Setting Up Your Website – My Online Church

Part 1 – Log In

1 . Open your web browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari or whatever you use to browse the web)

2. Type in the church web address that was sent to you. (usually something like [yourchurch].clclutheran.org ]

3. Find the log in link on your website. ( If there is no log in link on your website you can type in “/wp-admin” after your church address, eg. saginaw.clclutehran.org/wp-admin )

4. Type in the username and password that was sent to you. And click “log in”.

You are now at the dashboard for your website. Also referred to as the backend. Here you can make all changes and updates to your website in the future. But first you need to create a personal username and password. Go to the next post, Part 2 – Personal Username to continue setting up your website.

Part 2 – Personal Username

If you are not already there go to your dashboard. If you don’t know how see Part 1 – Log In

1. On the left of the dashboard you will see a menu list of options. Eight options done you will find “Users”. Click on this option.

2. After clicking this option you will see a list of current users on your website. And beneath the “Users” option, four new options “Authos & Users”, “Add New”, “Your Profile”, and “User Registrations”. Click the “Add New” option.

3. Type in whatever username you would like to use and your email address.

4. Choose a role. For now you want to choose “administrator”. In the future you may want to add other users to your website so that members of your congregation can help in the upkeep of your website, for more information on the difference between the roles go to http://codex.wordpress.org/Roles_and_Capabilities

5. Click “Add User” ( the page should refresh with a note in yellow near the top that says “Invitation email sent to new user. A confirmation link must be clicked before their account is created.” )

6. Now click the “Log Out” button at the top right of your website dashboard. Go to your email and find the email that was sent to you. Here you have your new username and password. Go back to your website and log in with your new username and password. This time when you log in check the remember me box, this will mean that you don’t need to log in next time you come to your website. From now on always use this username and password when working on your website.

Continue with the next post Part 3 – User Profile

Part 3 – User Profile

If you are not already there go to your dashboard. If you don’t know how see Part 1 – Log In

1. Click on the “Users” option in the side menu to the left again.

2. Choose the “Your Profile” option under “Users”

3. Fill out as much of the form as you wish. Type in a new password if you like, one that might be easier for you to remember that then one sent to you. Click the “Update Profile” at the bottom of the screen. Make a note of your new password and use this password from now on.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Ignore the “Disable the visual editor when writing” option. Leave it unchecked!!

Continue on to the next post: Part 4 – Basic Settings

Part 4 – Basic Settings

If you are not already there go to your dashboard. If you don’t know how see Part 1 – Log In

Now that you have your username and profile set up, its time to start setting up your actual website. The first thing that you need to do is choose some basic settings.

If you haven’t already log in to your website and go to the dashboard.

1. Eleven options down on the left menu you should see “Settings”, click on this option.

2. You now have a page entitled “General Settings” here you can change the title of your Blog, the tagline, the default website email address, the timezone, as well as various options concerning how time settings are displayed. For more information on these options see Settings General on the wordpress.org site.

BEFORE MOVING ON MAKE SURE TO CLICK “SAVE SETTINGS”

3. Now under the settings Option choose the “writing” option. Here you should make sure to deselect the “Convert emoticons like :-) and :-P to graphics on display” option. For more information on the rest of these settings see Settings Writing on the wordpress.org site.

BEFORE MOVING ON MAKE SURE TO CLICK “SAVE SETTINGS”

4. Finally under the settings option choose the “Reading” option.

5. Here you need to choose which of your pages will be the one displayed first when people first come to visit your site. For the purposes of this tutorial we will assume that you want the page entitled “Our Church” displayed on the home page.

6. After “Front page displays:” choose the “A Static Page” option.

7. Now directly below that where it says “Front Page:” select “Our Church” (or the title of another page you wish displayed first) from the drop down box.

BEFORE MOVING ON MAKE SURE TO CLICK “SAVE SETTINGS”

8. For more information about the options listed on the rest of this page go to Settings Reading page on wordpress.org.

Now you have your basic settings set up it time to choose a theme to make your webpage look how you like. Continue to Part 5 – Changing Themes

Part 5 – Changing Themes

If you are not already there go to your dashboard. If you don’t know how see Part 1 – Log In

1. On the left hand menu seven options down, click on “Appearance”.

2. Now you will see a page full of possible themes you can use. Look through them, and when you think you see one you may like, click “preview” to get a better look.

3. If you like it click “Activate” on the top right had corner, if you don’t like it click the “X” button on the top left of the screen.

You can repeat this process to change your theme whenever you like. But it is best not to do it too often. You have now chosen a good look for your website, next we need to set up your side bars. See next post Part 6 – Sidebars

Part 6 – Sidebars

If you are not already there go to your dashboard. If you don’t know how see Part 1 – Log In

Sidebars appear to the left and right (sometimes also above and below) of your website to display links to the various parts of your website. They also allow you to display short pieces of information. Where they appear, how many of them you have and how much room they have depends on which theme you have chosen.

1. Seven options down on the left menu of the dashboard you will see “Appearances” click on this link.

2. Now you will see more options under “Appearances” – one of them will be “Widgets” click on this option.

3. You should now see a table full of headers such as “Akismet” , “Archives”, “Calender”, these are all various widgets that you can put in your sidebar to display certain bits of information. For example if you choose the one called “Pages” you will see a list of all the pages on you website displayed on your sidebar.

4. To the right of this table of options you should see a column with a list of sidebars. Often there will be only one sidebar, but some themes will give you two or three.

5. To the right of the name of the sidebar there is a small triangle pointed down. Click this triangle. A dull grey empty box will now appear beneath the name of the sidebar.

6. Choose any information you wish to display in the sidebar from the options to the left and drag them over to the dull grey box beneath the name of the sidebar. Once you see a box outlined in dashed lines you can let the option go and it should stick to the sidebar. That option will now be displayed on your sidebar.

7. Once you have placed the option in the sidebar, you will often see a list of options appear underneath it. Change any of these options as you see fit and hit the “save” button.

8. IMPORTANT NOTE: Most sidebars have default settings, information they will display if you have chosen anything to be displayed in them. Once you have chosen any options for a sidebar all of these default settings will disappear. Therefore make sure that one of the options you place in the side bar is the “Meta” option. This will display a link to allow you to login to your site. If you forget to dispaly this option you may come back later to find there is no log in link. If this should happen, just type /wp-admin after the address of your website eg clclutheran.org/wp-admin, this will take you to the log in page.

You now have your side menus set up as you wish. In order to fill out and display basic church information such as Sunday Service times, see Part 7 – Church Info

Part 7 – Church Info

If you haven’t already log in to your website and go to the dashboard.

1. Seven options down on the left menu is “Appearance” click on this option.

2 You should now see more options listed under “Appearance” one of them should be “Church Info”, click on this option.

3. You will now see a page full of forms for basic Church Info. Fill out as much of this form as you wish too. For more information on filling out this form see Church Info Form

4. Now that you have filled out the information you want to actually display it on your website. Some themes may already automatically display this information. Other wise go to the “widgets” option and find the three options “Sunday Services”, “Weekly Events” and “Chuch Info” add these options to your sidebar. For more information on adding options to your sidebar see “Part 5 – Sidebars“. For more information on the various options you can choose from once you have added these widgets to your side bar see “Church Info Widgets“.

Now you have you website set up its time to learn how to add and edit pages which will allow you to display information. See Part 8 – Add and Editing Pages

Part 8 – Adding and Editing Pages

If you are not already there go to your dashboard. If you don’t know how see Part 1 – Log In

1. Five options down on the left hand menu is the “Page” option. Click this option.

2. You should now see a list of all the pages currently in use on your website

If you want to EDIT a current page, simply click on the title of the page you want to edit.

If you want to CREATE A NEW PAGE, click the “Add New” option under “Pages” on the left side menu.

3. You should now be at the page editor section of your website, this consists of six basic boxes.

The first long thin one on top is for the title of your page. Fill this out with the page title, keep in mind that this title will not only appear on the top of your page, but also on your sidebar menu as the link to click to see that page.

Directly below is is a larger editor box. This is where the actual contents of the page appear. Here you can edit the contents of the page or type in new content. For detailed information on how to use this editor go to Click Here. In the meantime here is a quick reference for some more important buttons.

-> One of the last buttons looks like three rows of tiny pictures, click this icon and you will get an extra row or options

-> Above the darker grey part of the editor are the words “Add media:” followed by four grey icons, the first of these will allow you to upload pictures and insert them into your page

-> the twelfth button on the top row looks like a page cut in two by a dashed line. This is the more tag. When you insert it into a page or post, it doesn’t show up on the website. People who visit your site won’t even know it is there. But on occasion your website may wish to display only a preview of a certain page or post. In this case the website will get all the information on the page or post up to the more tag. If you have no more tag, the site won’t know where to cut it off and will return the entire page. For this reason it is good to always insert a more tag after the first paragraph of every page and post.

-> If you know HTML you can click the HTML tab next to the visual tab and write the page in HTML code.

Directly below the editor is the “Excerpt” box. This box enable you to write a summary of the page’s contents. Sometimes with some themes this summary is displayed to let users know what the content of the page is.

On the top of the next column, to the right of the title box, is the Publish box. This box gives you three main options

-> Save Draft <- This allows you to save the page or post without publishing it. This means you can come back later to work on the page, but no one who comes to the site will see that page.

-> Preview <- this allows you to preview your current work

-> Publish <- This allows you to publish the page or post. This means the content is saved the page title is added to the menu on your website, and visitors to your site can see the page of post.

Beneath the Publish box is the “Attributes” box, for know the only option we care about is the last one, “Order”. Change this number to change the order that the page appears in the menus, IF you set the options on the page widget to display by “order” for more information on how to do this see: Part 6 – Sidebars

4. Once you have made all the changes to the page that you wish to make, hit the “Publish” button . You should get a message saying “Page Updated” or “Page Published” – if you don’t get this message hit the Publish button again.

You now know everything you need to maintain a basic website. Once you have mastered these skills, there are many more things that you can do with your website. To the right of this post is a sidebar. Near the top of this side bar is a list of categories. To learn more about using your website click on one of these categories such as “More Details” or “Advanced Web Options”. Over time I plan on adding posts to these categories gradually to teach you more about using this website, so if what you want to do isn’t listed there now check back later or email me request a tutorial on the subject you wish, email me at: sesoomai@gmail.com.

If you have questions or problems about your website check out the forum at help.clclutheran.org. If your problem or question isn’t covered here, email me at: sesoomai@gmail.com .