free church wordpress templates
My Favorite Wordpress Themes for Churches
Some of the best free church Wordpress themes:
- [UPDATE] Ministry Theme – As you might guess, this theme is built specifically for ministry websites. I’ve never come across this theme, but it looks really great. As of right now, the theme isn’t able to be downloaded as the creators of the theme tweak it to be more compatible with Wordpress 2.7. It also looks like they may re-release it as a paid theme, but up until now it was free. Thanks to Bill Robbins of Organized Themes for pointing this one out.
- Ashford – This theme claims to be among the most user-friendly for the novice. Among the unique traits of this theme is the ability to edit certain aspects of the website from the front end rather than having to login to the back end of the website at do all the editing. I have never used this theme, but if you have never used Wordpress before (or will be allowing other people to edit the site who have little experience), this might be the perfect theme.
- LivingOS UPSILON – A very clean theme with a rotating picture header. Changing the pictures takes a little bit of code work, but it’s pretty easy to figure out. I used this theme to create PassingOnFaith.com for a conference I helped organize. This theme was designed specifically for churches. Check out the other themes at LivingOS.
- Notepad – I’ve never worked with this theme, so it might be difficult to customize. Since it’s free, the only thing you lose is time if you end up not liking the theme. If you will only have a few pages, this is a very clean look that makes it clear where information is located on your site. It also has 13 different color schemes.
- WP Full Site – Targeted at small businesses, but could easily be adapted for church use.
- Organized Themes.com (some paid themes, too) – Run by a guy who worked as an associate pastor and realized churches need a simple way to present their web content and began designing Wordpress themes. I’ve never used them, so I can’t speak for their user-friendliness but a few of them look really nice.
- Refueled.net – Never used their themes but I have seen some churches that have. Look like they would be very easy to use and for certain demographics they would provide a simple solution.
- Ocean Mist – Another really simple site, but I’ve never used it so can’t speak for it.
- Vigilance – This is the new theme that I just switched to here at MattCleaver.com. It has some really sweet features that could make it a great site for churches to use. Go to the linked page to see the extra goodies that I am not using right now on my site. I can also vouch that it is very user friendly, a great place to start for newbies who want some flexibility and customization options. This is one of the best free themes I’ve run into in a long time.
- Titan – Just released on March 11 by the same guy who made the above Vigilance theme, Titan is another amazing looking theme. This theme offers drop-down menus that are helpful for sites with a lot of pages.
- Sero – I almost used this theme for something a few months ago, but can’t remember what it was or why I decided against it. Anyways, it’s a good looking theme that might be right up your alley.
- WooThemes (mostly paid themes, but some freebies) – WooThemes has some really sweet themes, most of them paid. There are a few free themes though, like the Original Premium News theme that Tim Schmoyer uses.
Paid Themes:
- Church Wordpress Theme ($59.95) – This is a pretty advanced theme that was free for a very short period of time. During that time I downloaded it and played around with it. I have to say, it isn’t for the novice but can make for a really good looking site if you know what you are doing.
- iThemes ($79.95) – iThemes has a lot of different themes, all paid, many of which would work fabulous for churches. In fact, I decided to purchase their Architect theme for our church’s website. I considered going the 100% free route when developing our church’s website, but decided a one-time fee of $80 was well worth it for a clean theme that did exactly what I wanted it to do.
- WPRemix ($75) – I used this theme for a project I was doing quite a while ago and it was pretty difficult to use. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if it has been updated significantly since then and is now more user-friendly.
- ChurchRoot (as low as $12.50) – This website just launched a few days ago on March 9 and is, as the name suggests, targeted specifically at churches. They have some great specials since they are just now launching their site.
- Thesis ($87) – Everywhere I turn these days, people are using this theme. Supposedly it is really flexible and customizable, yet has a really clean look to it. I’ve never used it, but it looks like a great theme.
Please leave some links and comments in the comments section below if you know of other great themes for churches. And yes, you can promote your own themes, paid or free! If I like them, I’ll add them to the body of the post.
Source from :
http://mattcleaver.com/2009/03/16/how-i-built-a-church-website-for-free-picking-a-wordpress-theme/
Using WordPress to open the window into your church’s life is a recurring theme of my blog and one of the ways I’ve been able to share some of my skills with others.
A number of my own WordPress themes were designed for churches in mind, and I was surprised to discover someone had reckoned my Delta theme “the only decent-looking church theme”. I’m sure there are plenty of other great themes out there. So here is my version of the ten best that I have noticed being used.
And, oh dear, I could only find 6, that I could say were in some way “best”.
They are in no particular order and I hope you won’t mind me at including at least one mine!
1. Delta
I’m not sure it is the “the only decent-looking church theme”, but it is the one I put together for out church web site. You can see it in action here.
Theme Homepage
2. Ad Clerum
Ad Clerum is a distinctive theme and has been put to good use by Antelope Valley Church.
3. Mandigo
Mandigo is a fairly standard and popular WordPress theme. It has some big name users like Sony and Björk. Lindale First Baptist has put it to use for their web site, though the customised version is not quite to my taste.
Theme Homepage
4. Andreas09
Another popular WordPress theme. This one is here, because it is running on WordPress.com, which is where smaller churches with less technical skill can be on-line in five minutes for free. Immanuel Baptist seem to do OK with this. But…
Symmetrical 3-column designs are fundamentally flawed as a concept. One of the reason why Drupal hasn’t hit WordPress levels yet is the dominance of the 3 column centred theme – which just doesn’t work.
Theme Homepage
5. Ocean Mist
A much better theme, but also available on WordPress.com is Ocean Mist. Serpentine Rd Family Church are using this one.
6. Upsilon
OK, so I’ve included two of my themes, but while Delta gets the accolades, Upsilon has been the most popular of my themes; and not just for church applications. The main reason is that it includes SmoothGallery for a cool rotating header. See it action on Perimeter Pointe church’s site.
Theme Homepage
Help me out here!
There must be more than this. What do you think? Which ones have I missed? What is the best WordPress church theme? They must be free to be in with a shout and they must be being used by a church!
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