When First Baptist Church of Shelburn's WordPress site went down due to a plugin conflict, we stepped in to fix the immediate problem. That turned into a longer conversation about what they actually needed—and eventually a full rebuild launched in August 2024, designed around one central goal: making the site easy enough to maintain that the church team doesn't have to think about it.

Technology Stack

From emergency fix to full rebuild

The church’s previous site had been built by a former staff member, and after he left, nobody on the remaining team had the background to keep up with it. As happens a lot, a plugin conflict eventually took the whole thing offline.

We got it back up quickly, then worked with them to think through what a sustainable long-term solution would actually look like. The new site does away with WordPress entirely—we handle all content updates except for the weekly announcements, which they upload themselves. The static site approach means no plugins to update, no theme conflicts, and no risk of the site going down unexpectedly.

Built for the congregation that's actually there

Given the congregation’s demographics, readability and ease of navigation on a phone matter a lot. The new site uses a clean design with large text, clear navigation, and solid performance on all screen sizes—built with older users in mind from the start, not retrofitted for mobile after the fact.

The old site had minimal search engine optimization, which made it difficult for new visitors to find the church when they were looking. The new site follows solid SEO fundamentals, so it shows up when someone nearby is searching.

A site their team can actually maintain

The church posts their weekly announcements themselves, and everything else gets handled quickly when they reach out. No plugins to update, no theme conflicts, no worrying about whether the site is going to break on a Saturday night.

It’s a quieter relationship now—which is exactly how it should be.