We here at ChurchMag love WordPress, and therefore, we love great WordPress themes. Thus, we really love Churchthemes.com! We’ve written twice before about the power of the Church Theme Content and their great theme Resurrect (post 1 | post 2). I’m not going to go too deep into describing how this ecosystem of themes works, but I will say that this is the second theme that my church has purchased from Churchthemes.com. We bought Resurrect two years ago, loved it, and have no doubled down with an upgrade to their new theme Maranatha Theme.
With that, time for a brief review, and then a surprise!
The Good
Maranatha Theme is a clean, modern—are we saying “post-modern” instead of “modern” yet?—theme with wide-background images with built-in transparency for that ultra-hip look. Furthermore, the navigation, though effective in the Resurrect theme, is sleek and far more appealing in Maranatha. Plus, I love the one-page appearance and circular “call to action” buttons. It’s seriously a beautiful theme.
The Bad
There’s nothing “bad” here to my eyes. Seriously. It looks great, and it sets up pretty easy. Now, there’s a bit of a learning curve with widgets, and I had forgotten how to get started with that since I hadn’t set up a new theme in two years. And yet, even with that, it didn’t take me much time at all. Besides, Churchthemes.com always puts out a great set-up guide for each theme and has excellent customer service!
Wrapping Up
Do you want a clean church website with church-specific features (sermons, events, people/staff) built on top of WordPress? Churchthemes.com is the only thing I recommend. Honestly, I think it’s the web solution for church websites. As a blogger, I think that all churches should have blogs, and if you’re going to have a blog, you need it to be a WordPress blog, and if you’re going to use WordPress, you’d better install Maranatha as your theme.
– Design (5.0)
– Features (4.5)
– Performance (5.0)
– Value for Money (5.0)
Maranatha is WordPress theme powered by the Church Content Plugin.
You can find more information about Maranatha Theme.
If you’d like to see my church’s site—still a little under construction—you can find it at BethaltoChurch.com.
Reuben Urias says
It’s been a little over a year since we updated our church website, however, I am hoping to build a site for our youth ministry or youth camp!
Phil Schneider says
Very ambitious, Reuben! Are these sites all WordPress?
Susan Kleinwechter says
I’ve used 3 themes by this author, and I’m excited about this one. I unshakable confidence confidence in their support. It’s been 3 years since we’ve updated my church website. We’re overdue. Maranatha would work well for us.
Phil Schneider says
Awesome, Susan! What theme are you currently using?
Steven Gliebe says
Thanks for using our themes, Susan! Good luck with the Maranatha giveaway!
Susan Kleinwechter says
Thanks, Steve! We’re exploring it also for use on our diocesan website. Eager to get under the hood!
Eric J says
I’m working on setting up a Maranatha site right now. My only bad was that Steve disabled the WordPress admin bar but I just turned it back on with my child theme.
Phil Schneider says
That bothered me, too, at first, but I liked being able to see the top menu.
Steven Gliebe says
Eric was kind enough to share an improvement that we plan to work into an update so that both the menu and the admin bar can work together. Thanks Eric!
Dean says
I’m looking at starting a marketing company for churches. This could help get it off the ground! I updated our church website about 5 days ago I think.
Phil Schneider says
It’s a really great theme. You’ll love it!
Steven Gliebe says
That would be great, Dean. A lot of freelancers and agencies build websites for church clients using our themes. It ends up being really easy for the church while still relatively inexpensive.
anthony says
It has been well over a year since I last updated the site so I just started. Glad I found this. Hopefully I win and I can do it properly.
Phil Schneider says
Very cool, Anthony. Have you used WordPress before?
Brad Caldwell says
Well, if you’re referring to content, it’s been a few hours since I added a slide saying that we cancelled church tomorrow night. If you’re referring to the look of it, it’s been probably about a year.
Phil Schneider says
Same for us. Constant content; annual or biannual redesign.
Adrian says
Content gets updated once a week, but design-wise, I can’t remember when we went live with the current WordPress theme – I suspect longer ago than I realise!
Phil Schneider says
“Longer ago than I realise” there’s a whole lot of truth for all of us in that!
Katie Allred says
This is me leaving a comment. I’m rather clever, aren’t I?
Phil Schneider says
So very clever.
Mike Howard says
We bought Exodus from Steve and love it.
Phil Schneider says
That’s awesome!