Northern Texas – Northern Louisiana Synod

This website proved to be challenging in a couple of different ways.

First off, while the design looks amazing, it turned out to be tough to match. The most difficult part was getting the breadcrumbs section at the top of each page to be correct. While Genesis comes with a breadcrumbs function built in, it didn’t provide us with what we were looking for. So I ended up building a breadcrumbs function completely from scratch to match the design.

Also challenging on the design was getting the single post template correct. The design called for the width for paragraphs and other typographical elements to be not as wide as other elements, so getting all of the elements to cooperate was a fun task.

But the bigger challenge came in the backend. The NTNL Synod previously had a website and a separate database with all of the information of the different pastors, laypeople, churches and other organizations. For their new website, they wanted to combine all of that into one database on their website. So the challenge turned out to be how to organize all of that on the website. We settled on using custom post types and Advanced Custom Fields. It took us about a week to come up with all of the fields that would be needed to suit their needs. Fortunately, after working on Wooden & McLaughlin earlier in the year, connecting the data wasn’t too much of a challenge.

I also wrote a case study for Faith Growth on the work that we did for the synod. Work on this case study included going through documentation between Faith Growth and NTNL and interviewing Christopher Harris, owner of Faith Growth, and several NTNL staff members. Through this, I was able to write a study that clearly showed how we, at Faith Growth, were able to create a website that showcased their needs.

Overall, this was a very fun project to work on as well as a personal one. I was a member of the synod until September 2016, and I know plenty of people in the synod. It felt amazing to give them a cool-looking website and an organized back end so they can carry out their mission.