Energize
A powerful lesson building system to empower youth workers.
The Client
Energize is a web-based resource platform from Urban Saints, designed to allow youth and children’s ministry teams to access engaging, dynamic, Biblical meeting plans for children and young people.
The Brief
Our original brief in 2000 was to help Urban Saints create a customisable platform to deliver meeting plan content to youth leaders online. We have since upgraded their website several times to take advantage of new technologies and keep the site fully up to date. This time we undertook a major rebrand and redesign of the site, adding new functionality and integrating the site with modern technologies such as real-time search and PowerPoint presentation exporting.
They have a wealth of expertise in web development and content management…
…which combined with our 120 years of helping children and young people has helped to create a first-class digital platform. The resource is now used by over 12,000 Christian and school group leaders across the UK, Ireland and beyond.
The Challenge
We integrated an ‘optimise’ feature which would filter suitable content for a youth group session, based on various aspects of the group such as number of attendees, room size available, faith level, and additional needs. This took a lot of trial and error to ensure that the optimisation gave helpful results. Enabling users to export their sessions to a PowerPoint presentation format was something we’d never done before and there was a good amount of risk involved and a lot of trial and error.
The Solution
We used the existing code base to work from rather than rebuilding. Because we built the original site, we knew it would work well with the changes. The front end was completely new, using fantastic new branding and design by Vision Tank. We rebuilt the session editor to enable new functionality with the ability to drag and drop content, making it feel slicker and easier to use, and added a host of visual improvements making better use of the space on the screen. In order to get lightning fast, real time, fuzzy searching we used an Algolia integration, making it a much better search experience for the user. We also improved the bible reference search feature, allowing users to find meeting plans on a chapter, verse, or a series of verses.
The Verdict
“The Team have been instrumental in building and developing the Urban Saints Energize website since the very beginning back in 2003. They have a wealth of expertise in web development and content management, which combined with our 120 years of helping children and young people has helped to create a first-class digital platform. The resource is now used by over 12,000 Christian and school group leaders across the UK, Ireland and beyond."
- Peter Andrews, Resources Manager, Urban Saints, 2020
-
![Laptop website of Church of England Content Management System]()
Church of EnglandFacilitating connections for churches across the UK -
![Printed Leaflets from Active Care Group Brand]()
Active Care GroupRollout of a major healthcare brand -
![South London Mission Brand Example]()
South London MissionCommunicating the heart of a long-standing charity -
![Eternal Wall Screen Sizes]()
Eternal WallBrand & tech foundations for a national monument
