New Church Instructions

Once you have uploaded and installed your theme, either using the built in uploader or FTP, go to themes and activate the New Church theme from the list of installed themes.

Main Options

Now you will two new menu items under the “Appearance” menu, theme options and front image. Let’s take a look at “theme options” first. Here you can configure most of the settings for the New Church theme. The first option is to choose a design style. Here you can select from one of the six styles that are included with the theme. Below that are options that pertain to identity and navigation. The first one is to choose between an image logo and text that displays the title of your site. If you want to use your church’s existing logo, choose image logo and follow these instructions.

To upload your logo and image for the front page, use the add media button. Copy the URL that is provided after the upload and paste it in the appropriate blanks. Save your options and you should have your own logo and front image.  There is a logo template included inside the zip file you downloaded when you purchased the theme.  It is inside the “extras” folder.  To make things fit as they should, your logo should be 113 pixels high and no more than 400 pixels long. For best results use a PNG or GIF file so you will be able to see the header through the transparent parts of the image.

You can also add a favicon (the small icon that goes next to your web address in your browser). Use the add media menu as above to upload the favicon and copy the URL that you receive after uploading the image. Past the URL into the blank and you will now have a favicon for your site. For best results use a gif, png or ico file. You can make a favicon here.

The Blog Page Category allows you to select a category of posts that will be displayed on any page using the blog page template. This will easily allow you to create a blog and place it anywhere in your site.

The Home Page Options allow you to give names to the slider tabs in the bottom right of the home page. These three tabs each feature areas for widgets that can be configured by going to the “Appearance” menu and selecting widgets.

The last area is for Google Analytics or another statistics tracking tool. To use this feature, sign up at www.google.com/analytics and paste the code they provide you into this box. Save your changes and you’re ready to go.

Home Page Slideshow

The Front Image menu allows you to create a slideshow for the front page. To use this feature, browse to the file on your computer you’d like to use and upload it. The image will need to be at least than 517 pixels wide by 284 pixels high. Once the image uploads you can add a link to that image so that when someone clicks on it, they are taken to that page. It’s perfect for announcements.

Page and Post Templates

New Church comes with three page templates, one with a sidebar, one full-width page, and one blog style page. The blog style page displays posts from the category you specify in the control panel so you can easily integrate a blog into the rest of your site.

There are also two post templates included. The first is the default, but the second is made for message podcasts. This template can be selected by choosing it from the menu right below the main post write box. Once selected, you can fill in the details in the “podcast details” box to allow them to easily be displayed on your message podcast post (listen to message link, speaker and subscribe in iTunes). This information also ties into the messages widget described below.

Read More Code and Widgets

You can also include a read more button in any text widget, page or post by using this built in code:
[button href="http://www.yourlink.com"]Button Name[/button]
Just replace the http://www.yourlink.com with the URL to the link you’d like to use (leave the quotes) and change Button Name for the label on your button. Now you’ll have a button to link to more information in any place you’d like.

New Church also includes two custom widgets. The first easily displays your contact information (name, address, phone number and email link) where ever you’d like it to go. You can see it in use on the homepage in the bottom left corner. The email link is encrypted so spam bots can’t steal your email address. The other widget is a custom widget for displaying your recent messages. You choose the category and it will create a dynamic list with the number of messages you specify.

You are not required to use the podcasting widgets or templates with this template. They are available if you’d like to, but in no way are they required. If you have a plugin you’d like to use to augment these features or replace them entirely, there is no editing required to do so.

Thank you again for choosing New Church for WordPress. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at www.organizedthemes.com/support for help.