Client
The Ekklesia Project, a network fostering conversations about the Church among theologians, pastors, and congregations.
Situation
Websites are no longer just brochures, they’re hubs for people to connect with each other. When we connected with the Ekklesia Project, its aging website didn’t accommodate its growing and thriving offline network.
The EP saw an opportunity to improve the relationships between people in the network, highlight ways for people to get involved, and refresh its visual identity across the board.
Execution
Conversations about the Church are not new. People have been talking about how to be people of faith for thousands of years. The real challenge, and joy of the project, was figuring out how to communicate a message so ancient and historic in a way that speaks and connects with the modern world.
To do this, our team conducted an extensive design exploration with the EP leadership to flesh out its personality and values. Keeping the target audience in mind, we asked questions like “what would be visually comfortable for pastors and theologians?” and “what adjectives describe what makes your organization unique?”
After the research phase, our team got to work redesigning the EP website from the ground up. We crafted a modern, clean logo, as well as custom-designing and creating graphics to communicate the EP’s vision of dialogue, Christian formation, and the coming together of an ecunemical group of Christians.
To make important information easier to find, we thought through the website’s navigation, being sure to highlight The Gathering, one of the EP’s most significant events each year. In addition, we set up integrations for donations, email newsletter signups, and EventBrite event signups.
To grow the network and keep members engaged with the organization and each other, we added an area for people to become endorsers and put their stamp of approval on the Ekklesia Project’s distinctives. Registered and vetted endorsers have access to contact and location information for other endorsers. We also implemented WordPress to make it as easy as possible, even for someone with little to no technical experience, to easily maintain and post new content to the site and to its blog, including weekly Lectionary reflections.
The end result was a website with bold colors and a youthful feel communicating that the Ekklesia Project is an ever evolving blend of the old and the new.
In the year after launch, visits to Ekklesia’s redesigned website grew by a staggering 85%. In addition, posts to the bLOGOs blog are more frequent and the conversation about how to live out the historic Christian faith in the modern world continues on.