Why a new website?

Why a new website?

“What’s this? Why has the website changed? What was wrong with the old website where I knew where everything was? It was familiar.”

The Web is all about change and we must change with the times.  Our new site runs under a  Content Management System (CMS) called WordPress.  Originally written as a method of creating Blogs (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog ), this open source software (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_software ) has a very large user base and developers have written many Themes which change the entire look of a WordPress site and add-ons, referred to as Plugins in WordPress to add additional features and functionality. Think of it as buying a car. You have the make (WordPress), then you pick the model (Theme) then you can start adding options (Plugins) until you get what you want.

A CMS allows for many users and users can have different levels of access. This means that Elders and Deacons can have their own pages that are not available to other users. The Youth Group could have an area of their own. Multiple users can easily add to the content of the website.

Multiple Platforms
Multiple Platforms

One of the things that have changed, is that people have various mobile devices such as smartphones, tablet computers, netbooks and notebooks, as well as desktop computers, not to mention streaming devices like Roku and AppleTV, and so on. They seek information and entertainment on the Web through all of these devices. Our church website needs to be able to be viewed properly on each, and now it does.

As I said, the Web is all about change and our website had been the same since I had first designed it. According to the file dates on our site, that was at least since 2008. It’s time for a change. Besides being viewable on multiple devices, our new site sports some new features like a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page to get answers to that question you had; the new Lectionary Readings page which shows the entire Lectionary Readings saving you the trouble of looking them up yourself; a new Prayer Request page allowing yet another avenue for people to have their concerns prayed for; and even a Forms page where you can find necessary forms. This is just the beginning as this is a very flexible format to have our website running on.

Tom Dildine
Webmaster

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