I volunteered a little while ago to be the maintainer for the Green Lake United Methodist Church. One limitation of the site is the fact that the Webmaster was a barrier to getting new content online. It’s a common problem, and had nothing to do with the maliciousness of the Webmaster. It’s just the simple fact that the Web dude is the only person who can post content. If the office manager wants to post the Worship schedule, she has to ask the Webmaster. If the pastor wants to present a message, she has to talk to the Webmaster. And it goes on and on. Eventually the Webmaster implodes, because you can only handle being the bottleneck for so long. The pressure becomes especially great when there is time-sensitive information that needs to be posted. You end up with a site that looks essentially static for months at a time.
A blog seems like the most straightforward solution to the problem of allowing non-technical people to post content including material that is time-sensitive. I can worry about technical and design decisions, and everybody else can worry about content. I installed WordPress because it seemed like the best fit for this site. WordPress has a large userbase, is easy to install and maintain, and has plentiful plugins for extending functionality. They would probably be able to find free or cheap help on the site if I get hit by a bus or something. I added plugins for event scheduling and reader feedback, a nice looking template, and fine-tuned one of my own pictures of the church.
I do plan on adjusting things soon, but Worse-Is-Better so I’m making what we have available as soon as possible. I’ve received kind words about the new version on its first day live. It would be nice to make things more distinctive, but that template is a great start.
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Added to vault 2024-01-15. Updated on 2024-01-26