Tag Archive - themes

Use Placeholder Theme While Your Church or Ministry Website is in Development

July 12, 2011 in Apps & Plugins, Blog, Tips & Tricks with 0 Comments

If you are in the process of designing, or re-designing your church or ministry website you can use a placeholder theme until it is ready. This is especially helpful if you can’t have an old site running while the new one is in development. It’s also helpful if you’re launching a new site and want to build anticipation up to the new site going live.

WooThemes has a Placeholder Theme that is free that is great for that purpose. Couple that with the ability to use different themes on different pages and you can work on the new site while everyone else only sees the placeholder theme on the home page.

Placeholder Theme from WooThemes

Have you used a placeholder theme before?

Moses Church Theme from ChurchThemer.com

June 9, 2011 in $50-$100, Blog, Themes, Under $100 with 4 Comments

ChurchThemer.com just recently launched a few months ago and their first theme is the Moses Church Theme. I like that it is designed specifically for churches and therefore has the ability to post sermon mp3s, events, location and service times. It also comes with the PSD files which is great for customization. Screen shot is below. Head to ChurchThemer.com and see if the Moses theme is a fit for you. If not, they have 2 more themes on the way soon that you might like.

Moses Theme from Church Themer

Visit ChurchThemer.com

No Need for WordPress Developers?

December 3, 2010 in Viewpoints with 9 Comments

I don’t like this ad:

Headway Themes

It’s for Headway Theme. I like Headway, I just don’t like the ad. I’m guessing that one of the motivations for pushing this message is to tick developers like me off enough to react to it. Another message, however, is why pay a bunch of money for someone who knows what they’re doing when you can just drag and drop stuff? That’s the message that gets my goad.

Let me make this clear – I like premium WordPress themes and plugins. The themes directory at WordPress.org used to be filled with so much junk, and with so many premium theme distributors using a GPL license and thereby having some free themes included in the directory, the overall quality of themes is on the rise. Furthermore, designers and developers have a plethora of great frameworks from which to choose as a base or framework. And I would agree that some organizations and entrepreneurs need to deploy sites quickly, skipping all the consulting and development time associated with working with a freelancer or agency. So I get all of that.

I just don’t like the message… “no need for WordPress develoeprs.” Here’s why:

  1. WordPress wouldn’t exist without WordPress developers.
  2. Improvements and updates wouldn’t be released without WordPress developers.
  3. Plugins wouldn’t be available without WordPress developers.
  4. Support for bugs, problems, and issues wouldn’t be available without WordPress developers.
  5. New boundaries wouldn’t be pushed without WordPress developers.
  6. Some organizations desperately need the eye for design, the head for usability, and the technical knowledge of a WordPress developer.
  7. I’m a WordPress developer… so it feels personal. Like Alex the Lion said, “you don’t bite the hand that feeds you.”

I’d like to congratulate the team that put Headway together. You’re a great group of WordPress developers. Keep up the good work. The internet does need you.

InstantShift Offers 80+ Free High Quality WordPress Themes

November 26, 2010 in Links & Articles with 5 Comments

Free WordPress ThemesFree WordPress ThemesFree WordPress ThemesFree WordPress Themes

80, and then some, all collected together in a nicely-organized post by InstantShift. Some are minimal, others magazine like, and many of them, of course, good for ministry website applications.

Read the Article

WordPress + AJAX = Mo’ Better Ministry Site?

November 18, 2010 in Viewpoints with 0 Comments

Just today, two different posts have crossed my screen, both of which deal with utilizing AJAX on a WordPress-driven site. The first article, How to Ajaxify Your WordPress Site appeared on Problogger.net, but was written by Jeff Starr, who collaborated with Chris Coyier on the book, Digging Into WordPress, which we highly recommend.

The second post was by Chris, the other member of the tag team, and was simple a re-visiting of a theme framework called All AJAX, available to anybody who buys the book. Both articles are sweet.

I’ve not messed around in the area of AJAX as much as I’d like to, but would love to see examples of ministry sites utilizing it in a WordPress environment. If you’re all over this, or know of examples, please pass them along!

A WordPress Theme for Live Church Services: LiveTheme

November 14, 2010 in Blog, Themes, Under $100, Under $50 with 4 Comments

The crack team at 8bit has risen to a massive occasion. Tons of churches are opening live online broadcasts and online campuses in a variety of forms. The creators of the Standard Theme have built one very sleek, ready-to-go solution for those churches and it’s built on… yep, WordPress!

Live Theme for Online Campuses

In their words:

When we first had the idea to develop Live Theme, we did a little research to find out who and what we would be up against. Only makes sense, right? When we couldn’t find anyone else meeting the needs of Live Event broadcasters, we went straight to work.

We’re proud of our theme and we know being first to market doesn’t guarantee success. Which is why this is only the beginning.

If you’re involved in any kind of live broadcasting, ministry or otherwise, grab a copy!

Live Theme

Outreach Theme for Churches

November 12, 2010 in $50-$100, Blog, Themes, Under $100 with 2 Comments

StudioPress is responsible for the awesome Genesis theme framework, which is one of the best frameworks when it comes to developing child themes. StudioPress has released plenty of those as well, including one rather over-used theme simply called Church Theme. I’ve seen it everywhere and now spot it a mile away.

Thankfully, they’ve released a second theme for churches and ministries that seems much more ready for the current state of church web design called Outreach.

Outreach WordPress Theme for Churches

It even integrates a rather nice slideshow, and all of the widgetized goodness of the Genesis framework.

Outreach Theme

Standard Theme

November 2, 2010 in Blog, Themes, Under $100, Under $50 with 11 Comments

The Standard Theme claims to be one of the best-coded WordPress themes available, and we tend to agree. It’s used across a myriad of ministry and leadership blogs, including that of Michael Hyatt and this site.

Here’s a screenshot…

The Standard WordPress Theme

The theme is most appropriate for a blog-style site. The main navigation that ships with the theme moves horizontally across the top of the theme while the content flows vertically, like most blog archives. But if you’re a WordPress hack, you can certainly tailor it to almost any design.

Standard Theme