Grace Sterling, a multicultural church in Sterling Heights, Michigan, recently had REACHRIGHT do a complete church website redesign. They are a church with an average attendance of about 600 on Sundays and a heart to help people experience God and experience grace.
Going into the project, they had a few main challenges with their current site.
- It didn’t do a good job representing the diversity of their church.
- The staff didn’t have the flexibility to make the changes to the site when they needed to.
- The site didn’t give mobile users a first-rate experience.
The team here at REACHRIGHT came along site the Grace Sterling crew and built a new web presence for the new “Digital is Default” world.
Key New Church Website Features
Here are some of the significant changes we made to the Grace Sterling website:
A Video Background Representing The Diversity Of The Church
To capture the church’s multicultural feel, we decided to use a video background on the homepage. The top of the homepage is the first impression that most people have of the church.
The 30-second video is on a loop and paints the picture of someone’s Sunday morning experience. People from all walks of life are seen connecting, embracing, learning, and worshiping.
This video helps visitors to understand better what to expect on a Sunday. Video is the best way to tell that story online.
Embedded Livestream from Church Online
As churches moved online in record numbers during the 2020 pandemic, Grace Sterling was well prepared with a live streaming solution in place.
Like many churches, they use the Church Online platform. We could incorporate this into their domain, so it feels like it is one seamless experience for users.
They have seen a considerable increase in their live online services, and their on-demand archive has been just as impactful.
Mobile First Popout Navigation
Any site built in the 2020s needs to have a mobile-first approach. The vast majority of your traffic will be on a mobile device.
To accomplish this, Grace decided to go with a popout navigation rather than the traditional header navigation.
The popout navigation style gives users a tailored but nearly identical experience, regardless of what kind of device they are using.
This off-canvas approach gives the church more screen real estate to focus on storytelling and calls to action.
Simple Event Organization
Another big challenge for the Grace Sterling team was how they handle church events. Their staff was frustrated with the difficulty they had adding and updating events and making sure they showed up on the homepage.
To fix this, we built in our modern events calendar. This allows anyone on the team to easily add new events to the calendar in a matter of minutes.
Even more useful, the system allows them to tag any event as “Featured” by merely marking a check box. When an event is marked as featured, it’s automatically sent to the homepage where all of their most important church events are displayed.
Final Thoughts
Working with the Grace team was a fantastic fit. We were able to come alongside them and help them build a site that should make an impact for years to come.
Does your church website need some help? Learn more about how REACHRIGHT can help your church with a new church website.
