Local Spring Selected work Church on Gladstone
Case study · Church · Toronto, Ontario
A bilingual website the church can manage
I replaced an outdated iWeb site with a responsive bilingual website the church can manage itself, adding contact forms, CRM delivery and reusable event registration.
01 Results
What the rebuild changed
- ×3
- Visits to the site the church's own figure, after the rebuild
- 2
- Languages on one site Russian and English, kept in step
- ~200
- Places per event sign-up retreat registration the staff open themselves
- 0
- Developers needed to update it the team edits the site without me
The church supplied the visit figure. The other changes are shown on the live site and the Internet Archive's captures of the old one. 1
The project
- Client
- Church on Gladstone - Slavic Evangelical Baptist Church
- Where
- 95 Gladstone Ave, Toronto, Ontario
- Congregation
- Russian- and English-speaking, services in both
- Before
- An Apple iWeb site, hand-maintained since about 2011
- Build
- Modern low-code platform, run by the church's own staff
- Engagement
- Redesign, migration, systems, training and handover
- Period
- 2022 - 2024
- Live site
- sebc.ca
What I did
- Full redesign Structure, layout and visual language
- Platform migration Off software discontinued in 2011
- Two languages Russian and English, one structure
- Forms to a messenger Enquiries land where the team already looks
- Leads into a CRM Enquiries saved for follow-up
- Event registration CRM and a spreadsheet the organisers already use
- Google Business Profile Cleaned up and tied to the site
- Local search Church details for local searches
- Logo refresh Redrawn to work on screens and in print
- Projector slides Service screens in the same visual language
- YouTube channel Created, configured and branded
- Social channels Facebook, WhatsApp and Telegram, linked from every page
- Training and handover The church's own staff run the site, the channels and the sign-ups
02 The brief
The brief
Visitors needed clear service times, directions and a way to ask questions in either language.
03 What changed
Before and after
Each pair below is the same job on the old site and the new one. Select any screenshot to open it full size.
01Homepage
Service times and directions on the homepage
The homepage now makes the service time, location and language clear at a glance.
02Ministries
Ministry descriptions and photos
Nine ministries now have photo cards explaining who each is for and when it meets.
03Contact
Contact forms in both languages
Messages from either language version reach the team’s messenger and CRM.
Other screens, before and after
-
Before - the Russian page
-
After - the Russian version
-
After - when and where
-
After - the leaders
Mobile views
-
Before · on a phone
-
After · on a phone
04 Enquiries
How enquiries reach the team
Enquiries reach the tools the team already uses, with a record for follow-up.
- Seconds
Telegram notifications
Form submissions arrive directly in the team’s Telegram.
- Recorded
Enquiries saved in the CRM
Each enquiry is recorded in the CRM for follow-up.
- Either language
One process for both languages
Russian and English forms share one destination and workflow.
- Answerable
Contact details for follow-up
A short form collects the details needed for a personal reply.
WhatsApp, Facebook, YouTube and Telegram links offer other ways to connect.
05 Events
Retreat registration, run by the church
Online retreat registration replaces paper lists and phone calls.
What the form asks
The form collects attendance, adults and children, overnight stays, contact details and transport needs.
Registrations feed the CRM and a shared Google Sheet for catering, beds and transport, supporting the church’s retreats of roughly 200 people. 2
Staff can reuse the bilingual retreat page for the next event.
06 Beyond the site
Branding and online profiles
A church is not only found online, and it is not only seen online. Half of this engagement was the work around the site.
- Identity
The logo, redrawn
The logo was redrawn for clear use on phones, projectors and print.
- In the room
Projector slides that match the site
Service screens share the website’s visual identity.
- Video
A branded YouTube channel
A branded YouTube channel gives sermons a permanent home.
- Findable
The Google profile and the channels people search
The Google Business Profile and social channels connect visitors to the church.
07 Handover
The church runs its own website now
Training and account ownership let the church manage routine changes independently.
- Trained
Hands-on staff training
Training covered the pages staff need to update.
- No developer
Staff handle routine updates
The team updates service times, announcements, leaders and events independently.
- Their accounts
Church-owned accounts and services
The church owns its domain, platform, channels and business profile.
- Repeatable
Reusable event pages
Staff can reuse the retreat page to open registration for future events.
Need a website your team can update?
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Notes
- Where the “before” screenshots come from. The old site was replaced at the migration, so it no longer exists on the church's server. Every “before” shot on this page is the Internet Archive's capture of sebc.ca, taken in 2022 and rendered in the same browser as the “after” shots. That also means no page-speed comparison is offered here: an archived page is served by the archive, not by the church's host, so timing the two against each other would prove nothing. The details quoted about the old build - iWeb 3.0.2, the 701-pixel canvas, the IE7 setting, the absence of any form - come from the archived source itself. The pastors' personal numbers on the archived contacts page are blurred here; the church's own published line is left readable, because it is the point of the screenshot. ↩
- What “about two hundred” means. It is the practical ceiling for running an event this way - one registration page feeding a CRM and a shared sheet, with people rather than software doing the reconciling. It is not a hard limit in the tooling; it is the point past which an event needs ticketing rather than a sign-up sheet. The church's own retreats sit comfortably inside it. ↩