More than you probably wanted to know about our website.
To help you find things, we have a site map here.
We have a separate page that describes changes to our site.
Welcome
Welcome to the website of First United Methodist Church, Mays Landing, NJ. This is our first ever website and we are excited to see it come to life. There is a lot on the drawing board, with ideas for growth in both the areas of design and content. However, we do have something to offer, and are "letting our light shine" (Matthew 5:16) even in these early stages.
If you are a member of our congregation then we are interested in your input. After all, this is your site. How can you help? Any ideas that you may have for how we can best use this site would be appreciated. Tell us what you would like to see on our website (we neither want to publish to an empty house nor exclude a highly sought after feature). You can offer design suggestions (yes, it's mighty plain so far). You can offer content for publication (Write an article and see it on the web. Cool!). We are looking for reviewers (Ever wanted to be a beta-tester? Here's your chance.) to periodically examine the site for correctness (spelling, layout, functionality, etc). Especially desired are folks with hardware/software setups that are different than those used by the webmaster to check for proper site operation.
Visitors are just as important to our site. We hope that what you find here will encourage you to get to know us better. Your input to this site is desired in all the same respects as listed above. Additionally, we'd like to know how we might better inform you about our church family. Sometimes we forget that which may be so obvious and familiar to ourselves is an important detail that needs to be readily shared with our new friends. First-time visitors often quickly notice aspects of our site that "regulars" overlook. Could you easily find your way around our site and locate what you came here for? Is our presentation attractive? Is our content sufficient (or overkill)? Do our pages load fast enough? Did you enjoy visiting with us in cyberspace? Please let us know your impressions. And if you are truly pleased, pass us along to a friend.
Design Style
Our website is designed and styled to be:
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Simple - We conscientiously avoid the use of things like JavaScript, frames, animations, etc. Our simple presentation style provides our site with benefits such as being easier to read, downloading faster, and being easier to navigate/bookmark/search. This also makes it easier for us to maintain our site (which is done in our "spare time").
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Accessible - We want to make it easier for persons with disabilities to access our site. Our site is designed to aid accessibility by people with impairments to their vision, hearing, or mobility. The design principles we use are described further on our accessibility page.
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Usable - This site is best viewed with the browser of your choice (we hope :-). We have made the effort to reach a wide audience. We use techniques that enable a variety of web browser software (and preference settings) to work well with our site. We have tried to ensure that our web pages look good when printed.
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Standards Compliant - For the technophiles out there, you may be interested to know that our site strives to be in conformance with recommendations for HTML 4.01, XHTML 1.0 Strict, and CSS Level 2, as published by the W3C.
Feedback
Any feedback that you wish to provide is welcome and encouraged. The webmaster is particularly interested resolving any difficulties encountered while visiting this site. Comments are also sought for improvements and/or enhancements. Members and friends of our congregation are invited to provide content for publication. For ways to reach us, please refer to our contact page.
Webmaster
Our webmaster is Scott Cramer. Recognizing the need for our church to have an Internet presence, he naively volunteered for the position of webmaster in early 2004. (It cannot possibly be as tough as everyone else says, right? Ha!) Although computers are both his job and a favorite hobby, he came to this position with practically no experience in website design or implementation (hopefully that isn't too obvious). He also has a passion for music; singing tenor in the church choir and also occasionally performing on guitar.
Copyright
Unless otherwise noted, all content on this website is the property of First United Methodist Church, Mays Landing, NJ (or its contributors), and is protected from unauthorized use by applicable copyright laws.
The Cross and Flame is a registered trademark and the use is supervised by the General Council on Finance and Administration of The United Methodist Church. Permission to use the Cross and Flame must be obtained from the General Council on Finance and Administration of The United Methodist Church - Legal Department, 1200 Davis Street, Evanston, IL 60201.
