So I’m very proud to announce my latest site to go live: www.scarletcitychurch.org.

I built a blog/landing page for these guys as they were getting started about a year ago (actually launched it almost exactly a year ago), and in the time since I’ve probably become about 500% better at this whole web-design thing.

Anyhow, so when it was time for them to create a more permanent and fully-featured church website as they near their church plant’s launch, I was very excited to be a part of that.

I’m pretty proud of how the site looks on the front end, but the real stuff I’m excited about is happening underneath the hood. I can honestly say I learned more through doing this project than I have on any other one.

Taking what is at it’s core a blogging engine and turning it into a fully-functional church website certainly has it’s challenges. A couple, just to name a few, include:

• Sermon & Video Archives
• Custom page templates
• Different post templates
• Editable text areas that aren’t a page or a post
• and a bunch more

I’m going to be talking about how I tackled some of those problems over the coming week or so (if I’m good about blogging/somehow find the time!)

I’m pretty excited about that. I think that I was able to come up with some pretty clever but elegant solutions to some of those problems.

Some of the cool features that the site includes are:

• What are essentially three different blogs on the site (blog, sermons, videos), all with their own unique styling and structure
• Customized “Single post” views for the different types of posts
• A theme options page allowing for editing of certain areas, like the footer, which would normally need to be edited through the theme’s code
• A custom log-in screen
• And a few more small things like custom dashboard widgets, pagination, and more…

Anyhow, I hope that you’ll check them out and let me know what you think of the site. I’m good friends with these guys, and I’m really excited about the impact that they’re going to have in Columbus, OH. If you’re ever in the area, check them out when they launch in April. I know that it’s going to be a special community on mission for God in that city.

Jay/Gabe/Mike … Thanks for letting me be a part of that!