Built by Artifact · Live
Case study · WebsiteNorthminster is a small Presbyterian church in Clairemont — about sixty people on a Sunday, in the same tented sanctuary they broke ground on in the sixties. The website’s job isn’t to explain a denomination. It’s to get a stranger from “maybe” to a seat.
How most people meet the church: on a phone, about a room they haven’t walked into yet.
When does it start, how long is it, where do I park, what happens to my kids, will I be the only one who doesn’t know anyone. A site organised around ministries and committees answers none of that — and those are the questions that decide whether someone comes.
A congregation this size has no communications staff. The structure has to stay right when nobody is tending it, and adding a sermon or an event can’t require a developer.
Someone looks up a church on a Saturday night, or at eight on a Sunday morning in their kitchen. A site that makes them hunt for the service time is answering the wrong question slowly.
So the newcomer’s three facts lead everywhere: the service time and address in the header, “Plan your visit” following down the page, and a bar pinned to the bottom of every phone screen with the hour, directions and a number that dials. The visit page answers the unglamorous things — one service, about an hour, kids from three through sixth grade, coffee before and after.
The photography is theirs, not stock: their kitchen on a Wednesday night, their garden, their sanctuary. And the church is marked up as a place with a weekly service schedule, so a search for a church nearby gets back the right hour and the right address.
Service time, address and directions in the header, in the footer, and pinned to the bottom of every phone screen with a tap-to-call number.
A visit page about the hour itself — how long it runs, where the kids go, what the music is like — rather than a statement of beliefs.
The congregation’s photographs throughout: the Wednesday night kitchen, the community garden, the sanctuary, the people who fill them.
Marked up as a church with a service schedule and a mapped location, so local search can return the right hour and address.
A static build with the stylesheet inlined and every photograph generated at six sizes, so it stays quick on a phone with one bar of signal.
