Responsive WordPress Theme for Churches
This church theme for WordPress has the features a church website needs — a mobile-friendly
responsive design,
sermon archive, photo and video
gallery, church
events calendar, support for multiple
locations, staff profiles and
church news. The sermon archive is complete with the ability for visitors to search for audio, video and text sermons by category, tag, date and speaker. Risen has powerful
customization options that make it easy to change the theme’s colors, fonts and background.
Risen is also useful for non-church websites that need rich multimedia publishing capabilities for audio, video and photos and that want to promote events. The sermon archive can be fully renamed using the theme options, making this a WordPress theme not only for churches but also parachurch ministries, nonprofits and charities, conference websites and multimedia presentation archives.
This theme is
well-documented with over 30 pages of organized, easy to follow instructions explaining how to use its features. Additionally, a series of
video guides is included and
support is provided.
“I have to say I’m very impressed with your theme. It has made building the current site I’m on as easy as possible… I really wish all themes were built like this one. You did a phenomenal job of making everything customizable in the way it should be!” — Brent Barkley 
“This theme was extremely easy to use and the documentation that came with it was a huge help…The couple of questions I had were answered very quickly and efficiently. I would definitely recommend any theme by this author.” — duncan99
“I love risen! It has been easy to set up and looks really great... much better than what I had been using.” — Pastor Eric Atkins
“Great work on Risen! It’s the best church theme on ThemeForest!” — @wpforchurch via Twitter
”...looks great on my phone and tablet. Steven included all the features you would want in a theme designed for churches.” — wpforministry.com (Nick Blevins)
For more, see
What People Are Saying at the bottom of this page.
Mobile-friendly Responsive Design
The Risen church theme was designed to be responsive. In other words, it is mobile-friendly and will adapt itself to fit comfortably on devices with small screens such as phones and tablets. Scan the QR code below with your mobile device for a live demonstration.
Highly Customizable Colors, Fonts and Background
Risen was made to be easy to customize to match your church branding from within the WordPress admin area. You can choose between a
Light or Dark appearance, set a
Main Color, link color, change fonts (
200+ Google Web Fonts preloaded) and choose from
19 Preset Backgrounds, some of which can be colored (or provide your own). It is also easy to
Upload Your Logo. None of this requires editing code.
Sermon Archive for Audio, Video and Text
Put your pastor’s sermons online in audio (listen online or download MP3), video (YouTube or Vimeo), online text or downloadable PDF format. This theme provides a robust multimedia archive in which sermons can be organized and browsed by category, tag, speaker, month, day and year.
Photo & Video Gallery
Share your church photos and videos using the theme’s gallery features. Create multiple “albums” by organizing your photos and videos into categories.
Events — Church Calendar
Keep your congregation and community in the know about what will be happening by posting events to the church calendar. Events can include dates, times, address, Google Map and other information.
More Church Website Features
In addition to sermon multimedia, photos and events, Risen has features for posting
Church News (blog),
Staff Profiles, support for multiple
Locations, and a
Contact Form that can be configured with multiple recipients for the visitor to choose from (e.g. Church Office, Senior Pastor, Youth Pastor, etc.).
Complete Feature List
- Responsive design using HTML5 and CSS3 styling
- Theme Options powered by Options Framework
- Custom Colors (light or dark appearance, main, link and background color)
- Custom Background (full background image or pattern — 19 included or upload your own)
- 200+ Google Web Fonts
- Logo Upload
- Homepage has Responsive Slider (supports video), intro message, featured boxes and widget areas
- Sermon Archive with embedded video (YouTube or Vimeo), Audio Player, MP3 download, online sermon reading, PDF download and archives by date, category, speaker and tag.
- Gallery with photos, videos, categories and Responsive Lightbox.
- Church Calendar (Upcoming Events and Past Events)
- Support for Multiple Locations with map and directions
- Staff Profiles with e-mail buttons
- Church News (Blog)
- Search Results for posts, pages, sermons, photos, videos, events, locations and staff.
- Contact Form with multiple recipients and reCAPTCHA support.
- Custom Post Types for sermons/multimedia, gallery, events, staff and locations
- Custom Page Templates for sermons/multimedia, events (upcoming, past), gallery (categories, all items, images only, videos only), locations, staff, blog and contact.
- Custom Widgets for Enhanced Categories, Enhanced Recent Posts, Sermon Archives (by month), Recent Sermons, Recent Gallery Items, Events, Locations, Staff, Donations
- Widget Sidebars for regular pages, blog, sermons, gallery, events, staff, locations and contact
- Responsive Shortcodes for buttons, tabs, accordion, columns, boxes, quotes, maps and contact form
- WordPress Embeds extended for responsive videos
- Custom Menu support for header (with dropdowns) and footer
- Customizable Footer (menu, address, phone, copyright)
- Individual page and post options for header image and sidebar
- Breadcrumb Path
- Social Media Icons for Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, YouTube, Vimeo, Flickr, StumbleUpon, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Skype, Dribbble, Forrst and RSS
- Google Maps integration
- Google Analytics support
- Favicon upload support
- Automatic image resizing using native WordPress functionality
- Fully localized and Translation Ready (PO file included)
- Compatible with WordPress Multisite network
- Required WordPress styles implemented (.alignright, .wp-caption, etc.)
- Includes Child Theme for optional style and feature customization
- Comes with layered PSD Photoshop files
Support, Documentation & Video Guides
- Support is Provided by the developer
- Complete Documentation (40+ Pages) covering installation, usage and customization
- 12 Video Guides show you how to use the theme
- Installation Guide (4:54)
- Appearance Customization (5:00)
- Homepage Setup (5:00)
- Adding Pages (5:00)
- Custom Menus (4:56)
- Publishing Sermons (Multimedia) (5:00)
- Gallery Setup (5:00)
- Church Calendar (Events) (5:00)
- Church News (Blog) (5:00)
- Contact Form Setup (5:01)
- Staff Profiles (4:29)
- Adding Locations (5:00)
- Sample Content (XML) similar to live preview included — just import it
- Sample Widgets can be imported as well (instructions included)
- Well-commented HTML, CSS, JavaScript and PHP code
- Lifetime updates included
If you have a question that is not answered in the documentation or if you discover a problem, you can submit a support request via the form on my Profile Page (must be logged in to see it). My goal is to answer questions within 24 hours on weekdays (excluding US holidays and the rare period of travel).
Please Note: Support is provided for theme features and problems. Customizations not included.
Changelog
The current version is
1.1.8 (May 27, 2013) —
13th release. View the Changelog.
What People Are Saying
Here is some feedback from users of Risen and other WordPress or church website experts. Five stars have been placed by those who have mentioned that they rated the theme as such here ThemeForest.
“I have to say I’m very impressed with your theme. It has made building the current site I’m on as easy as possible… I really wish all themes were built like this one. You did a phenomenal job of making everything customizable in the way it should be!” — Brent Barkley
“This theme was extremely easy to use and the documentation that came with it was a huge help…The couple of questions I had were answered very quickly and efficiently. I would definitely recommend any theme by this author.” — duncan99
“I love risen! It has been easy to set up and looks really great... much better than what I had been using.” — Pastor Eric Atkins
“Easy to use and exactly what a church needs! Thanks Steve!” — Tim Dunnington
“A fantastic looking theme that is a breeze to set up with excellent documentation. 7 out of 5 stars. Highly recommended.” — simian1701
“This is a perfect theme for building a church website- I have little to no experience in building a website and yet found the layout and construction easy to follow and customize. Also, the creator is easy to contact and provides personal help, which is a huge benefit to purchasing this theme. And for anyone looking to build a site in another language, I built mine in Spanish and it’s working great!”
— Pastor Jason Boyle
“Loved your Risen Theme! Thanks so much for the excellent support documentation/videos, I’m brand new to this, and you made it almost too easy!” — Pastor Chad Cohoon
“I absolutely love your theme and have had fun playing with it to build my new site.”
— baharte
“Just want to say that your documentation is outstanding. Just started using WordPress and I felt like a pro with your great instructions.”
— Elena Rivera MacGregor
“Many thanks again Steven for your excellent support on your themes!”
— @hiwearesuperfly via Twitter
“Thanks for developing such a great theme for churches! We love that Risen is responsive, which is only increasing our engagement and reach!”
— elementdave
“Really superb theme! I love the attention to detail and…the support after the sale. Nice work!”
— Dave Knadler
“I wasn’t sure I’d be able to design a professional looking website on my own, but you made the process so straightforward — especially thanks to your easy to follow video tutorials.”
— Tori Hogan
“Great work on Risen! It’s the best church theme on ThemeForest!” — @wpforchurch via Twitter
”...looks great on my phone and tablet. Steven included all the features you would want in a theme designed for churches.” — wpforministry.com (Nick Blevins)
“I had the privilege of testing…and let me tell you, it is top-notch and very user-friendly.”
— Matt Cleaver, Church WordPress Tips
“This week’s featured author is StevenGliebe, who has…the newest from the Churches category.”
— ThemeForest Homepage, shortly after release of Risen
“Your documentation and videos are super! I’m so impressed. Worked with another theme but documentation was minimal…thanks for giving us a great product.” — mogulbear
”...thank you for designing such an awesome theme, coding it well, and providing such a great, extensively detailed support documentation page.” — Chimpie
“This is the best wordpress theme I have ever worked with! Great job.” — sporez
“I purchased this theme for my church’s website and had it up and functioning within a day. This is by far the best “church related” theme out there! The support is awesome! Thanks Steven and team.” — jordan0109
“I love this theme, looks great from the front and works great from the back. ” — Zerojosh
“Excellent theme, and fantastic documentation!” — counterform
“If you are looking for a church theme, Risen by @stevengliebe is a very beautiful option!” — @WPExplorer in tweet to 30,000 followers
“I am happy to have received such great customer service with this theme!” — pdiddy2aop
Sources & Credits
Much appreciation is given to the people behind these helpful projects and resources used in making the theme and live preview.
- Options Framework Plugin (GPL) by Devin Price
- locate_template_uri() from WordPress Trac by John Blackbourn
- Get YouTube Video ID from URL (CC BY-SA 3.0) by jeffreypriebe, Lasnv, WebDev and Chris Nolet
- reCAPTCHA PHP Library (free to distribute) by Mike Crawford and Ben Maurer
- Codestyling Localization (GPL) by Heiko Rabe
- WordPress Code: Earlier Shortcodes by Viper007Bond
- Excluding your plugin or theme from update checks by Mark Jaquith
- How to scale up featured post thumbnail? answer by levi
- jQuery (MIT, GPL)
- Modernizr (MIT, BSD) by Faruk Ates, Paul Irish and Alex Sexton
- css3-mediaqueries.js (MIT) by Wouter van der Graaf
- HTML5 Doctor Reset (public domain) by Richard Clark
- Superfish and Supersubs (MIT or GPL) by Joel Birch
- hoverIntent (MIT or GPL) by Brian Cherne
- SelectNav.js (MIT) by Lukasz
- FlexSlider (MIT) by WooThemes and Tyler Smith
- Backstretch (MIT) by Scott Robbin
- MediaElements.js (GPL, MIT) by John Dyer
- prettyPhoto (CC BY 2.5) by Stephane Caron
- Hash Fix by Eddie Monge
- Improved _fitToViewport() by Vladimir
- jQuery Validation (MIT) by Jörn Zaefferer
- jQuery doTimeout (GPL, MIT) by Ben Alman
- ColorPicker (MIT, GPL) by Stefan Petre
- URL Rewriting: Custom Post Types Date Archive by MillaN
- Custom Post Type Taxonomy Pagination by Justin Carroll
- jQuery Smooth Scroll (MIT, GPL) by Karl Swedberg
- jQuery Easing (BSD) by George McGinley Smith
- jQuery Cookie Plugin (MIT or GPL) by Klaus Hartl
- jQuery.browser.mobile (public domain) by Chad Smith
- CFInstall (BSD-style license) by The Chromium Authors
- getParameterByName (with permission) by James Padolsey
- Google Maps API
- Google Web Fonts
- Open Sans (Apache License) by Steve Matteson
- Shadows Into Light Two (SIL Open Font License) by Kimberly Geswein
- Sun Background (PhotoDune Extended License) by Serg64
- Wheat Field Background (PhotoDune Extended License) by jeka2011
- Premium Pixels (Orman Clark) Backgrounds (license allows use in ThemeForest themes)
- 11 Light Subtle Patterns (.PAT)
- 8 Seamless “Dark Metal Grid” Patterns
- 5 Bokeh Effect Backgrounds
- Elemis Backgrounds (license allows use in ThemeForest themes)
- Colorful Wood Background
- Tileable Wood Texture with 7 Colors
- 2 Tileable Grunge Paper Textures
- Tileable Brick Texture with 15 Colors
- Tileable Leather Texture with 2 Colors
- Tileable Corkboard Texture with 6 Color Options
- John Piper and Desiring God Foundation for sermon content for preview
- On The Third Day Slide by Luis Rivera (used in preview only)
- The Parables by Megan Watson (used in preview only)
- Reflection Icons by Webdesigner Depot (used by preview’s customizer slide out)
- Various images from iStockPhoto and PhotoDune
Note: With the exception of background images, the photos and illustrations seen in the live preview are
not included with the theme.
