New Hope Community Church -
Children's Ministry website plan
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Primary audience
The primary audience that this website will be serving will be parents who have their children in the programs at New Hope Community Church in Indianapolis, Indiana. Many of them don't know what happens downstairs in the classrooms, at camp, or in the weekly junior youth activities. This website will be a voice of communication for this population at the church.
Secondary audiences
We identified many potential audiences that also would find this website useful.
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Christians in general
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Christian children's ministry workers
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Christian educators
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Moravians (the specific denomination of the church)
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the New Hope children who are in the programs
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Community members who are looking for a place to attend church
Needs assessment
In order to assess the needs for this website, I orally interviewed the children's minstry liaison, the Sunday school teachers and some of the parents. I asked them who they thought would use the website, what ideas they wanted to share, and what information their selected audiences would want to know. Everyone expressed the need for a tool for communication so "everyone would be on the same page." The teachers wanted the parents to know what is happening with their children downstairs. The liaison wanted to communicate our purposes, what is taught, policies and procedures and current events in the different groups.
Website purpose
The purpose of this website to share information about the various ministries and services provided for the children of New Hope Community Church and the community. It will encourage extended learning and discussion of what is taught in the actual classes and activities. It will align itself with the church's mission statement, which I do not yet have a copy to post. When I do receive one, it will be part of the website.
Website goals
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This website will communicate up-to-date information regarding Junior Church classes for the three level divisions (3 yrs to K, 1st grade to 3rd grade, 4th grade to 6th grade).
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This website will inform parents about the regional Moravian events related to children.
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The website will communicate up-to-date information regarding the Junior Youth group (called A.C.T.S.).
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This website will provide information about online christian ministry/education resources.
Site's unique contribution
This website will be unique because it gives specific information about a local church community's activities. It will be very meaningful to the community it is designed for. Another unique aspect is that it is from a Moravian denomination church - a rather uncommon Christian denomination to most people. Not only are the Moravians uncommon, but this particular church is unique among Moravian churches in its style to worship, preach and teach compared to the other Moravian churches in the area. The website will be able to communicate the unique contemporary Moravian flavor while giving very specific local information.
Essential content
Out of the brainstormed list of topics to cover on this site, here are the ones people felt were most needed.
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info about the Junior Youth (Sunday school) curriculum, all three levels
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information about A.C.T.S. - background, events, philosophy
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Policies regarding Junior Youth teaching (rules, discipline policy, etc)
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Church Mission Statement
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Church contact information
Special content
Something that will make this site very unique is the information it will provide about the Moravian children's camps. This will help the church members learn about the opportunities they have for their children to become members of the broader church community and learn about their specific denominational heritage, as well as learn about the basics of Christianity.
The parents will also find it very special to see images of their children's "student work" displayed on the site. Who doesn't want to see what little Billy made in class published on a community website?
Dynamic content
This site will be adding new information regularly regarding current events in the Junior Youth and current topics being taught in Junior Church. Images from recent events will also be added as time goes by.
Interactive content
I plan to make a place on the website for parents and children to send in book reviews. I've had so many parents wanting to know whether someone has read a particular book, wanting to know whether it holds the values they are looking to reinforce in their offspring. This site can be a place where the local community can share books that do uphold the values expressed in the church's mission statement.
If I can figure out how to do it, I'd also like to have online surveys the users can do to help me gain more information about what new content to add in the future.
Duplicate content
I plan to include a pathfinder for online christian resources. There are other websites out there that serve this purpose, but it will be a convenient place for this church's educators, parents and community members to start a search.
Inspiration diagram
Below you will find the image of my organization scheme for the website. As you can see, I plan to have four secondary pages off of the main entry page. The web viewers should only need to take about three clicks to get to the content they want.
Web page Information
Website author: Emily Morris
Website creation date: Sunday October 23, 2005 10:55 PM
Last updated on:
Wednesday November 2, 2005 4:48 PM