# New Website



## rpeters (Feb 26, 2010)

I have a new website and would like people's input on it thanks. It is going to be my prototype for all church community based websites. Thanks.

Website:
k3c3.org


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## dudley (Feb 26, 2010)

I hope you mean all Reformed Protestant community based websites!


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## Edward (Feb 26, 2010)

rpeters said:


> I have a new website and would like people's input on it thanks. It is going to be my prototype for all church community based websites. Thanks.
> 
> Website:
> k3c3.org


 
It seems to lack some of the most important elements for a church web site.

Start with the most important elements missing - or at least not readily apparent: When and where. 

Someone hitting a church web site is going to want to know where it is, when it meets, what it believes, and what its worship is like. I understand that it's not really a church yet - so the web site should state when it is likely to start meeting, and what part of town is targeted. Affiliations, or lack thereof, could also be useful, and planned church governance and view of the sacraments might also be useful. 

I don't particularly care for that typefont for a web site, but again, I'm likely not in the target audience. The large poll on each page is a bit off-putting. I even voted to see if that would improve things. It didn't. You might consider a link button on the first page leading to a poll. 

And finally, it could use a bit of copy editing. 



> We will break down barriers of race, economics, gender, age and more



As a matter of curiosity, what is the 'and more'?


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## rpeters (Feb 27, 2010)

This is a Drupal. Theme so it takes people who have more of a vision appeal. I have a graphic designer who gave me some suggestions. Thanks also for your suggestions Edward they are very much appreciated. I changed the font since you were on there tell me what you think. The difficult thing is that different age groups have different screen resolutions. That maybe the discretion of font too. I will be redoing some pages, so let me know whta you think. Concerning, the and more. This ministry will be a multiracial/multiethnic/multicultural the more I read and experience it myself being apart of a PCA multiethnic congregation and living in a multiracial family, there are many barriers that one would not even think of happen in this environment. For instance i am white, wife is black and son is bi-racial. It is little things that cause huge barriers and this is the type of stuff we well try to get through. That would be worship styles, personality, preaching style, and many other things that could be barriers for people to overcome. I hope this is clear, but somehow I feel it isn't.


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## jrdnoland (Feb 27, 2010)

Anything done for the Lord will not return void. I'm sure it will be a learning and a growing experience, please keep pushing forward and don't get discouraged.

I would perhaps consider a other option in your poll. What if none of your suggestions were what was keeping someone attending the church?


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## Semper Fidelis (Feb 27, 2010)

I don't like the theme. It looks like an old Front Page theme. Sorry to be brutal but it just doesn't look great.

Here's a Drupal site I've been running for several years: http://www.solideogloria.com

You could adapt something from the Fusion project: Fusion | drupal.org

Or, you could do what I do, and don't worry about improving upon a great theme and focus on delivering those modules that you think a Church website would benefit from.


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## JOwen (Feb 27, 2010)

The site is just OK.


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## rpeters (Feb 28, 2010)

Well, thanks for the input. Drupal has never been great with themes, but they are the best at what you can do with it. I am thinking about converting a Word-press or Joomla to Drupal. I think the theme is ok. It is visual appealing and easy to navigate. I saw your theme looks good, but one problem it is a theme made for a blog not a website. I plan to make the site a prototype for a community based website where i see alll church websites going.


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## Semper Fidelis (Feb 28, 2010)

Ron,

It's not my theme. It's a theme built on top of the Fusion Core (as I linked to). There are others that are suitable.

I don't really see how you consider your theme to be a "community" theme when it has the same three column layout with blocks. Does the theme I'm using have to have hard block divisions on the sidebars for you to consider it to look "community"? I assume you understand that the site I showed you uses Drupal and I can put a poll on the top of my site a login form on the right (instead of the left), and every other block you have displayed.

The irony, as well, is that the site I showed you is a community website that has about 80 users. The Drupal core site is even more basic than mine. Three columns can be used however the community desires. A skin does not determine what is and is not "community".

My point is that you ought to be focusing less on the theme by finding a variety of free themes that you could allow the Church to choose from rather than developing a single theme that may or may not appeal to others. You asked me what I thought of your theme and I didn't like it. It's one opinion. There may be Churches that love it but are you trying to get them to adopt a certain theme or are you trying to collect the modules that you think are most useful for a Church? That's the real challenge because the theme is a "skin it and forget it" thing.

The other thing about building out your own theme is one of the reasons I went away from making my own theme and that's the regular core upgrades. Do you plan on supporting your theme? Are you building it upon one of the core themes that's bundled with Drupal? When a PHP vulnerability is discovered and the theme contains elements that need to be upgraded will parts of your theme be overwritten when the user uploads the new Drupal core that contains the theme.

I had two pretty cool looking themes that I had customized the CSS for personally and even added image elements to them. I simply got tired of having to go into the PHP code every time a new upgrade came out. Most users wouldn't have that sophistication, hence another reason to go with another popular theme because you let the theme builder take care of the upgrades and you just have to focus on usability of the backend, which is where the focus ought to be.


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## rpeters (Feb 28, 2010)

Well, your site is ok. What makes something a community it is the access for where multiple users can collaborate together. But at the same time one needs to take into account that there is a look and feel one wants to accomplish with a church and with a blog. A blog is for communicating only. A church website is for information, collaboration, and must be visually appealing. This visually appealing has to be graphically appealing and easy to navigate. As for editing right now it is not a problem. I have an extensive programming background. I would rather still focus on what I am good at the programming and building community based sites, and go to someone who focuses what they are good at building great visual themes.


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## Bookmeister (Feb 28, 2010)

Nothing puts me off quicker than bad grammar and spelling, and your site is overflowing with it. I would have someone who has a firm grasp of English grammar and spelling do your writing.


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## toddpedlar (Feb 28, 2010)

I'd echo Alan's statements about grammar - the writing on this site really does need going over and editing. However, I am also curious as to the purpose of the material you've posted there in the 'core values', 'beliefs' and 'mission' sections. Are these something from your own church, or rather are they a set of 'core values' and such that you've constructed that you hope will be supported by any churches who put together websites in the 'community' you're trying to build? I'm confused as to the purpose of your "beliefs" and "core values" sections.


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## toddpedlar (Feb 28, 2010)

The presence of the full poll with all responses visible on every single page is really distracting. When I tried going from page to page after having taken the poll, I honestly thought that something was wrong with my browser because no matter what link I clicked all I could see was the poll. It really ought to be on the side, out of the way, and not the dominant part of the site, in my opinion.


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## rpeters (Feb 28, 2010)

Thank you for your input on the site. Alan, I would really encourage you that when you give a correction do it with at least little graciousness. If your going to give correction about a problem you must also show how to fix that problem. Where are errors on the site? Also Todd, I fixed those problems you suggested and implemented your solutions. Pertaining to core values, beliefs, and etc they can have any type of core values, beliefs, mission, or vision. They even do not have to have all those. Most churches have core values and vision. Like i said this is just a prototype. I hope this clarifies things.


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## Semper Fidelis (Feb 28, 2010)

rpeters said:


> Well, your site is ok. What makes something a community it is the access for where multiple users can collaborate together. But at the same time one needs to take into account that there is a look and feel one wants to accomplish with a church and with a blog. A blog is for communicating only. A church website is for information, collaboration, and must be visually appealing. This visually appealing has to be graphically appealing and easy to navigate. As for editing right now it is not a problem. I have an extensive programming background. I would rather still focus on what I am good at the programming and building community based sites, and go to someone who focuses what they are good at building great visual themes.


 
OK Robert. You're the expert.


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## Berean (Feb 28, 2010)

Bookmeister said:


> Nothing puts me off quicker than bad grammar and spelling, and your site is overflowing with it. I would have someone who has a firm grasp of English grammar and spelling do your writing.


 
When you go to church what keeps you going to that church?: When you visit a church, what is it that makes you want to return?

Thank you for visiting the K3C3 website! If you [-]may be[/-] are wondering what K3C3 stands for, it is the Kankakee Covenant Community Church. This church consists of a group of people who believe God has a heart for ALL people. As God has a heart for ALL people, so does K3C3. Our future goal is to establish a multicultural church in the Kankakee, Illinois area where everyone [-]can[/-] will feel welcome. We will break down barriers of race, economics, gender, age and more, with the love of Christ.


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## rpeters (Feb 28, 2010)

Thanks you very much!

---------- Post added at 09:14 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:01 PM ----------

Rich,
I am far from an expert! I just know where to go for good tutorials and resources and a whole lot of time in the forums. If you want I can send you some good links on configuring Drupal.


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## rpeters (Feb 28, 2010)

Rich, 
I cam across something that may be of some interest to you. There are a bunch of free church templetes that one just needs to make into a them. Nice looking ones too. here

Web-Empowered Church: Repository


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## Andres (Mar 1, 2010)

Maybe this is off-topic since it is not pertaining to the website per se, but I would suggest a different name other than K3C3. I fear people will forever be botching it and although short, it's not really all that easy to remember because the combination of letter/numbers can be easily transposed. Also it reminds me more of a Star Wars droid than a church, but that may attract some "hipper" people than myself.

*Disclaimer - (I am not in any way saying that Star Wars is not hip. Some might say that Han Solo is in fact the epitome of hip, but I digress...What I am saying is I don't think Star Wars and church should be neccessarily linked.)


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## PuritanCovenanter (Mar 1, 2010)

rpeters said:


> Thank you for your input on the site. Alan, I would really encourage you that when you give a correction do it with at least little graciousness.



I personally don't see anything ungracious about this critique.


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## rpeters (Mar 2, 2010)

Thanks for your input. You maybe asking why k3c3? One thing is a fact, people do not like to type long urls. In fact if they have to type a long url odds are they will not type your web address. You might be telling me that is crazy, but true. People in Kankakee know what k3 means. I think to someone who is not from Kankakee it would be easy to misundersand it. What does k3 means? Someone from kankakee knows what k3 means. C3 just goes well with k3. I could have said k3ccc.org which would be weird in my own mind. I could have said kankakeecovenantcommunitychurch.org, but really who would type all that? I hope that clears up things.


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## Bookmeister (Mar 3, 2010)

I really do not know how I could have given this critique any more graciously. I meant no offense but I knew it would come across that way because it would be taken personally. I did give you advice on how to correct it as well, find someone with strong English skills to write for the site. Again, I was not being mean, you asked for input, I gave mine.


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## toddpedlar (Mar 3, 2010)

rpeters said:


> Thanks for your input. You maybe asking why k3c3? One thing is a fact, people do not like to type long urls. In fact if they have to type a long url odds are they will not type your web address. You might be telling me that is crazy, but true. People in Kankakee know what k3 means. I think to someone who is not from Kankakee it would be easy to misundersand it. What does k3 means? Someone from kankakee knows what k3 means. C3 just goes well with k3. I could have said k3ccc.org which would be weird in my own mind. I could have said kankakeecovenantcommunitychurch.org, but really who would type all that? I hope that clears up things.


 
So now I'm quite confused. Is this site supposed to be a website for *a* church - something I gather you're involved in trying to plant - and not a "web community for all churches" that somehow you were trying to host?


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## Tripel (Mar 3, 2010)

I understand having a short URL and having a catchy name, but it seems a little odd that I have to start reading a paragraph in order to find out the actual name of the church. Perhaps you can display the full name more prominently.


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## Michael (Mar 3, 2010)

I guess a lot of critical feedback has already been given but I just wanted to say that it looks like a decent site. I mean, you can tell it's just getting off the ground [which is why you're probably asking for input anyway] but I've seen far worse. 

For personal tastes I would just suggest a livelier theme. 

One question though. You have this posted on the Welcome page...



> Thank you for visiting the K3C3 website! If you are wondering what K3C3 stands for, it is the Kankakee Covenant Community Church. This church consists of a group of people who believe God has a heart for ALL people. As God has a heart for ALL people, so does K3C3. Our future goal is to establish a multicultural church in the Kankakee, Illinois area where everyone will feel welcome. *We will break down barriers of race, economics, gender, age and more, with the love of Christ.*



Ok, so I get that you want to establish that this is a WELCOMING church that invites everyone to Christ. I could see your emphasis on race if you're going for the super-multicultural thing, economics if you are establishing that this isn't a snobby church, and age if you want to welcome a family oriented environment. But why is gender thrown in there? I don't really see any churches with problems around gender inclusiveness. Unless, of course we're talking trans-gender or something funny like that. Now, I'm not saying that Christ didn't come to save trans-gender sinners--far from it. But I'm just really not sure what you were getting at there...


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## Semper Fidelis (Mar 3, 2010)

rpeters said:


> Thanks for your input. You maybe asking why k3c3? One thing is a fact, people do not like to type long urls. In fact if they have to type a long url odds are they will not type your web address. You might be telling me that is crazy, but true. People in Kankakee know what k3 means. I think to someone who is not from Kankakee it would be easy to misundersand it. What does k3 means? Someone from kankakee knows what k3 means. C3 just goes well with k3. I could have said k3ccc.org which would be weird in my own mind. I could have said kankakeecovenantcommunitychurch.org, but really who would type all that? I hope that clears up things.


 
The reality is that, if you're hoping someone will get to your website by typing the URL then you are going to get very little traffic. Most traffic does not come by direct URL but through a search engine. There are many factors that go into a good URL and shortness is not a bad thing but it is but one of many factors you need to account for.

One thing you could do, for instance, is make your domain name actually linkable in this thread and in your signature. Not only will many not take the time to copy and paste a URL but you're missing out on the obvious benefit of having your site receive a free inbound link from the Puritanboard.


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## Jimmy the Greek (Mar 3, 2010)

I would also suggest the following correction since it shows up everytime you post. Lol.

LAMP [-]Theolgical[/-] *Theological *[-]Semianry[/-] *Seminary* Student - M.Div


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## rpeters (Mar 3, 2010)

Jim,
Thank you.

---------- Post added at 02:10 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:07 PM ----------

That is a good question. I will remove that from the site. Sometimes it just takes another person's perspective....

---------- Post added at 02:14 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:10 PM ----------

How can I do that?


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## N. Eshelman (Mar 3, 2010)

Here's another grammatical example: 



> Our vision is to unite diverse church radically affected by Gospel of Jesus Christ. Further, it is our earnest desire to reach out to other people within our community and beyond. Finally, we want to help people mature in Christ so that Christ is glorified in all aspects of their life.



I am not sure what you are trying to convey in the first sentence; so I will not give a suggestion.


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## rpeters (Mar 3, 2010)

My intent is to show this church will be intentional about bring people of different backgrounds and cultures together and this groups will be people that God has changed through the Gospel.

---------- Post added at 04:38 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:33 PM ----------

Alan,
I am sure you did not intend to sound mean and I believe in your heart you were not trying to be ungracious. I can tell from your posts that you are a very gracious man. I just think it could have been worded different. For instance:

Your site has many grammar mistakes. Here are some problems I found(give examples). Further, I would recommend you to get someone who is very good at grammar. I hope this is helpful.


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