Church3 min read
First Presbyterian Church of Orangeburg
First Presbyterian Church of Orangeburg
A full church website for a South Carolina Presbyterian congregation that organized worship, ministry, and facility information behind a clear front door for visitors and members alike.
Outcome
Worship, ministry, giving, and building reservations organized for visitors and members alike.
Role: Designer, Developer
Built with: Wix, OnRealm
- Strategy
- Web Design
Tags: Church, Wix, Building Reservation, Giving
The brief
First Presbyterian Church of Orangeburg is a Presbyterian congregation in Orangeburg, South Carolina whose tagline captures the mission plainly: “Above all to glorify Jesus Christ.” The church needed a website that could serve two very different groups at the same time. Visitors showing up for the first time want to know when services are, what to expect, and how to get there. Active members want to find ministry information, give online, and book the building for events. The old digital presence did not do either job well.
The church had active ministry programming across music, children, youth, adult education, and community outreach, but none of it was organized in a way that helped someone understand what the church actually does on a weekly basis. Staff also needed something they could maintain without developer help.
The approach
The architecture we settled on follows three audience lanes. Visitors land on clear worship information and an expectations guide before anything else. Members get a ministry section that covers every program the church runs, plus a Building section for facility reservations and a Giving section tied to OnRealm. The Updates section, which includes the blog, event calendar, and weekly prayer focus materials, serves both groups depending on what they are looking for.
We chose Wix for the platform because the church’s communications team needed to own the site completely after launch. Wix’s built-in CMS handles blog posts and event updates without requiring any technical knowledge, and the form builder covered the facility reservation workflow without needing third-party integration.
Sermons and service videos live on Facebook and YouTube where the church already had an established presence. The site links to those platforms rather than trying to host or embed the archive natively, which keeps the content management simple and puts the videos where members are already watching them.
What we built
Booking the building, off email
The reservation page routes each request, nonprofit, for-profit, or member, to the right form, capturing the date, space, and purpose up front and replacing the phone-and-email back-and-forth the office used to run on.
A warm front door for first-time guests
A plain 'what to expect on Sunday' page answers the questions a visitor actually has, check-in, greeters, and nursery hours, before they ever walk through the doors.
The full build, including the pieces above:
- Worship information page covering Sunday service times, the online viewing option, and what first-time visitors can expect
- Ministry section with pages for music, children, youth, adult programs, service teams, and community outreach
- Building section with a facility reservation system for organizations wanting to use the church space, including an online request form
- About section covering beliefs, a pastor’s note, and the staff directory
- Updates section with blog posts, a full event calendar, and weekly prayer focus materials
- Giving page connected to OnRealm for online giving
- Contact page with office hours and location information
What changed
- The building can be booked through an online form that captures the date, space, and purpose up front, replacing the phone-and-email back-and-forth the office used to run on.
- Staff update the blog and event calendar on their own, with no developer needed.
- Online giving through OnRealm is reachable from any page on the site, so no one has to go to a separate platform to give.
- First-time visitors and active members each have a clear front door: worship and what-to-expect info for guests, and ministry, giving, and building reservations for members.