A WordPress Theme for Congregations: Faith 2012

Faith 2012 is a WordPress theme built with the needs of congregations of all types in mind. Most WordPress themes are for businesses, magazines, news or personal blogging sites.  No matter how attractive, they can be an enormous challenge to adapt to a congregation unless you have an experienced WordPress developer at your disposal.  Many congregations don’t.  Hence this theme.

I’ve structured it to be highly adaptable.  You can add your own header photos (customizing down to the page level if you wish), change the background, revamp the sidebars and adapt the main menu according to the specific requirements of your community.  For details on how to use it, please see the documentation.

It comes in two versions.  Originally I developed this theme for my denomination and recently have adapted it to a more generic theme that should work for any religious community.

Sample image and caption

Sample image and caption

1. Faith 2012

This is the basic theme.

2. UU 2011

This version is for Unitarian Universalists.  The primary difference is the addition of chalices in the header and footer.

To Install

For those unaccustomed to installing a WordPress theme, here are basic instructions.  (Please note, this cannot be done on a WordPress.com site.  You must use a different web host.)

  1. Download the theme you are interested in.  Keep track of where this zip file goes.  Most likely it will go on your desktop or in a downloads folder.
  2. Open the administrative panel.
  3. In the left menu, click on “Appearance.”
  4. This will put you on the “Themes” page.
  5. Click on the Install tab near the top.
  6. Then click on the “Upload” link. (In the version I’m looking at now, the “Upload” link is  tiny letters, right under the tabs and above the search box.)
  7. Click on browse.
  8. Find the zip file you downloaded in step 1 and select it.
  9. Click on “Install Now.”
  10. You should see a series of messages along the lines of: “Unpacking the package…  Installing the theme…  Theme installed successfully.”
  11. Right below that there is a link for “Activate Theme.”  Click on that, and your new theme will show on your site.

Special Thanks

Thanks to the wonderful members of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Bowling Green, who made the development of this theme possible.