Preview of Proposed New Website
West Denmark Lutheran Church
January 20, 2026
For Staff Review – Not For Public Distribution
Greetings!
My assignment in this project was to improve the existing West Denmark Website, operating within the existing design theme on WordPress, created by Jay Gilhoi of Luck, with whom you have contracted to originally create the site and manage the technical and registration appects thereof. The pages available below for preview represent my best take of improvements to the website within the constraints of the existing design/layout.*
I had proposed to the Council, through a presentation by Shawn, that, given limited staff time and uncertainty about who may or may not be involved in updating the website, that we create a site the appears to be up to date, but does not require regular weekly updating. All that needs to be upated on this site is: “worship highights,” which I suggest be updated twice a month; and keeping event announcements up to date.
Some instructions and notes:
1) These pages are not yet formatted to display properly on a phone or mobile device. That’s a bit tricky in WordPress, but will be attended to as soon as the pages are approved and launched publically. So, please view the pages on a laptop or desktop computer.
2) These are the section landing pages that will be accessed through the tabs in the main menu in the site header (of which there is only “Home” on the temporary home page). Some pages have links to underlying pages and documents.
3) Still to be completed at the moment are: “History,” “Campus,” “Choir,” “Instruments,” “Annual Events” and bios for Chris and Harry Johansen.
4) When we launch, there will, of course, be a new home page. It will have the same header (but with full menu) and footer that we recently redesigned and are in view now. I am propoosing the new home page include the mission and welcome statements; and invitation to “join us on Sundays” with a link to the “Worship and Music” section; a couple of “teasers” for upcoming events or special announcements with a link to the News and Events section, and some artistic use of a limited number of photos–to put some actual faces into view giving a sense of the life of the congregation. We will see one or two potential home page designs as we near public launch.
5) Lastly: What’s missing? What changes might you want to suggest? Email me at: joebjordal@gmail.com
Thanks,
Joe
Here are the links to the pages:
* Having become somewhat familiar with WordPress and the “DIVI” design tool that you apparently paid Jay Gilhoi to install at some point, I am now aware of some remarkable, state-of-the-art design options that are available and look nothing like a traditional WordPress site–even having AI do some of the creation. I suggest we run with what we have for a good amount of time, but consider upgrading the site say late in the year or early next. We can discuss that when the time is right