It’s easy to dismiss a new website as a purely cosmetic project, aiming for a fresh look or flashy new features.
But for Luther House of Study, the decision to rebuild the website was never about aesthetics. It was about the mission.
As a nonprofit whose ministry is sustained entirely through the generosity of donors, we are intentional about how we use resources. Investments are made because they serve a purpose: furthering our mission of providing theological education and resources to the church.
So, the question wasn’t simply, “How can we make our website look better?” but “How can it better serve the people we’re here to serve?”
That question shaped every decision behind the new site.
“We wanted to make it very clear that LHOS is about serving the congregations, the people, the ministries, the students,” says Max Stenson, director of communications, who spearheaded the website project. “We’re providing this for the sake of the Gospel and the mission.”
The result is a website that is easier to navigate, easier to search and more accessible, all for the end goal of serving pastors and congregations.
Turning a collection of resources into a library
The website rebuild had been roughly three years in the making.
During that time, LHOS has continued adding digital resources, including a two-year confirmation curriculum, numerous video series and a growing catalog of podcasts. As the library expanded, we began paying closer attention to how people were actually using the website.
LHOS has a wealth of free resources, but the challenge was making sure people could actually find them.
“If you have a good resource but people can’t find it, it’s kind of futile,” Stenson said.
Resources were scattered across different playlists and formats. Some were hosted on YouTube, some on Vimeo, some as PDFs, and others were reached through various buttons and pathways.
“It was a bit of a maze to find what you needed,” Stenson said.
Now, an advanced search function makes resources easier to locate, while the overall structure gives users clearer pathways for discovering and exploring what LHOS offers.
While we welcome opportunities to connect with people who may eventually become students or want to subscribe to our email list, we also want people to be able to access the resources they need.
“If someone just wants to use the resources we have for themselves, their family, friends or church, they should be able to do that as easily as possible,” Stenson said.
The new site also gives visitors opportunities to learn more about seminary programs and sign up for LHOS communications.
The goal of the website isn’t to generate a flashy digital presence or increase website metrics. It’s to make the ministry’s existing resources more useful and more widely accessible.
In other words, the website is a tool for the mission.
The work behind the experience
Creating that kind of seamless experience required considerably more work than users may realize.
The confirmation curriculum, for example, contains around 100 individual modules. Because the software used to create the interactive lessons produces a specialized type of output, those modules couldn’t simply be uploaded to a website.
Each one had to go through a multi-step process to make it publicly accessible and easy to use without placing it behind a traditional learning management system such as Moodle or Canvas.
Podcast searchability also proved more complicated than it might initially seem. We had to think carefully about how resources would be categorized and organized so that they could be searched without getting mixed up with unrelated content.
Much of the most important work, in fact, happened before the website was built.
Max spent significant time mapping out how someone might move through the site—what they would see first, where buttons should appear, what information would naturally lead to the next step and how different resources could connect.
The site was designed to be understandable for someone encountering LHOS for the first time while also providing longtime users with new opportunities for discovery.
A digital expression of the mission
The new website also represents an ongoing evolution of LHOS’s broader approach to digital ministry.
The idea for the organization’s interactive confirmation curriculum, for example, began when Max was working in an entirely different industry. His experience creating online training modules prompted him to wonder whether a similar approach could be used for theological education.
The possibilities were exciting: multimedia lessons, quizzes, discussions and interactive elements could make learning more dynamic and engaging.
A few sample lessons were developed and received positive feedback. Eventually, the concept grew into the confirmation curriculum LHOS offers today, with the entire team contributing to its creation.
The goal wasn’t simply to have a collection of online resources. It was to create a cohesive experience in which those resources could be easily discovered, accessed and used.
That attention extends to mobile users, too. Pages were intentionally designed to be easy to scroll, responsive on different devices and usable without constantly zooming or navigating a desktop-style layout on a phone.
It was, in Max’s words, a “reimagination from the ground up.”
Investing in what matters
While the new website may look noticeably different at first glance, the more significant change is underneath the surface.
For an organization committed to stewardship of donor-supported resources, that distinction matters.
The rebuild represents an investment of time and resources into making LHOS’s ministry more accessible. It meant starting over, testing, revising, organizing and thinking through countless details that most users will never see.
“We started with blank canvases,” Stenson said. “Designing every section—not just visually, but the user experience, thinking deeply about what we’ve heard, what would make it easier for them, what would help propagate the Gospel and the mission of LHOS.”