Information on New Website

Being a new year and everything, I thought it was time for a new look with our website as well as some added functionality. In this post, I will explain what features remain the same, and what has been added. Keep an eye on the Website News category, as more available features will be described in detail.

What has (pretty much) Stayed the Same

Although many features of the site has stayed the same, most of them are at a different location, so you may have to update your bookmarks accordingly.

• Location / Sunday Services information: These areas were copied from the old site pretty much verbatim. You will find them by clicking the links on the home page or at the top of any other CBC page.
• Ministries / Small Groups: You can still find information on most of our ministries and small groups. Just click the respective links at the top of any CBC page.
• Calendar: Although the weekly calender is no longer available on the sidebar of the homepage, you will still find the monthly calendar by clicking the link at the top of any CBC page. Furthermore, since we are now using Google Calendar, you have the all the options that Google Calendar provides including subscribing to the calendar and tracking events. See calendar.google.com for more information.
• Sermon Recordings / Weekly Bulletins: Weekly media can still be downloaded and listened to right from the home page. Furthermore, you can subscribe to our sermons Podcast. See communitybibleonline.org/sermons for more information.

What Has Been (or will be) Added

• Member Directory: Although I have heard controversy about making this available, an online directory is the best way for members to keep up to date contact information about each other. Because people have expressed concerns about having their information made public, I restricted that area to registered users only, and only CBC members & regular attenders can register on the website. I will check potential registrants with the mailbox database, so please make sure you have a mailbox in the lobby before attempting to register. Also, registered members do not have to provide their full contact information. Users will have the option of providing their name, email, street address, city, state, zip, and phone, but only name & email is required.
• Weekly Word: This is an extended version of the “Word from the Staff” which has been made available by the staff. Now, it has taken a more blog-like approach, giving website visitors the ability to submit comments (or replies) to the post and have an online discussion about it. We also might start to see CBC members other than staff start to appear in the posts.
• News & Events: A more maintained list of news and events will be available. Similar to the Weekly Word category, users will have the ability to post replies and comments to the posts.
• Subscription options. If you have an RSS Feed Reader, you can subscribe to certain areas of the site and get notified automatically when new content is added. This includes Weekly Word, News & Events, Weekly Sermons, Missionary of the Week, and Website News. Just look for the RSS links that will soon be made available on the website.
• Elder & Deacon Profiles: How come the staff gets to have all the fun? Elders and Deacons will soon be sharing a little about themselves on the website.

Some of these features take advantage of some of the latest technologies and web standards. Watch for future posts that will elaborate further on some of these new features that will be available. If you have any questions about the new site, please contact the webmaster by clicking the “Contact Us” link at the top of the page, or post a comment/reply below if you think others should see it as well.