Welcome to the new Blacknall site. Take it for a spin. Look to the homepage for current, up-to-the minute information and announcements; the inside pages have program and ministry descriptions and contact information; the Sermons page has–you guessed it–streaming and downloadable sermons.

Blacknall.org is a community information hub. It’s a portal for Blacknall ministries, programs and missionaries. The site is built to be incredibly easy to update, and we’ll be adding features as we go. (Already on the drawing board: an events calendar and an event registration capability.)

Questions & Really Quick Answers…

I’m a ministry leader. How can I publish my event on the homepage? The posts on the homepage are drawn from the weekly bulletin–submit an item to the bulletin, and you’ll be all set. The website is meant to fit within the existing flow of information at Blacknall.

I need to edit some of the program information on an inside page–how do I do that? Send a message to Nate or Chad. The program information on the inside pages are meant to be pretty much static–they shouldn’t require frequent updates. (Most visitors won’t look for upcoming events, for instance, on the Community page.)

How can I get my own section of the Blacknall site? There’s a lot happening in my ministry, and I’ve gotta get the word out! Amen! We think you not only need your own section of the Blacknall site…we think you need your own website. (Don’t Panic! We’re here to help!) It is very easy…and free…to create your own site these days. We heartily recommend Blogger and Wordpress.com: sign up, pick a name, and within minutes you’ll have an easy-to-update website (weblog). We’ll link to it from Blacknall.org, and every time you add a post, it will appear instantly in the Blacknall.org sidebar. (See for instance the posts from the Bartkovickes–Blacknall missionaries in Uganda–in the sidebar. See also the Alpha Ministry and the Youth. Fantastic.) We’ve got a team of people ready and willing to help you set it up, maintain it (did we mention it’s easy?), and even customize the design.

Why isn’t there a Login button or a members-only area? Because we’re not a members-only community.

Why aren’t there more social networking features? The idea behind Blacknall.org isn’t to create an online community (as cool as those can be). It’s to foster in-the-flesh community.

I’m a geek. How does Blacknall.org run? The site is a custom installation of Wordpress, a free, open-source web publishing application. It provides clean XHTML, styled by CSS. The backend runs with PHP and MySQL on a Linux server.

How can I help with the website? We’re getting together a technology team to extend Blacknall.org and help Blacknall ministries get online. If you’ve got geek skills, talk to Chad or Nate.