Living Open Source

10 Best Church WordPress Themes?

Apr 29th, 2008 by Tim 27

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.

Theme Homepage

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.

Theme Homepage

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!

Filed under: WP Churches | Tags: Church, Themes, WordPress
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27 Comments on the Comment Wall

1 On April 29th, 2008 at 11:50 pm Steven Snell said:

Thanks for mentioning my post! At the time I was researching specialty themes which targeted a specific niche, such as churches. I wasn’t intending to say that no churches made good use of WordPress. Yes, some other themes have been customized for churches, but I still haven’t really seen any other free themes created specifically for churches and available for anyone to download.
2 On April 30th, 2008 at 2:33 am Chris said:

Hey Tim,

I just wanted to clarify something in your post here. Your link to the Ocean Mist template is a version that I ported for ExpressionEngine and not the version for WordPress.

The version you want for WordPress is the original theme by Ed Merritt and the link for the actual theme is over at Ten by Twenty.

My apologies for any confusion!

All the best,
Chris

P.S. Email also sent to you, in case you don’t see this right away.
3 On April 30th, 2008 at 7:13 am Tim said:

Thanks Chris. I’ve updated the link.
4 On April 30th, 2008 at 6:35 pm Rick Boyne said:

Chris,
Thanks for using our website as an example of Andreas 09. While it may not be the perfect template, it meets our needs right now, which is to have a website up and running with zero budget!

I chose Andreas 09 because it has the buttons expand as I need them at the top. I don’t like not having a custom image header and will be probably changing our layout in the next month.

I appreciate this post; it helps me to see what choices I have.

Rick Boyne
Pastor
Immanuel Southern Baptist Church
http://www.immanuelsouthern.com
5 On May 1st, 2008 at 11:02 am Tim said:

Rick, I think you have made great use of the tools available on WordPress.com. Lots of churches don’t have people with much technical know how and I don’t think many people realise how easy it is to set up a site on WordPress.com.

There are many better designed sites around, and I don’t like the Andreas theme all that much, but you’ve put it to good use. It’s also great to see pictures of people and not buildings on your home page!

And, I think you meant Tim (owner of this blog) not Chris?

blessings
6 On May 1st, 2008 at 8:47 pm Rick Boyne said:

Tim,

Yes, you, not Chris….

Sorry ’bout that!

Rick
7 On May 27th, 2008 at 5:47 pm Rich Schmidt said:

Has to be used by a church? How about by church-related organizations? I’ve used several, most of them modified/customized in some way. Let’s see…

Ala Moana – http://www.livinghope.info (our church)

Benevolence – http://www.desperatevalpo.com (for a series we did)

Vintage Stripes – wired.livinghope.info (our youth group, not customized yet)

PressRow – http://www.sharefestpc.org (multi-church annual event)

Pool – 2007.sharefestpc.org (used for that event previously)

Upsilon – http://www.valpochurches.org (our ministerial association)

It seems to me that lots of themes work well for churches… though very few are designed specifically for them.
8 On May 28th, 2008 at 10:56 pm travesti said:

hmm
Has to be used by a church? How about by church-related organizations? I’ve used several, most of them modified/customized in some way. Let’s see…
9 On May 29th, 2008 at 7:02 am brVince said:

Im a user of this cool theme for personal expressions… i find it like… “a spirituality of theme…”
10 On June 12th, 2008 at 8:46 pm Jonathan Blundell said:

We built our entire church site in WordPress.
We built our own look and style off of a base theme :: Rockin Letterhead Blue 2 Column by Cory Miller.
Check it out… http://www.encounterthis.com

My wife and I also built a theme to run our “household” website…
http://www.casadeblundell.com

Either could be adapted for churches or other organizations.
I’m looking at adapting the encounter one for another ministry I’m involved in as well.
11 On June 17th, 2008 at 3:10 am Brian Dusablon said:

I used MimboPro for the Atascocita Presbyterian Church site.

They offer non-profit discounts, and it has worked out really well.

http://www.apchumble.org
12 On June 25th, 2008 at 8:50 pm Jeff said:

Tim,
We continue to get lots of mileage from the Upsilon theme on our site. Many thanks!
13 On September 1st, 2008 at 7:54 pm 10 Best Church WordPress Themes? « Freechurchwebsite’s Weblog said:

[...] 10 Best Church WordPress Themes? Jump to Comments Living Open Source Has a list of what they consider the 10 best WordPress themes for church websites. [...]
14 On September 22nd, 2008 at 11:51 pm Brian said:

Not long after switching from Joomla! to WordPress, I stumbled upon the slickest, most modern-looking theme, simply titled “cross,” I’d seen thus far that is workable for a church web site…and I began using it immediately. I found it on http://themes.rock-kitty.net/

So far, everyone in the church who’s seen it, including the pastor, really, really likes it. Finding the perfect theme is so key, because it makes the rest of the work so much less frustrating.

My church site is http://www.quintcitybaptist.org. I welcome your comments via the Contact Us page…just address your remarks to the web master and not the pastor…he’s not responsible for any of the goofs!
15 On October 1st, 2008 at 7:22 pm travesti said:

O my good Hi Turkey İstanbul
and I don’t like the Andreas theme all that much, but you’ve put it to good use
16 On October 10th, 2008 at 12:10 am Bill Robbins said:

I’ve made a couple of free themes for churches. You can find them at my website http://www.organizedthemes.com. I love wordpress as a content management system, and have tried to adapt it to a church without making the site look like a blog. I’d love to know what you guys think.
17 On January 15th, 2009 at 8:49 am Aaron said:

Church out my free premium wordpress theme built specifically for churches, Sero.

http://www.churchwebdeveloper.com/2009/sero-a-free-premium-church-wordpress-theme/
18 On February 11th, 2009 at 8:28 am yusup said:

nice .. thx.. for the list.
19 On February 19th, 2009 at 5:00 am Christian Church Search » Some Top Wordpress Templates for Churches said:

[...] via Living Open Source » 10 Best Church WordPress Themes?. [...]
20 On February 23rd, 2009 at 11:29 am Tim said:

You might want to check out my new Mu theme designed with churches in mind.
21 On April 27th, 2009 at 12:07 am links for 2009-04-26 « Where Is All This Leading To? said:

[...] Living Open Source » 10 Best Church WordPress Themes? (tags: webdesign website templates wordpress church themes) [...]
22 On April 27th, 2009 at 8:00 am What are church websites that you would like to emulate? « Bethel MB said:

[...] first Google hit for “church site wordpress” lists the 10 Best Church WordPress Themes” of which St. Helen’s Baptist is the example site for the 1st [...]
23 On June 29th, 2009 at 7:09 pm DavidM said:

I’ve recently opened a free theme site where one key focus is providing free church themes for the major CMS’s. It’s at http://webstylee.com.
24 On December 18th, 2009 at 4:27 pm Aydin said:

kann jemand mir helfen pilz wordpres themes church_10 wo kann ich finden
25 On January 10th, 2010 at 3:57 pm Sesli Sohbet Sesli Chat webcam said:

O my good Hi Turkey İstanbul
and I don’t like the Andreas theme all that much, but you’ve put it to good use
26 On January 20th, 2010 at 1:28 pm Lane Lester said:

Like Brian, I stumbled across the Cross theme and found it the best theme that had a “Christian” header. I used it for our small church, and now that I’ve moved, I might use it for my next. But I appreciate this post and the additional possibilities to consider.
27 On August 14th, 2010 at 8:52 pm travesti said:

Brian, I stumbled across the Cross theme and found it the best theme that had a “Christian” header. I used it for our small church, and now that I’ve moved, I might use it for my next. But I appreciate this