the new fellowshipchurch.com is here...

Yesterday, we launched the brand-new version of FellowshipChurch.com!

Visit the new site

Since we made the switch to open source and standards-based web development last April, this was the day we've been waiting for. We launched the new EdYoung.org in June and the new FellowshipConnection.com in August. Both of these sites were perfect proving grounds due to their scope and complexity. The FC site, however, was hundreds of pages across four different campuses and required a custom-built content management system, form builder, user management tool, and integration with our church database. At the same time, we were committed to building a site that was 100% standards compliant and functional across all browsers.

I've had the privilege of working over the past year with two of the most talented and dedicated web developers I know, Brad and Jeph. They are proof of the power of small teams when you have the right people in place - the new FellowshipChurch.com site was built in just 5 months, while still maintaining 4 other sites.

Take a look around and let me know what you think. Many of you are web developers, many of you are on staff at churches, and some of you are privileged to do both! I have no doubt you can provide invaluable feedback.

I'll post an overview of what our goals were, the cool features, and the behind-the-scenes technology soon. You can enjoy one of the pieces we're most proud of right now, though. A big challenge that every site redesign presents is how do you help your current users have an easy and enjoyable transition. Yesterday morning (yes, the morning of our launch) I had an idea.

A few months ago, we built a moderated online chat for FellowshipConnection.com. Very similar to Campfire, it is a clean, simple, elegant tool. It came to mind yesterday morning and I thought, "Wouldn't it be great to give people instant access to help with the new site through an online chat?"

Believe or not, the team retrofitted the application for the FC site in the middle of our launch day and by 6:00 last night, we were answering questions and getting feedback from many friendly, appreciative people. Have I mentioned how much I love this team?

You'll find a link to the chat on the homepage throughout the day, so stop by and say hello. It will be available next week as well as people start to use the new site.

Comments

[Nathan Jones]

I noticed it up last night -- had kept checking back in anticipation of the new launch.

AWESOME WORK!!!!

I'm very impressed! You have once again set the bar very high :-)

[Jimmy Williams]

Brian,

Wow, the new sight looks great! Great job!

P.S. Thank for letting me spend some time with you at C3 during the tech chat, that truly was an awesome conference! I enjoyed the conversation and insight into how you guys do things! Great job on the sight, it looks amazing!

[Brian Wikene]

As USUAL you guys raised the bar again. Congrats on the new site. I love the user interface and accesibility.

[David Russell]

Right on, Brian! Very nice job. The UI is quite nice and the simple design is extremely appealing! Love the fact that it is standards compliant as well. :)

Great work!

[ko]

Love the new site, looks very cool.

However, one thing I noticed. You should probably specify background colours on your menu items so that people who don't load images will still see the menu. That also works for people for whom the image takes a while to load as that's the way I discovered it.

Also, you mentioned chat, but I couldn't find it on any of the pages I was looking at. I didn't log in or create an account though.

[Brian Bailey]

Nathan: Thanks a lot! We just want to build the best site for FC, but it's great if it can help and/or influence other churches as well.

Jimmy: It was great talking with you. Glad you like the site.

Brian: Accessibilty was one of the major goals. If you can find a copy of Netscape 1.0, you might even be able to use that :)

David: Thanks, I really value your opinion. I enjoyed your thorough review on your site.

Ko: We'll take a look at the background images suggestion. The site works without styles (on a cell phone for instance) so I'll be interested to see what you're referring to.

There is a link on the homepage to the chat, but only when we're available to help :) It will be live throughout next week during working hours.

Thanks!

[ko]

I might not have made myself clear, I was talking about setting up a default background color on your image so that you can read the menu text even when the background picture is turned off.

In technical terms: in the CSS, on your #page selector, change background-image property to be something like this
background-image: #333 url("../images/home_background.jpg");
or add this property
background-color: #333;

This means that if someone doesn't load your image, they still get a background color which allows them to read the menu items.

This was taken from Dan Cederholm's book "Bulletproof Web Design" p135.

I'm in Australia so I'm guessing that you're only on chat when i'm asleep. Oh well.

[Paul Morriss]

I'm from the UK and I've heard it said that there is a wider cultural divide between us and the US than between US and continental Europe, even though our languages are similar :-)

One of the things that slightly jars when I visit the new site is the prominence given to the pastor. I'm not passing judgement on that, just noting a cultural difference. (There's a subject for an essay - "Culture is morally neutral - discuss".)

I'm curious as to your thinking behind giving Ed (can I call him that?) such prominence? How important is he to the church? If he moved on, would that be a major event or just a change of a staff member? In the UK the major denominations I'm familiar with - Anglican, Baptist, Methodist - all have a tradition that the pastor/minister/vicar moves on to another church on a regular basis - every 3 to 10 years say. Is it different in the US? Are churches like yours different to the denominational churches?

It's a bit off-topic when your focussing on the redesign, but I've been wondering about those things for a while.

[John Swaringen]

Brian,

Having followed FC.com for a number of years now, I'm very excited about the new look and feel. You guys have done a wonderful job, and it's really sweet...

I for one, and probably others, would love to see some articles written about some of the issues you faced when doing the custom CMS. It'd be a big help to me and others I'm sure.

John

[Stephen Rylander]

Looks and feels great. I'm a .NET developer but know that the platform doesn't matter...it's the vision and the execution that count and you guys hit it right on. Great work!!

[Alex]

I see it was hard work to do. But now you can feel relief that you accomplished such a task.