14 March 2008
Pop Goes the Church Launches
A few posts back I alluded to three big things I was working on. The first two are taken care of (online giving and weekend experience pages) and the third one is finally ready to be unveiled.
Tim Stevens (Executive Pastor at Granger) recently finished work on his latest book Pop Goes the Church (available in April 2008) and we were trusted to develop a website for it.
The site (popgoesthechurch.com) went live last night with 'close-to-complete' functionality. Don't get me wrong, you won't see an 'Under Construction' sign, but there are future enhancements to be rolled out when the book becomes available (more on that later).
PGTC Workshop
I also had the good fortune to sit in on the first ever Pop Goes the Church Workshop today. If you're interested in the way churches are leveraging pop culture to remain relevant to the world you don't want to miss the next offering on Monday, June 23. Tim has an interactive teaching style and includes numerous examples where pop culture intersects spirituality. This media-heavy workshop is practical, informative and entertaining.
Back to the website (creative process)
- Brainstorming session: Team met to develop the concept for the site.
- Big idea: Traditional church meets pop culture.
- Making it happen: Photo shoot (Jeff Myers) of Tim using a variety of technology tools in a traditional church setting.
- Creative layouts (Jeff myers): Designed with book cover in mind but also adding in a 'grunged up' feel for the Internet.
Back to the Website (development process)
- HTML/CSS: duh...
- Flash: Used for home page feature and main navigation.
- Keywords: (Lee Hutson) Javascript driven keyword lookup feature for use with keywords found in the book (coming soon).
- Blog: RSS (XML) feed pulled in with BuzzBoost (a FeedBurner component).
Good stuff. I love doing stuff like this on the side to keep the creative and development juices flowing.
