Here's wikipedia on it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overselling

Now your efforts went toward reaching the youth of Ukraine as I am trying to build a youth outreach social site

For something super fast to put up, one of the easiest to use website builders out there is Weebly.

For more in-depth sites you should also look at Ning (a white label MySpace) and KickApps (a white label YouTube). Anyway, my two cents.

Glad you like the site! :)

http://www.cornerstonelapuente.com

http://www.coreyouth.org
http://www.thepathconference.com

Personal – http://www.stevecullum.com
Youth Ministry – http://www.rccstudents.com

Adam

PS: The Calender component you recommend now costs $5 to download, but it is well worth it.

I’d be definitely be interested in hiring out the nuts and bolts of web design, with what’s out there now, this is a lot more customizable, and seems to have more communication options than other companies offering site building. As much as i’ve worked with Joomla, you’re way ahead of the curve. Essentially, you can provide me with more time!

I am having alot of time customizing community builder. I can’t seem to figure out how to get it to integrate with other modules. Did you have the same problem or am I missing something.

Thanks,
Jess

email me if you have any questions
Brent

To answer your questions: 1) I’m honestly not sure. I really like it now that it’s finished and mostly working the way I want, but it sure was a hassle to get it to this point. Plus, several modules and components I wanted to use gave me javascript conflicts with the template and rendered the site useless. This forced me to find lots of alternative components and modules that I didn’t really like as much as my originally intended add-ons, but that was part of the price to pay for having the template, I guess. Fortunately, I’ve done much of the trial and error for you, so if you stick to what I have posted above, you should be safe and avoid a lot of headaches.

2) Absolutely. However, plan on training them first. Joomla isn’t that difficult once you understand it, but some may not know where to start and will never use the tool if they feel confused. Now, if you want different people’s access to be limited to updating only certain categories of content, you’ll have to use a component called JACLPlus, but in my experience it messes too much with the core of Joomla and creates other problems. It actually even crashed my site once. I recommend giving everyone access to updating content in general and just teach them to post it to the appropriate place.

Thanks so much for this post. I have had a similar idea using Joomla for the last 6 months. I am now in the infancy of building my church’s site. I have two questions. 1) would you still use yootheme knowing what you know now? I really like their “core” template but your comments are making me have second thoughts. 2) Do you think I can allow multiple people from different ministries update a churchwide site?

Yes, getting a site up and running can be very fast, by copying over a pre-built database & file structure. One of the challenges in a website is getting right right look in addition to the functionality. We all put a lot of work into our youth rooms and youth facilities, to set the atmosphere and present ourselves – who we are – work that is hard to do without a web/graphic designer in addition to the template.

I’m really a fan of all front-end administration, but there’s a lot of modules & components that don’t have that option (polls, slideshows, etc.).

I’m a programmer and can program front-end management into any/all of the extensions, we’d just have to finalize the list of what we want in the initial package, then get programming on those extensions.

Jonathan
jgreen@unhindered.com
http://jonthecanadian.blogspot.com

I have a pretty simple idea for how to package, setup and streamline youth group websites if I decided to start this side business. Just keep a database and file package ready to go. Fulfilling an order and having the site set up would only take about 15 minutes or so. That part is no problem. It’s the ongoing tech support that would be the time sucker. And for clients who are unfamiliar with Joomla, there’s plenty of flash tutorials available that could be embedded into a tech support section of the company’s website. Better yet, don’t give them backend access at all and just make all the administrative features they need accessible only through the front end.

I’ve been doing Joomla! websites for a few youth groups out here in the Denver metro area. Our church’s (which I volunteer with), and others. I’ve been sure to add the ability to easily include youtube videos and google calendars and such, leveraging more free technology that’s out there.

I’d love to join together to serve more youth groups in this way!

Youth groups need their own sites, because it’s not just about networking (like facebook or myspace), and not just about multi-media (like youtube). We also have group information and spiritual information, for which there’s no ideal medium other than your own site.

You can check out a few I’ve been working on at
• http://sgc180.org
• http://foothillsyouth.rg

I’m doing website development full-time now, and am working on a way to streamline the development of Joomla! websites for youth groups and getting together training materials in print and online video instructions on how to use the features for those of us who aren’t net-savy yet.

Anyone can feel free to contact me at jgreen@unhindered.com about Joomla questions and specific things as they pertain to getting your youth group online.

Thanks for the post!

if we invest in our presence elsewhere, the fear is that we’ll drive our girls away from our own sites. But really it’s just the opposite. The teens on MySpace, YouTube and these other sites are probably not spending time on your sites to begin with. And even if you build them a social network, getting them to migrate over en masse is an uphill battle. By creating cool branded content or competitions that run on the big social networks and can be shared and spread everywhere (through video players), you will become like a giant squid. You still have the core brand center (which you should invest some in and make sure its a high quality destination) and many tendrils that reach out and touch potential fans all over the web…and potentially introduce them to your site’s offerings.”

First, get Joomla SEO working and then configure and turn on opensef
It Rocks, I finally got it working on my sites. If you hit any issues, shoot me an email and I can let you know If I ran into those issues and how I got around them.

Thank you soo much for taking the time to answer my question so thoroughly!

-C