check out www.marshill.org for a good example of what I mean by simple and modern - its too simple for us - but a nice modern design.

Thanks everyone for your efforts and sorry for any misleading comments - I will try and clarify a few things:

1) We are a diverse urban multi-ethnic congregation - we don't want images of fields and forests or beaches. We want artistic images that either celebrate urban life or are more detailed close-ups of people and spiritual themes - we envision this banner image or photo changing throughout the year or having a series of images that scroll while the site is being used.

2) We want a modern layout with white space - clean edges and geometry, not cluttered and not trendy. If the layout is modern and timeless - the images and color changes can adapt with seasons and themes throughout the year giving the site a fresh look throughout the year.

3) We do not like our old site - please do not repeat the blue and green in the old site, no rounded corners and tabs. We will re-use the logo but will likely change the gold elipse to silver gray and the letter to shades of grey on the website.

4) Use color in changeable panels however the framework should be more gray, charcoal gray, or silver gray. Any color schemes want to be changeable. We like the idea of adding some grunge texture to the colored panels, background or banner images.

5) I am partial to white backgrounds but might consider a reversal with a gray/charcoal background with white/color letters.

6) We need a home page psd or wordpress file with editable layers and a typical content page file with editable layers. We will likely produce the site in Wordpress and use the winning design as the graphic template for the actual website file. Coding is not necessary but the layout must reflect thoughtful and logical navigation.

Hope this helps everyone - again your efforts are appreciated.