Launched a new Drupal site: knox-church.org

I’ve built a Drupal site for a church that contacted me some time ago about building them a website. The goal, originally, was to make something that would help Knox Church to not only publicize events at the church and provide information about it, but staff wanted a way to easily interact with the site. This meant updating it and getting some sort of events calendar on the site.

The initial creation of the site was in WordPress. I did a lot to separate the site into categories that would manipulate how the page was displayed to those who surfed into the site. The only problem was the training that took place to bring the staff up to speed on how the site operates. WordPress is intuitive, but the average, intermediate to beginner user might have a difficult time grasping the technology. The various plugins I found and used for listing events were effective, but there was a lot more to be desired from what was available at that time.

Since building the first site, I’ve been doing more and more development with Drupal, and the potential has really hit me in the past few months. I have to give a lot of credit to some conversations that I’ve had with Boris Mann about a couple of projects, including this one, that I’ve been working on. Being a guy on the forefront of Drupal development on a global scale, he has really helped to give me ideas on the possible things I can do. Getting from point A to about point G or P takes a little work some times, but when you reach Z, it’s like a lightning bolt hitting you in the face. In other words, yes, Drupal has elements in it that makes changing the world quite possible.

Well, in this case, it’s going to make it easier for Knox Church staff to interact with the site, not to mention an actual events calendar, which is incredibly cool. There is even iCal integration and a slew of other things that I can do that I don’t know about or how to do, but it’s all possible. It’s just a matter of having the time to sort it out.

What I do know is starting to not only make a lot of sense, but it’s going to streamline interaction for those on the site. As events come up, they can be added from any computer from anywhere and at anytime. As information changes, it can be edited and kept up to date on the website. That goes a long way when you make a typo on the church bulletin that forces everyone to show up at the wrong place and/or the wrong time, not to mention an easy way to post cancellations of events.

There is still a learning process to undertake with the staff. You can build all you want and have lots of cool things, but it’s the content that’s key. This is the next step, and the excitement is starting from those who know about the impending transition to a new content management system.