50 lines
2.6 KiB
Markdown
50 lines
2.6 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: Bay Vista Baptist Church
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url: https://bayvista.org
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summary: Southern Baptist church in Biloxi, Mississippi
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category: Static Sites
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frontPage:
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display: true
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order: 1
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text: Biloxi, Mississippi
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technologies:
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- Hugo:
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for: static site generation
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isCurrent: true
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- Azure:
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for: podcast file storage, automated builds, and static site hosting
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isCurrent: true
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- GitHub:
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for: source code control
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isCurrent: true
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- Hexo:
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for: static site generation
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- Jekyll:
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for: static site generation
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- WordPress:
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for: content management
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- MySQL:
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for: data storage
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---
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### The Client
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Bay Vista Baptist Church has served the spiritual needs of Mississippi’s Gulf Coast for decades. They emphasize serving their community as well; they were a hub for <abbr title="Federal Emergency Management Agency">FEMA</abbr> during Hurricane Katrina relief and recovery efforts, and they are a relay point for each year’s [Operation Christmas Child](https://www.samaritanspurse.org/what-we-do/operation-christmas-child/) campaign.
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### The Problem
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In late 2013, the authors of their current website were no longer around, and no one could get to the site to update it.
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### The Solution
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We developed and continue to maintain a fast, static website that can be updated by multiple trained church members. The site also has a repository for their sermons dating back to January 2014, and a podcast feed that gives their ministry a global reach.
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<hidden-section heading="The Process">
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Initially, we set up a WordPress-based site, where multiple people could have the ability to maintain the site. We manually downloaded all the publically-accessible parts of their old site, and used that content to form the basis for the new side, updating outdated information along the way. We maintained the same look-and-feel, but soon moved to a more mobile-friendly layout.
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In 2016, we determined that we were the only ones updating the site, so we transformed the site to use a static site generator; this resulted in fast page loads, with automation providing scheduled updates. We also wrote a custom template for the podcast feed, which is also generated as a static file.
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In 2019, we [open sourced](https://github.com/bayvistabc/www.bayvista.org) the site’s source code. We also set up Azure Pipelines to automatically build and deploy the site both on demand and on a schedule. Finally, we trained other church members on updating the site’s contents and the podcast feed. Although we continue to host the site, the church is now maintaining it themselves.
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</hidden-section>
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