Hope Community Presbyterian Church

We hope that navigating our website is easy and intuitive – just try poking around and see what you find! Here’s a quick tour:

At the top of this page, you can click to various pages on the site, to learn more about who we are. The page titled “Blog” takes you to our most recent blog posts, for news, sermons, and other up-to-the-minute content. The other pages are “static” because their information isn’t as time-sensitive.

The sidebar on the right shows you the titles of the most recent blog posts. Just click on one that looks interesting. Blog posts are archived by month if you want something older.

Upcoming events on the church calendar are also available on the right. Click on the title ‘Coming up at HCPC’ to visit our full online calendar.

At the bottom of the sidebar, the ‘Meta’ section lets you log in to your account to edit the site, subscribe to our updates via RSS, or visit our host’s website, wordpress.com. (Click on any of these links for more information.)

Want to do more? Here are some ways to interact on our website:

Leave a reply

Your reply (comment) will be displayed at the bottom of the post, and the post’s author will be notified that you’ve replied. You can ask to be notified of any further comments yourself, so this becomes a space to discuss what was posted.

You’ll have to supply a name and email address in order to comment. Your email won’t be displayed, but the website uses it to keep track of who you are. If you have a WordPress account, that’s the best way to identify yourself for leaving a reply.

The first time you reply to something on the site, your comment won’t be displayed until after we’ve approved you. This is a basic security tool, to make sure that only people with real connections to Hope leave comments. (You’re not required to be a member to comment, just a real person we know.)

If you want to edit or delete a comment after you’ve posted it, let us know in the office. Unfortunately, we have to do that for you from our all-powerful administrator accounts.

Write a post (or page) of your own!

To do this, you’ll need to be registered as an author on the website:

1. Go to WordPress.com and register for an account. If you want to start your own blog, here’s a chance. If not, say no thanks to the blog but get the account.
2. Email us from the address you used to set up your WordPress account and ask us to add you as an author of the website.
3. We’ll sign you up and write back to let you know that you’re set to go.

Once you’re registered as an author, you can create posts or pages and edit anything you created. You’ll almost always want to create posts, not pages (see the difference between posts and pages). WordPress has a thorough editing how-to, or here’s the quick and easy guide:

1. Log in to your WordPress account, either from the main page or by using the ‘Log in’ link under ‘Meta’ on the right hand side of our site. Alternately, you can bookmark the address of our “dashboard” (administration page) and the computer will make you log in automatically.
2. From the ‘Posts’ box on the left-hand side of the screen, click on ‘Add New.’ This brings up the editing screen.
3. Write a descriptive title for your post in the one-line box at the top of the screen.
4. Type the content of your post into the big edit box. If you already typed something in another program, click on the icon of the clipboard with a little blue ‘W’ (for Microsoft Word). Paste what you wrote into the special box that comes up, then click on ‘Insert.’ This makes sure the other program doesn’t mess up the formatting of your post.
5. You can apply some formatting to your text if you’d like, using the buttons attached to the edit box. Try highlighting some text and clicking on the chain icon. You can type in a web address and make your text a link to another website.
6. If you want to add an image, movie, sound, or other media, use the icons next to ‘Upload/Insert’ above the edit box. If you’re just adding a text file, it’s best to paste the text right into the post as in step 4.
7. You can categorize your post using the list on the right-hand side of the screen, depending on whether you’re talking about committee business, an upcoming event, or whatever. You can also add “tags” to note what subjects you’re talking about (these can be anything).
8. In the ‘Publish’ box on the right-hand side, click on ‘Preview’ to see how your post will look. This opens a new window with a preview of your post. To return to the editing screen, just close the new window.
9. Once you’re happy with the post, click the blue ‘Publish’ button. Your post is now part of our website!
10. If you change your mind part of the way through creating a post, just click the red ‘Delete’ link in the ‘Publish’ box.

To edit a post you’ve already created, you do almost exactly the same thing, only you click on ‘Edit’ instead of ‘Add New’ back in step 2. This brings up a list of the posts you’ve created, and you can select the post you’d like to edit from there. After you’re done making your changes, you’ll click ‘Save Changes.’ Because the post has already been published, your changes go straight to the website.

As website administrators, Sylvia and Nathan can do some editing tasks you can’t do, like adding categories. If you need something done that you can’t do, just let us know.

If you have any questions about how to get the most out of the website, please feel free to ask us.