How To Update Your Church Page
Index
1 Overview Of Your Church Page
3 The Admin Dashboard
3.1 Dashboard
3.2 Churches
3.3 Events
3.4 Media
3.5 Profile
4 The Front-end Section Of Your Website
4.1 Top Banner
4.2 Welcome Section
4.3 Services
4.4 Service Elements
4.5 Leadership
4.6 Events
4.7 Community
4.8 Giving
4.9 Footer
5 How To Update Each Section Of Your Church Page
5.1 Basic Church Info
5.1.1 Telephone Number
5.1.2 Email
5.1.3 Address
5.1.5 Church Image
5.1.6 Church Intro
5.1.7 Announcements & Calendar Link
5.1.8 Church Address & Map Link
5.1.9 Social Media Links (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Youtube)
5.1.10 Podcast
5.1.11 Custom Church Banner
5.1.12 Whatsapp Number
5.2 Leadership, Services, Community & Programmes
5.2.1 Leader Profile
5.2.2 Service Venues & Times
5.2.3 Service Elements
5.2.4 Community, Serving & Ministry Areas
5.3 Giving
5.4 Footer Links
5.5 Events
1 Overview Of Your Church Page
Welcome to the tutorial for managing you church page! Here we will breakdown and walk you through the most important parts of your church page.
Your church page can be fairly minimalistic or feature a wealth of information for visitors and congregants. Compare the two attached images below:
Church page with minimum info
https://shofaronline.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/congregation-minimum-1200.jpg
Populated church page with banner
https://shofaronline.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/congregation-full-fhk-1200-scaled.jpg
Populated church page without banner
https://shofaronline.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/church-durbanville-scaled.jpg
2 How To Log In
You can use any of the links to get to the login page:
a The login button at the top of the website
b Following any one of the links directly to the login page:
https://www.shofaronline.org/login
https://www.shofaronline.org/wp-admin
You should see the login page:
Enter your church email address as username e.g. fhk@shofaronline.org and your password.
* If you can’t remember your password, click the ‘Lost your password’ link in the dialogue box. If this doesn’t work please get in touch with us at webmaster@shofaronline.org.
3 The Admin Dashboard
The Admin Dashboard is you home page to updating your church page and updating your profile. Let’s run through the different menu items you will find in on this page.
3.1 Dashboard
3.2 Churches
On this page you will see a list of all the churches you are able to edit. Usually this would only be your own church.
3.3 Events
Here you will find a list of events that is associated with your church page. Note that all past events are also listed here but will not display on your church page. You will be able to edit the events directly from your church admin page as well – we will get to that in section 5 (How To Update Each Section) of this tutorial page.
3.4 Media
The media library contains all the images all users upload to the website. Here you can find event or pastor images used by other churches. This is also the place you will be able to upload or locate images you have previously uploaded.
3.5 Profile
The Profile page includes some details about your profile. This is where you would come if you need to change your password or main contact email for admin email notifications.
4 The Front-end Sections of Your Web Page
This section only gives a brief rundown of the front end sections. Updating follows in next section
4.1 Top Banner
The top banner can have three states: Hidden, Banner Image or Scrolling Event Banners.
4.2 Welcome Section
This is the short paragraph where you can introduce your church to your viewers.
4.3 Services
4.4 Service Elements
Service elements can be related to the ammenities of a hotel or featured programmes. These are things that adds value when people visit.
4.5 Leadership
You can list your leaders with a short bio and even add their social media pages. By default up to 3 panels (persons) will be visible next to each other. If more than three is added arrows will appear to navigate the user through all your leaders, three panels at a time. TIP: Focus on the people that new time visitors will meet at your services.
4.6 Events
4.7 Community
Commununity is areas where congregants and volunteers can get involved. It is differentiated from events as it does not always have a fixed time or schedule.
4.8 Giving
4.9 Footer
The footer has two customizable areas: Global Resources (can be renamed) and Quick Links (can be renamed).
5 How To Update Each Section of Your Church Page
This section only gives a brief rundown of the front end sections. Updating follows in next section
On your church admin page you will see 7 sections numbered from 0 – 6. Click the section title to expand the the information pane with editable fields. Once a pane is open you can close it again by clicking on the top name or the arrow to the right.
5.1 Basic Church Info
Areas to update: contact details, office address, church information, social media pages.
5.1.1 Telephone number
Only one number per line. You can use the ‘Add new’ button to add an alternative number.
5.1.2 Email
5.1.3 Address
5.1.4 Church Image
Church image should be a square 500 x 500 px image.
5.1.5 Church Intro
Write a short inviting paragraph to tell people more about your town and church. Try to make it informative, friendly and inviting. Also remember to sign of with your name at the bottom! Have a look at what the other congregations are doing if you get stuck.
5.1.6 Announcement & Calendar Link
This is the link to your calendar or announcements pages. This can link to external any external documents like PDF’s, online Microsoft Word, Google Docs etc. If you want to use an email address instead then you will need to add ‘mailto’ (without quotation marks) in front of the email address e.g: mailto:fhk@shofaronline.org.
5.1.7 Church Address & Map Link
Your church address is used for the map on the ‘Find A Church’ page. Use your office address or alternatively the address of your primary church venue. This is only used to get a location on the map. Visitors will still need to click through to your church page to find directions to the office or services (see section 5.2.2 for updating your service times).
should be one line without the postal code e.g.: 7 Lambechts Street, Franschhoek
The map link is used to give directions to your church office. Find your church office location on Google Maps, Bing or Open Street Maps and copy the URL here.
5.1.9 Social Media Links (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Youtube)
If your community is using a very specific social media platform that is not listed above, please email webmaster@shofaronline.org and we can add it to your site.
5.1.10 Podcast Link
5.1.11 Custom Church Banner (Header)
This places a custom image in the header of your church page.
Normal image size: 1440 x 400 px (if unsure use this size)
Retina image size: 2880 x 800 px
There is three options for the top of the congregation page:
1 No image (leave this field empty)
2 Custom banner image at top of page (If the event slider banner image is active this image won’t display. See section 5.5)
3 Event slider (event slider overrides this banner. See Section 5.5)
5.1.12 Whatsapp Number
You can add a whatsapp button at the bottom right corner of your page. When clicked, it opens the users whatsapp and starts a conversation with you.
For this to work it is important that the number format is in the international format without spaces e.g: +27826462890
5.2 leadership, services, community & programmes
Areas to update: Leader Profiles, Service Venues & Times, Service Elements, Community / Serving / Ministry areas
5.2.1 Leader Profiles
You can add leadership profiles for only your Senior Pastor or all your church staff. Please not that even though it is possible to add all your small group leaders and volunteers here as well, this is a space is limited to only display 3 at a time. Use this space to identify your core leaders or leaders that a new time visitor will come in contact with.
Leader profile pic should be a square 500 x 500px image. Keep the leader bio short and sweet.
5.2.2 Service Venues & Times
Church address should be one line without the postal code e.g.: 7 Lambechts Street, Franschhoek
The map link is used to give directions to your church office. Find your church location on Google Maps, Bing or Open Street Maps and copy the URL here.
Only enter one service time in a line e.g.: 09:00 (not 09:00, 17:00). For more than one service time add the second time to the box below (Service Time 2).
5.2.3 Service Elements
Service element is things that a visitor can expect when visiting your church. Do you have a parent’s room? Why not mention it here. Some visitors like to plan ahead and knowing whether there is a youth service or toddler room might make the visit less daunting.
5.2.4 Community, Serving & Ministry areas
Not all the programmes run at your church are events. Although they happen at specific times during the week or month, their participation is more focussed to a specific crowd.
Community & Serving – where are you involved in the community? (and need volunteers). Small groups, prison ministry, soup kitchens and hospital outreaches are a few that comes to mind. Ministry can cover personal ministry sessions like marriage prep, parenting, divorce recovery or training opertunities like Bible School, leadership development courses or more.
Thumbnail image should be a square 500 x 500px image.
Short description – this is the initial summary of the item. Keep this short and sweet.
Long description – you can add more information if needed. If a long description is present a pop-up will appear when the ‘read more’ button is clicked. If the long description is left blank, the read more button will disappear.
Button Text & Link – leave this blank to remove the button. In most cases it is good to have the button present to call the user to action. The button link can be any external link or document. When using an email address as the button link include ‘mailto:’ (without quotation marks) before the email address e.g.: mailto:eastlondon@shofaronline.org
5.3 giving
Areas to update: Giving Image, Giving Text Paragraph, Bank Accounts & Giving Details
5.4 footer links
Areas to update: Footer Column 1 & 2 Title (Heading), Footer Column 1 & 2 Links
You are able to add your own links to the last two columns of your church page footer.
The first two columns are dynamically generated from your church page content.
Column 3 & 4 can be edited to add quick links to resources that is important to your church. Note that columns 3 has been populated by a list of ‘Global Resources’. This is live placeholder links that can be changed by you as well.
5.5 events
5.5.1 Add new Event
Events can be added directly from the Church Admin page in section 5.
Click the ‘Add New Event Button’ to begin to add new event. A box will pop-up with all the fields required to setup your event.
Field for your event:
Title & Event Title: Make this the same – you have to fill in both.
Short Description: A few lines to describe your event. Keep this sweet and short.
Long Description: This will appear when the read more button is pressed. This can include images and video but please keep this concise and not too long. Leave this field blank to hide the popup.
Event Thumbnail: square 500 x 500px image.
Event Start & End Date: For a one day event please make the start and end date the same. Both fields are required.
Registration Link Button: Registration page link, or email address. When using email, add mailto: in front of the address e.g. mailto:fhk@shofaronline.org
Event Programme: Optional link to event programme. If blank no button is displayed.
Event Banner Image For Slider: You can add an event slider to the top of you page. You will need to upload the correct size image (1440 x 400px) and then check the ‘Make this event featur in the top slider’ box
5.5.3 Edit or Delete Event
To edit or delete an event you need to go to the Events menu item:
On the event page you can edit the information of your event. Remember to press the blue ‘Update’ button to save your changes. Alternatively you can click the red ‘Move to Trash’ link to delete the event.
5.6 advanced settings
Here you can hide unused parts of your Church page. If you don’t use the Events Section and would like to hide that empty area, you can by selecting the checkbox next to it.
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