13 Best FREE Church WordPress Themes [2024]
Are you looking to build a website for a church? These free church WordPress themes will help you get started immediately.
We spent several weeks testing 35+ church themes.
We combined our findings with users’ opinions and ratings to bring you the 13 all-time best.
Not only do you not need to spend a penny working on your website, but it’ll also be fast. (The best!)
You’ll have a church site to grow your ministry sooner rather than later.
You can reach out to more people to engage with your ministry 24/7 by integrating sermons, forums, galleries, upcoming events and blogs.
Create a solid first impression and start sharing gospels efficiently!
Note: Don’t miss checking our premium church WordPress themes, too. (The possibilities are endless.)
Best Free Church WordPress Themes
1. Astra Church
Astra is a fast and lightweight WordPress theme that provides a solid foundation for church websites. It is highly customizable, allowing churches to reflect their values and mission through their online presence. Astra’s seamless integration with page builders makes it easy to design a website without coding knowledge, which is perfect for churches with limited technical resources.
The theme includes sermon libraries, event listings, and staff profiles, essential for church communities. Astra is also optimized for search engines, helping churches increase their visibility and reach more people in their community and beyond.
Key features for church websites:
- Pre-designed starter sites specifically created for churches to launch quickly.
- Integration with popular page builders for easy customization.
- SEO-friendly structure to help people find the church online.
- Support for various donation and fundraising plugins to encourage stewardship.
2. Hello Elementor
Hello Elementor is a minimalist and performance-focused WordPress theme that is an excellent starting point for church websites. It is designed to be fully compatible with the Elementor page builder, offering churches the flexibility to craft a unique website that caters to their community’s needs.
The theme is optimized for speed and responsiveness, ensuring that churchgoers have a smooth experience when accessing sermons, event information, or donation options. Hello Elementor’s simplicity allows churches to focus on content and functionality, providing a distraction-free environment for their message.
Key features for church websites:
- High compatibility with Elementor for designing custom church websites.
- Lightweight and bloat-free for fast loading times, even with sermon audio/video.
- Responsive and mobile-ready, making it accessible for users on any device.
- Support for a wide array of plugins, including those for donations and event management.
3. Kadence
Kadence is a highly flexible and feature-rich WordPress theme well-suited for church and religious websites. It offers various customization options to help create a welcoming online presence for any congregation. With its clean and modern design, Kadence provides a beautiful platform for churches to share sermons, manage events, and facilitate community engagement.
The theme is built with a focus on user experience, ensuring that church members and new visitors can easily navigate the website to find service times, upcoming events, or listen to the latest sermons. Kadence also supports various donation plugins, making it simple for churches to set up and manage online giving.
Key features for church websites:
- Sermon management capabilities to easily upload and organize sermon content.
- Event calendar integration for scheduling and sharing church events.
- Online donation support to facilitate tithes and offerings.
- Responsive design ensuring accessibility on all devices, including mobile and tablets.
4. The Church Lite
The Church Lite is a modern, professionally designed, responsive theme for religious websites.
But you can always tweak it for non-profit organizations, foundations, ministries, charities, and fundraising projects.
The Church Lite is a complete and feature-rich theme you can acquire for a free web presence boost. This theme is easy to set up and configure using the Live Customizer.
The theme also integrates some useful plugins to extend its functionality.
Specifically, it supports WooCommerce, so an online shop will be fast and easy to implement.
Likewise, The Church Lite supports the Yoast SEO for SEO optimization, Contact Form 7 for managing forms, WPForms and newsletter for further marketing purposes.
More info / Download Demo5. Social Care Lite
Ensure your church website’s design is simple and straightforward to build significant and lasting impressions. Social Care Lite is one theme that will help you make things happen.
This theme is for charity websites, but you can easily use it for foundations, churches, events, or political campaigns.
Social Care Lite has custom widgets for the sidebar and footer, color options, and a live customizer.
Social Care Lite is built with a responsive design to work smoothly on mobile devices.
It is built with SEO optimization (you can integrate any popular plugins).
This theme also supports plugins like Google Maps, Newsletter, Contact Form 7, Slider for highlighting fabulous content.
More info / Download Demo6. Charity Help Lite
Charity Help Lite can be an ideal theme for church websites even though it aims at charities by default.
This theme has a built-in Customizer panel to change the look and feel of your website easily and quickly.
Charity Help Lite is also cross-browser-compatible and responsive. (It will consistently look good on all modern web browsers and devices.)
It also comes with social media icons in the header so it’s easier for visitors to connect with you.
Additionally, its compatibility with WooCommerce lets you start selling products easily.
Your new church website is just around the corner.
More info / Download Demo7. NGO Charity Fundraising
NGO Charity Fundraising is an all-around free WordPress theme that you can use for a church website. Although the tool might cost nothing, it guarantees a professional outcome to spread the word out comfortably.
Moreover, NGO Charity Fundraising is based on the well-liked Bootstrap Framework. The flexible and extendable layout ensures smooth operation across all devices and platforms.
You will also find comprehensive documentation as part of the package to look through when needing additional details. You can also translate the theme.
More info / Download8. Milton Lite
Milton Lite is an engaging free church WordPress theme that is easy to work with. It has a somewhat simplistic boxed layout that beautifully displays all your content.
Moreover, Milton Lite also works with all the well-liked page builders, so you know there will be no coding necessary to work with the tool successfully.
The structure of Milton Lite is mobile-ready, fast loading, cross-browser compatible and in tune with SEO practices. A few extras are a drop-down menu, blog section, editable colors and regular theme updates.
Promote your local church and spread God’s word professionally with Milton Lite.
More info / Download Demo9. Faith Blog
Faith Blog – as the name implies – is a different style of church WordPress theme, exclusive to blogs and news sites. You can now make it happen like a champ with Faith Blog if you want to bring this to fruition.
Indeed, the tool will never ask you for any coding knowledge, offering you to get the ball rolling immediately.
Faith Blog also follows all the latest web trends, promising exceptional performance across all devices. The design also appeals to the eye, guaranteeing a great user experience.
More info / Download10. Prayer Lite
Prayer Lite is a modern and free church WordPress theme that you can also use for charities, non-profits and other religious websites.
The tool is easy to work with, ensuring everyone, whether a beginner or a professional web developer, gets the most out of it. You will never need to do the programming work with Prayer Lite, which is very handy.
From slider, scrolling animations, and back-to-top button to top bar, social icons, events, and video support, Prayer Lite rocks many goodies for your convenience.
Enter the online space with a bang, thanks to Prayer Lite.
More info / Download Demo11. TS Charity
As the name suggests, TS Charity is for charities, NGOs and non-profit organizations. However, with a quick tweak, you can also employ this sophisticated tool for a church page. (It worked for us!)
You can add your custom church content; that is all you need to do to transform the default appearance.
So. Simple.
You will find nothing missing in the TS Charity bundle to quickly realize a feature-rich website.
TS Charity is entirely translatable, in-tune with search engines, mobile-friendly and cross-browser compatible. There are also convenient social media functions that will help you spread the word out on a global scale.
But if you only operate locally, TS Charity will do the trick, too.
More info / Download Demo12. Faith
The modern, clean and minimalist design of a church website is a need, not a want! How people perceive your church’s website can make or break the first impression of your entire organization.
Faith is here to build your credibility and reputation online. It’s a free church WordPress theme with a unique and engaging design.
Faith features a beautiful slider in the hero scene where you can highlight great content to impress visitors.
Below the hero scene is a news section where you can share sermons, thoughts on doctrines, events, etc.
This theme has valuable pages, including About Us, Services, Ministries, Blog, and others. It also has an attractive donate button in the header for easy access.
More info / Download Demo13. Endurance
Provide the best forum for people to discuss sermons and let the world see what life at your church is like.
If you’re new to WordPress but want to build your church’s authenticity, check out Endurance. It is a free church WordPress theme with an excellent and creative design.
This theme allows you to exhibit your church’s mission and vision with style and elegance.
You can highlight the most awaited photographs of your latest church projects, sermons and other amazing content in the hero section. (You may also post recent articles.)
Additionally, this theme has an upcoming events spot where you can publish them easily.
It also has an engaging and captivating donate button for generous visitors who want to support your ministry.
More info / Download DemoWhat Features To Look For In a Church WordPress Theme?
When choosing a free WordPress theme for a church website, it’s essential to select a theme that is aesthetically pleasing and functional to cater to the specific needs of a religious organization. Here are some key features to look for:
Sermon Management
A good church theme should offer a way to easily upload, manage, and display sermons. This could include support for various media types such as video, audio, and text.
Event Management
Churches often host and organize numerous events. Look for themes that provide an event management system or compatibility with event calendar plugins to showcase service times, Bible studies, and community events.
Donation System
The ability to accept donations is crucial for many church websites. Ensure the theme is compatible with donation plugins to facilitate online giving and tithing.
Responsive Design
With the increasing use of mobile devices to access the web, a responsive design is a must. The theme should look good and function well on all devices, including desktops, tablets, and smartphones.
Customization Options
A theme with a customizable design allows churches to match their website to their branding with options for colors, fonts, and layout changes without needing to write code.
Social Media Integration
Integration with social media platforms can help churches reach a broader audience and engage with their community, so look for themes that offer social media features.
SEO Optimization
To help new visitors find the church online, themes should be optimized for search engines, which includes fast loading times, clean code, and proper use of HTML tags.
Multimedia Support
Churches may want to include various media types, such as images, video galleries, and audio playlists, to enrich their content and engage their audience.
Newsletter Sign-Up
Email newsletters are an effective way to communicate with the congregation. Themes that include or are compatible with newsletter sign-up forms or plugins can be beneficial.
Contact Forms
An easy-to-use contact form is essential for new visitors or members to contact church staff. Here are free contact form plugins for WordPress that you can combine with any church theme.
Accessibility
Ensure the theme adheres to web accessibility standards, making it easy for all users, including those with disabilities, to navigate and interact with the website. Free themes usually aren’t that good when it comes to accessibility. Therefore, I would suggest looking at these premium accessible WordPress themes that are certified.
Support and Documentation
Good documentation and support can be very helpful, especially if those managing the church website are not technically savvy.
When evaluating a free WordPress theme for a church, it’s important to consider the theme’s reviews, ratings, and update frequency to ensure it is well-maintained and supported by the developers.
Summary: Which Church Theme Is The Best For You?
In conclusion, when it comes to choosing a free WordPress theme for your church website, Astra, Kadence, and Hello Elementor stand out as strong contenders, each with their unique strengths.
Astra is a fantastic choice for churches looking for a lightweight and fast theme with pre-designed starter sites specifically crafted for religious institutions. Its SEO-friendly structure and support for various donation plugins make it a practical option for churches aiming to increase their online presence and stewardship.
Kadence, on the other hand, offers a high level of customization and user-friendly design options that can help create a welcoming and engaging online environment for your congregation. With its robust sermon management capabilities and event calendar integration, Kadence ensures that your church’s message and activities are front and center.
Hello Elementor is the minimalist’s dream, providing a clean and uncluttered canvas perfect for churches that want to design their site from the ground up using the Elementor page builder. Its performance optimization and mobile responsiveness make it an excellent choice for churches prioritizing accessibility and a seamless user experience.
Your choice between Astra, Kadence, and Hello Elementor should ultimately depend on the specific needs and goals of your church’s online presence. Consider the following to help you decide:
- If you want a theme ready to go out of the box with minimal setup, Astra and its pre-built starter sites might be the way to go.
- If you’re looking for deep customization options and robust built-in features for managing sermons and events, Kadence could be your ideal match.
- If you have a specific design vision and enjoy using page builders to create a unique website, Hello Elementor’s compatibility with Elementor offers the creative freedom you need.
No matter which theme you choose, each one provides a solid foundation for building a functional, inviting, and effective church website that can serve your community and grow your congregation.
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