I am pleased to announce the relaunch of the website of The Northern California and Nevada District of the Assemblies of God.

The district’s resource center, located in Sacramento, California, serves approximately 125,000 people, roughly 440 congregations in over 360 cities throughout Northern California and Nevada, and about 1,500 ministers. The resource center supports local churches and ministries through providing materials, lending advice, organizing seminars, etc. As such, communication with various constituencies is vital. Similar to many Christian organizations, the district is not wealthy and is therefore always looking for ways to improve the efficiency of their communication while lowering costs.

This relaunched website (actually the third iteration of the site which was initially launched in the summer of 2000) takes advantage of the Expression Engine platform to accomplish just that — improved communication for less expense.

New online features made possible by the use of Expression Engine include the following:

In House Management
The Expression Engine implementation enables the staff of the district’s resource center to manage the site largely by themselves - editing static content, adding news items and resources, etc. Training for this is still in the future as we “let the dust settle” after the relaunch, but in time, this feature will enable the district to communicate with their constituencies through their website largely without my intervention — improved communication for less expense!

Customized Content
Thanks to the capabilities Expression Engine provides to establish separate member groups with different permissions, we are able to display customized content for different member groups throughout the site. For example, if we want to display information regarding an upcoming ministers’ retreat, we can easily make this information viewable only by the district’s ministers.

This feature also enables us to use the main website as an intranet for employees of the district resource center, displaying content which concerns employees only to employees.

Private Ministers Section
We have also provided a private ministers section which includes a variety of largely static information and resources: discussion forums for ministers, a directory of internet mailing lists specifically for ministers, ministers’ newsletters, a sermon sharing archive, listings of open positions and resumes of ministers seeking positions, etc.

Facilitating Communication Between Ministers
By utilizing Expression Engine’s powerful membership features, the new website gives ministers the ability to contact other ministers in the district who have agreed to make their contact information active.

Syndication and News Feeds
Using RSS technology, the new website provides 25 different news feeds which enable the syndication of the district’s news headlines on other websites. We have included both general news feeds as well as feeds for the different departments which are a part of the district resource center. Providing headlines in RSS format also allows site visitors to read the district’s headlines in their online news reader, on their handheld device, or even on their iPod!

Social Bookmarks
A minor feature (but still cool, it seems to me) is that each public article includes a link to enable website visitors to quickly add a bookmark for that article to a del.icio.us account.

Print Style Sheets
Another minor feature (but one which was not implemented in earlier iterations of the website) is the use of print style sheets so that only the left-hand column of pages print and so that any links which appear in the left hand column display the full addresses of the links when the page is printed.

Standards Compliance
With a few minor exceptions (to preserve functionality), the site is standards compliant.