Featured Project
St. Michael’s Lutheran Church
Creating a modern church website that helps a community connect, communicate, and find information
The Challenge
St. Michael’s had an older website that no longer reflected the church or made it easy for people to find the information they needed.
One of the larger goals was attracting new couples and families while also creating a better resource for the existing congregation.
The challenge was that this wasn’t a website for one person or one audience. The site needed to work for current members, potential new families, couples, visitors, and the people within the church responsible for sharing information.
The Approach
I rebuilt the website with a cleaner, more modern structure and focused on making information easier to find.
Because church websites are constantly changing, I also thought beyond the initial design. The people at St. Michael’s needed to be able to manage important information themselves, including events, calendar updates, and announcements.
That meant the project included not only designing and building the website, but also helping the people who would ultimately use it understand how it worked.
Built for the Community
The website was redesigned to serve both the existing congregation and prospective couples and families, making important church information easier to find.
Better Communication
Events, calendars, popups, and organized content gave St. Michael’s better tools for keeping its congregation informed and connected.
Designed to Be Managed
Training was part of the project so the people at St. Michael’s could confidently navigate the new website and manage their own information.
What I Did
- Completely redesigned and rebuilt the website
- Created a modern visual experience
- Organized information for both current and prospective members
- Focused on attracting new couples and families
- Added calendar and event functionality
- Incorporated popups for important announcements and information
- Structured content for easier navigation
- Designed the site around community communication
- Trained church staff and users on managing the website
- Recorded training sessions for future reference
- Worked with multiple stakeholders throughout the project
- Considered usability and accessibility for a broad church community
My Role
Web Design · WordPress Development · UX · Content Organization · Responsive Design · Training · Stakeholder Collaboration · Website Management
The Takeaway
A successful website isn’t just one that looks good when it launches.
It’s one that the people behind the organization can actually use.
St. Michael’s taught me how important it is to design for the people visiting a website while also designing for the people who have to manage it after the project is finished.
RESULT
St. Michael’s received a completely refreshed website that made the church’s information easier to access while giving the organization better tools for communicating with its congregation.
The addition of events, calendars, and announcements gave the church more control over its online communication, while training helped the people responsible for the website become more confident using it.
Working With Multiple Stakeholders
One of the biggest challenges with a church website is that you’re rarely working with just one person’s priorities.
There were multiple people involved, each with their own ideas about what the website should include and how information should be presented.
My role was to listen to those different perspectives, determine what was actually important for the website’s users, and find a balance that kept the site useful without allowing too many competing ideas to take over the design.
That experience reinforced how important communication and organization are when working on a project with multiple people involved.
Training & Ownership
The project didn’t end when the website went live.
I trained the people at St. Michael’s on how to navigate and manage the new website so they could take an active role in keeping their information current.
There was naturally an adjustment period as people became familiar with where information had moved and how the new website worked.
Through training and communication, the church was able to become more comfortable with the new structure and then help members of the congregation become familiar with it as well.
