The Background
The First Church of Christ, Scientist (often referred to as "Christian Science" and publisher of nationally-known news outlet The Christian Science Monitor) is responsible for global governance of the Christian Science church. An important part of that governance includes publishing faith-based content in print and on the web through three primary publications: The Christian Science Journal, The Christian Science Sentinel, and The Christian Science Herald. Together, these publications represent over 120 years of print content.
The Church’s existing web properties are diverse, but were often disparate in their presentation. For this reason, Church leadership began an initiative to establish a unified web presence for Christian Science, with a goal of a simplified user experience and a wholistic presentation of its diversity.
Our goal in working with The First Church of Christ, Scientist was three-fold:
- Establish a consistent web identity across all Christian Science properties.
- Develop a new site for the flagship property, ChristianScience.com.
- Develop new sites for the print publications Journal, Sentinel and Herald, thereby ushering them into the new world of web-first publishing.
The Process
Previously, ChristianScience.com was a standard Wordpress site with a patchwork of sub-sites and one-off blogs. As new initiatives were launched, editors created their own sections of the site, with editorial strategy siloed between departments and editors. The intent of introducing a newcomer to the beliefs of Christian Science was not served effectively.
Blend helped Christian Science with initial content strategy and persona development, determining the users we wanted to focus on and the editorial process needed to get there. This strategy was developed first, but with the understanding that all decisions would need to fit in with later sites for the Journal, Sentinel and Herald.
In 2008 the Church’s most famous publication, The Christian Science Monitor, moved to a web-first publishing model. In 2009 the Monitor moved to eZ Publish, and the remaining Christian Science properties are following its lead to reap the benefits of a consistent editorial environment. Design was handled with the entire Christian Science web landscape in mind, understanding that ChristianScience.com and the three additional publication sites should appear to be brothers and sisters of each other.
Finally, Blend was able to integrate live audio events into the site, including an automatic link for audio feeds to iTunes and integration with ChristianScience.com's existing iPhone app. Blend also provided extensive eZ publish training to the 20+ editors at Christian Science, helping make sure everyone is on the same page for editorial consistency.
The Launch
The first step of the full Christian Science process was complete with launch of ChristianScience.com. Not only does the site present a better organized view of the Church of Christ, Scientist, but it also lays the foundation for the future of the church's publications.
Editors are able to easily post content and keep users up to date through feeds and videos on ChristianScience.com. With a visual identity that covers the multiple properties without looking identical, each site is poised to become a unique part of the cohesive whole.