Making a Dynamic Church Website, Part 1

Dynamic is a fancy word for something that changes.  In web design, it means a website that changes automatically (that is, without you making the changes manually).  We’re going to walk through the steps for using blog software to manage your church website’s content dynamically.

Instead of explaining, let’s use an example I put together for my home church, Parkway Presbyterian.

Dynamic elements include:

• Navigation (just under the blue header; ‘Home, About Parkway, etc.’)
• Pictures (they’re a slideshow!)
• “Upcoming Events” announcements
• Subpages (the stuff besides the homepage)

Using WordPress as a Content Management System (CMS)

Just like this blog, I use WordPress as the bones of the site.  You can download your own copy at www.wordpress.org.  You’ll need to already have webspace, a domain, and access to your FTP (comment or e-mail me if you have no clue what those things are).  You should have a little experience with websites and installing programs; if you don’t, try to find a helper in your congregation (or ask me!).  The WordPress site has instructions for installing.

It’s All About Themes

WordPress uses what’s called “Themes,” which dicate the look of your site.  You can also write your own or modify an existing theme – which I did for the example.  For those with some HTML know-how, you basically find the parts of the site that are dynamic (written in PHP) and do your HTML around them.

For the far less savvy, just download a Theme you like.  There are free and pay themes.  The two places I like to check are SmashingMagazine.com and ChurchTheme.com.

Later on I’ll discuss how I customized a free theme to create the Parkway site.  Your own church website will probably have some similar needs and some different.  Drop me a comment if you’ve got a specific idea you want to try and we’ll work through it here.