as they were still operating on an outdated FrontPage template and had old content on many of the pages within the site. What they needed was a site that allowed for easy navigation and a structured organization of church resources, events, and ministries.

The site I built accomplished these needs by using a lot of common website features from notable church websites. I added two navigation bars that stretch across the top of the page – one for church resources and ministries, the other for events and site content.

There is also a rotating content gallery that is the focal point of the home page. Using the gallery, new visitors can find out basic church information and major upcoming events. In addition to the main home page content, there is an email sign-up box, an embedded YouTube video clip, and links to recent stories, sermon audio, and blog posts.

The church calendar is handled using an embedded Google Calendar, which helps organize events by date, time, and ministry. Sermons are available to stream from the site or download to an iPod, as well as being available from the iTunes music store.

To view the Valley Shepherd website, visit www.valleyshepherd.org.

youngadultstuff.com is the home page for the Nazarene Church Intermountain District’s young adult ministry. Affectionately called “twentysomethings,” the group seeks to connect young adults to church resources and to develop community among the age group.

With this goal in mind, I designed the website with clearly defined structure for contact, search, and calendar events. Using the WordPress theme devlounge2, I created a home page that features posts from the author that will eventually be used as a sort of devotional area. But the sidebar is where the site really shines. The home page sidebar reveals several different areas of use. The first is a search box so that visitors can find the information they want quickly and easily. There is also a place for posting events (which is essentially post excerpts/asides) and links (another asides function). And perhaps most importantly, visitors can sign up for an email newsletter from the main site. The newsletter is also available from any inside post page.

View the finished product at youngadultstuff.com.

The Internet is a very big part of kids’ lives these days, which is why it was important for my church’s youth department to have a presence on the web. I believe I accomplished this by creating a website and setting up social networking accounts that were easy to maintain, visually appealing, and encouraged discussion and return visits.

First off, I built a website for the teens using WordPress and the WP-coda template. I completely reworked the color scheme and function of the template but was able to keep the modern look of the animated menus. I created pages for news and information, junior high and senior high, parents, and calendar. For the calendar page, I embedded a Google calendar in order to make updating a breeze (it is done remotely through a user account, which automatically updates the webpage).

In addition to the main website, I also built a blog for the pastor. He uses it to post sermon notes and thoughts, and I made it capable of handling comments on a moderated basis.

Part two of this two-part project included the social networking aspect of the site. I created a Facebook page for the youth group and set up admin privileges for the pastor and a how-to on updating. It has been a hit with the teens. Also, they have a Flickr page and YouTube page.

To visit the site, go to www.vsnyouth.org or www.valleyshepherd.org/youth.