FaithLab is focused on serving congregations and religious organizations. We understand the language of faith communities and non-profit organizations as well as the language of tech.
Our Approach
There are many firms that will help you develop an attractive website. Our particular approach is rooted in our understanding of congregations and religious organizations.
A) Visually “Real:” Your site needs to accurately express your congregation or organization. We often use photography to help your site better tell your story and give visitors a glimpse of your identity.
B) Ease-of-updating: Regardless of the attractiveness of a website, if it is difficult to update, it will cost time and be less up-to-date with fresh content. Faithlab puts a premium on using systems that enable easy updating of your site’s content. We also provide extensive training once the site is ready to launch.
Case Study: Highland Hills
Highland Hills Baptist Church in Macon, Georgia is, like most churches, a unique place and people. The church sits on several acres of beautiful grounds, including gardens, playgrounds and an outdoor amphitheater. While the style of worship is more formal, the church has developed a strong appreciation for spirituality and warmth… even offering Taize services on certain weeknights, and launching a center for spiritual formation. We decided to theme the website with organic, earthy colors, and used the notion of “spaces” to help organize the site’s content.
Working to reveal the beauty of the church’s setting and people, we used photography shot on location throughout the site. The homepage photos are changed seasonally, while the various ministry spaces show photos relating to their focus… worship, children, music, etc.
Highland Hills is an active church. This can sometimes lead to a cluttered, overly “busy” look for a website. Two approaches helped us keep the site clean and easy to navigate. 1) Sidebar items in various areas only show info relevant to that area of the site, 2) there is a private area (visible when members login) that provides more confidential information, such as reports, photos of children and youth, and prayer concerns.
After training, the church staff is able to update the site easily using their login and a web browser.
Other Types of Websites
Faithlab can also develop personal websites, ecommerce sites, community sites and mobile sites. Here are some samples (click any image to visit that website) of these sorts of sites:
Personal Website
A personal site can help you share your talents, build an audience, provide a blog, and more. We created this one for Jim Dant to help share his retreat and leadership services. Jim’s site is also mobile-friendly, and will dynamically resize to fit smaller screens.
eCommerce Website
Nurturing Faith is a new publishing firm offering books, resources and curriculum. They needed a new website that would help them offer their new books and ebooks online.
Community Website
The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship supports 8 Mission Communities where persons and congregations can get involved in specific ministry areas. We worked with their team to develop 9 sites – one “hub” site (shown) and 8 Mission Community sites. Each community site offers an area where people can connect and interact around needs and work in progress. To see any community site, just go to the hub (click the image below) and select one of the eight communities to visit. These sites are also mobile-friendly, and dynamically resize to fit smaller screens.
Mobile Website/Web-app
The Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, in Washington DC, wanted a way to make it really easy for their supporters to get the latest news, articles, opinion and podcasts relating to religious liberty. We developed a website that captures this information and then delivers a mobile-optimized view when the site is accessed from a mobile device. Users can even add the site app icon to their homescreen for quick app-like access. To check it out, visit http://www.bjcmobile.org on your mobile device (and if you visit on an iPad, be sure to try rotating the iPad to see both views).
Consulting
Often website development is handled as part of a larger consulting package with Faithlab. We help you assess your overall communications strategy and suggest approaches that can increase your effectiveness. With a strategy in place, printed materials, newsletters, social media, logo and website can be developed so that they work together to express your unique place, people and mission.
Of course, if you only need website development, we can help with that too.
Contact Faithlab
We would love to learn about your unique congregation or organization and then develop a communications strategy and web presence for you that truly reflects your identity and purpose. Contact us today or call 478-747-2322.
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