Charles Wesley UMC
Abindon, Virginia
Scope
Discovery · Visual Identity · Website Design · WordPress Development · Custom Functionality
Platform
WordPress + Kadence
Project
2026
This site is currently in staging pending approval and final publish. You can view the staging site here. To view you will need to login with Mosaic Identity using the username TestPublicUser and password EFP6Wg@qf.
Charles Wesley United Methodist Church
Abingdon, Virginia
Tracing its roots to the early 1800s, Charles Wesley UMC can trace its lineage back to Wolf Hill Methodist Church in the section of Abingdon known as King’s Mountain. The current church was established formally in 1873 and continues to serve God’s purpose today.
BUILDING THE VISION
This church has roots. And the vision boards reflect the deep history and giving ministry of the church. But the vision boards only tell the first part of the story.
One Voice. Together.
This vision board drew from the men’s choir that I remember hearing when I was in high school. It was awesome; that’s the only way to describe it.
Morning Light
A theme between all the vision boards pulls in the green and gold from stained glass windows. On sunny mornings the morning sun catches the altar and pulpit just right, and this direction is meant to reflect that.
Rooted
This church has deep history. While the building itself officially became the church in 1873, the congregation goes back even further to the early 1800s. This vision board, with the oak tree and encompassing gold arc, reflects the deep rooted heritage and growing faith of the church.
Starting the Build…by listening
Concept boards are great. They were built from historical input and information, an initial skim of the church, and just a quick dive through any social media. But the real direction comes from the source: the people.
How Charles Wesley described itself
Word clouds and associations are a great way to get a feel for what direction we need to go. It’s easy to ask “what do you think represents your church?”, but it is much more interesting to give a list of words and see which word associations bubble to the top. Overwhelmingly, and probably not surprising, “Welcoming” landed up top, closely followed by “Caring” and “Community Minded”.
What to know…
Learning what is most important to the church tells us the architecture. It’s easy to throw out a generic site with a front page, staff directory, service times, and some basic about and contact information. But to make it really work we need to know what would be most useful to that church specifically.
Putting the pieces together…
I’ve got some history. I’ve got photos. I’ve got input. Now to piece it together and throw out a concept idea that refines the original direction. While color palettes and broad themes tend to stay the same, from concept to landing the details start to matter.
Making it work.
Trusting the process, both successes and failures, leads to a product that is genuinely useful. That’s part of the promise: listening and understanding to build something that is useful for a specific need.
Evolution
This is a great example of how an impression and paper history can lead to a meaningful, beautiful logo and direction that is a swing and a miss.
From “One Voice”…
The original concept, derived from reading the history and an initial read of responses. The direction is more modern, with many different paths or “voices” drawing from the strong musical heritage leading to one, unified path in the Cross, spreading to reach people throughout the globe through the church’s backpack ministry program.
…To Strong Traditions
The original concept centered on welcome, community, and shared purpose. As feedback continued, one priority became increasingly clear: Charles Wesley wanted its Methodist identity and historic character to be immediately recognizable. The visual identity evolved accordingly, while the warmth and accessibility behind the original concept remained part of the website itself.
BUILDING BEYOND THE VISION
Listening, learning, and revising shaped the visual direction. Building meant turning those lessons into something the church could actually use.
Event management
A way to see what’s happening, stay up to date, and find opportunities to help and make a difference in the community.
Connect
Through contact, volunteer and event management, and prayer and praise, with a centralized location for all moving pieces.
A welcoming Page
Most responses said they would turn to Google first as a visitor; so the front page needs to be accessible visitors, easy to navigate, and above all…welcoming.
Manage
Another common request was event and volunteer opportunities, which evolved into building a custom event, volunteer, and risk-management system for churches.
Worship. Fellowship. Service.
This church stays involved in the community and is at almost every town event. The African American heritage of the church dates to the 1820s and they participate in and host many events related to African American history and race relations in the community and at the local university. A consistent ask was a way to see upcoming events and volunteer opportunities, so a
We Are Charles Wesley
Another ask, and word association, centered around the traditional style and history of the church; with an active congregation that dates prior to the building dedication in 1877, we wanted to respect the extensive history while still making it approachable.
You are Welcome Here
And of course “Welcome” was the most consistent ask, with another consistent theme revolving around an accessible site that welcomes visitors from the start. Rather than have information scattered across many pages, a single visitor-orientated page is present, linked prominently from the front page. Keeping with the accessible theme, site pages are kept deliberately simple and concise; it would have been easy to make 12+ pages for every single common page (youth, vounteering, events, history, staff, about, etc.), but instead the approach was to house “likes” and keep it simple.
mADE FOR THIS CHURCH
Charles Wesley didn’t need to look like a larger, newer, or different congregation. It needed a website that reflected the church already there—its history, its Methodist identity, its welcome, and the work it continues to do in its community.