Strengthening a Community Online
Christ Chapel Bible Church (CCBC) is one of Fort Worth’s largest communities, connecting members across four campuses, more than ten ministries, and an extensive list of programming and events throughout the week. Looking to strengthen its relationship with members and new visitors, CCBC wanted to update its website to manage its diverse set of offerings, improve usability and make it easier for everyone to find what they’re looking for and get involved.
Goals
- Improve UX to ensure a clear and seamless browsing experience
- Organize website architecture to be inviting and informative
- Cultivate a sense of community among visitors and across campuses
- Simplify content to keep visitors engaged and exploring
- Streamline backend usability to empower staff to easily add and edit content that updates dynamically throughout the site
Approach
Schaefer architected a robust website with a strong emphasis on user experience that reflected the CCBC community and served as an open invitation to prospective members across DFW.
Recognizing that community-driven content is at the center of their ministry, we elevated important information like service times, events and popular weekly content. By simplifying the structure of the site, visitors can more easily navigate to the information they’re seeking in fewer clicks. We also integrated Rock RMS, a CMS system that allows for real-time updates to weekly events that populate in multiple places across the site, which was crucial for keeping the community informed with accurate and reliable information.
Beyond Sunday service, CCBC produces and publishes a library of content that speaks to members in every phase of life. From podcasts and videos to long-form articles, CCBC needed a way to simplify and streamline that process on the backend of the site. For existing content, we built a custom API to transfer approximately 550 videos from the legacy website to the church’s new content library. Equipped with an advanced filtering system, the API was able to organize content by subject during migration and allow visitors to find relevant content more quickly.
A smarter system was developed to auto-update content in multiple areas simultaneously, ensuring consistency and accuracy across all platforms. We also created standardized templates that improved team alignment between content contributors and backend developers to maintain clarity and uniformity across different types of content.
Results
Through strategic improvements to the digital experience, CCBC has enhanced its ability to serve its congregation, ensuring every visitor—whether online or in-person—receives a warm welcome and easy access to the resources and information they’re seeking.
The new website led to significant improvements in both traffic and user experience, indicating higher community engagement and reach.
- 23% increase in traffic
- 95% increase in engagement
The improved backend significantly reduced the time and effort required by CCBC staff to update content, giving staff more time to focus on ministry and less on administrative tasks. The website has also become a definitive ‘source of truth’ for all church-related information, benefiting all campuses and ministries by providing a single, reliable point of reference.