Since more than 15% of the web is powered by WordPress, itís not surprising that many churches are utilizing it. Here’s a collection of great resources for churches using WordPress:
WordPress Themes for Churches
WP for Church
WP for Church began to offer responsive church themes this summer. The site started last year to provide WordPress training and church specific plugins.
Church Themer
After launching in February of last year, Church Themer has released four themes. All of them have built in support for audio sermons and simple events management.
Theme Loom
As the oldest church theme provider, Theme Loom has 8 themes available. What makes Theme Loom unique is that all of their recent themes are fully responsive and offer full support for BuddyPress.
Church Themes
Churchthemes.net has four different church themes available for free. They sell premium versions that include built in support for sermons & podcasting.
Theme Forest
There are quite a few church themes now available on Theme Forest. Here’s a few favorites:
WordPress Plugins for Churches
Sermon Manager
Sermon Manager lets you organize audio or video sermons by speaker, series, and topic. Notes can be attached to each sermon. Images can be added to any sermon, speaker, or series. It utilizes custom post types and taxonomies to organize the messages. An add-on is available to add sermons directly by uploading an mp3 file.
Sermon Browser
Sermon Browser is the first plugin to manage sermons for churches. It is used widely, but development seems to have ceased at this time.
Church Pack (Free & Pro)
Developed to meet the common needs of churches using WordPress: nicely display staff, ministries or groups, photo galleries, events & more!
Spiritual Gifts Survey
The Spiritual Gifts Survey gives a 128 question test and ranks the gifts based on the test score.
church_admin
This plugin seems to have a focus on churches in the UK, but includes several useful features: calendar, address book, small group categories, Sunday rota and bulk sms and mailshot facilities.
PrayBox
PrayBox is a prayer request application that allows users to submit requests, or pray for existing requests, as well as allowing site administrators to manage prayer requests. A pro version is available with advanced moderation features.
Other Resources
Gallery of Churches Using WordPress
Tim Hyde has compiled a huge gallery of churches using WordPress for your inspiration here.
Hosting for Churches Using WordPress
I’ve only discovered one host offering special hosting packages and support for churches using WordPress: Baptisthost.net
What other resources have you discovered for churches using WordPress?
I’m constantly amazed at how a niche market can develop into an entire industry. Very cool tools!
These are great themes for churches websites that word press offers. Thanks for sharing.
Glad you liked them!
Great find, I’m going to have to check this one out. Thanks for sharing. Very informative….
In designing a number of church websites and watching them fall to pieces almost immediately after handing over the keys, two things to keep in mind are stressing the importance of quality content. Both in copy and in professional photography. If you ever have an opportunity to share some of the philosophy behind solid content strategies to a church, please do so. Many do not understand what branding is or why it is so vitally important.
Thanks for the feedback, Tim! It’s difficult because churches face the inevitable turnover of volunteers managing their web presence. Churches need to adopt a clear written policy for the church website so continuity can be maintained no matter who is managing it. Hey! That sounds like a great idea for an article 🙂
Hi Jack.
You’ve put together some great themes in this post. Very interesting to see how this niche has developed.
Best wishes, Alex.
Really interesting!!
This is very helpful post. More interesting word you say more traffic you will get from your comment.
This is a handy list of resources. Thank you for mentioning my Risen theme. Keep an eye on https://churchthemes.com, an upcoming theme shop for churches that we’re building right now.
Amazing, I was looking for some inspiration and found this post. Can’t say I was really expecting to find a post on WordPress church themes 🙂
By my count, there are nearly 100 WordPress themes made specifically for churches now. Isn’t that great?