Chrysalis: A Premier Church Website Divi Child Theme

Today, we’re excited to announce our newest child theme for Divi: Chrysalis.

Chrysalis can be used by any church or religious organization, but we think it is especially well-suited to small town or neighborhood-based churches. Many unique features have been built into Chrysalis that are uncommon in other WordPress themes and Divi layouts. These features make it easier for you to create guest and member content, easily create sermons, grow small groups, and provide a terrific mobile-friendly experience.

What makes Chrysalis the right theme for your church? Let’s dig in!

Designed for True Digital Ministry

Your guests and members aren’t interested in a digital brochure. They want an interactive, useful site that helps them to get to the things they need most: event lists, news, sermons with related information, prayer concerns, age-level ministry information, and more. Chrysalis will help you create your full-featured site, quickly and effectively.

The 20 Pages Most Churches Need

After working with hundreds of churches on their sites, we know what most churches want. Most of these pages can work for other unique needs you have, too!

• News
• Events
• Pastor’s Blog
• Photo Gallery
• Donate
• Contact
• Members Portal

11 Essential Custom Theme Builder Layouts

• Individual Author (Speaker) Page
• Sermon Category/Tag Feed
• Individual Group
• 404 Page
• Search Results Page

Sermons (Services) Post Type

You won’t need a separate plugin on your site for managing sermons when you use Chrysalis. Our Sermons post type gives you a convenient way to include a sermon title, preacher or speaker, sermon series, topics, sermon transcript and/or notes, a bulletin or other worship guide, plus scripture passages and readings. Sermon pages support video, audio, and/or text based post formats. Sermons can be organized into series using categories and the included Sermon Series Page Layout. If you post your entire service online, this post type will work just as well. This post type can be further refined with Advanced Custom Fields.

Groups Post Type

Small group studies, volunteer teams, age-level ministries…these are just some of the things you can create with this custom post type. You’ll have fields for the group name, description, category, meeting location and time, calendar link, and the contact person with their email and phone. 8 sample groups are included. We cleverly repurposed Divi’s Project post type for groups, meaning modules that you could use with Projects now work with Groups. This post type can be further refined with Advanced Custom Fields.

Works Amazing in Mobile

Our design is perfected for both desktop and mobile. Our sticky mobile footer keeps your users from getting lost. It’s just one special aspect of our fully-responsive, mobile-friendly design.

Useful Contextual Menus

Every page also has a contextual menu in the upper right, making it super easy for everyone to find related pages.

Member-focused Header Section

Many churches find it tricky to set up their site for both guests and members. Our unique dual menu design will help members and “regulars” to quickly access your social media profiles and three important pages of your choice. By default, they’ll go to your Donate, Contact, and Members pages, but you can change these if you wish.

Interactive Livestream Worship Page

Used in combination with a plugin like WPLivestream, this page design helps you capture leads, connect guests, collect prayer requests, display previous services, and more…all next to your livestreamed worship service!

Photo Perfection Not Required

Is your church short on great photos of your ministries? We were careful to keep photo sizes manageable and photos themselves optional in our design to match photo ministries of any caliber.

Integrated Content Tips

Throughout Chrysalis, you’ll find dozens of tips that help you create awesome content…even if you’re not a professional writer!

Preschool or Standalone Ministry Landing Page

This one-page design works well for semi-independent special ministries, such as preschools, coffee shops, food pantries, campus ministries, and conferences. This layout also makes a good template for creating your own unique pages snce it contains a wide variety of sections.

Events Calendar Ready

One of the most popular calendars for WordPress is Events Calendar by Modern Tribe (which all Aboundant clients have installed). Chrysalis works seamlessly with its free and paid versions.

GiveWP Ready

The Donate page is designed to work perfectly with GiveWP, a popular, freemium WordPress plugin trusted by over 100,000 nonprofits. (All you’ll need with the free version is a PayPal or Stripe account.) Don’t worry, though – Chrysalis can be used with virtually any online giving system!

Liturgically Smart Color Scheme

We’ve leveraged global colors in Divi to make it easier for you to implement your own color schemes. The subtle yellows and taupes in Chrysalis pair well with every liturgical color, meaning you’ll have fewer colors to change. Note: Global colors don’t work everywhere yet in Divi…so there will still be some manual changes required.

Complete Video Walkthrough

You’ll get a comprehensive guide to using all the cool features we’ve added to Chrysalis. It’s a great supplement to the superb documentation Divi provides on its website and will help you get your site set up in no time. 

Support by Seasoned Church Website Pros

If you ever have a question, our team specializes in churches, nonprofits and other organizations that make a difference in the lives of others. We’ve worked in and with congregations like yours, and we’re happy to help you make your site shine!