Life Here and There

If you’re not familiar with the technical side of blogging, some of this may not make much sense, but I’ve just finished rolling out the newest re-design of this blog’s theme. If you’ve been here before, you’ll notice some differences. Most of the changes took place on the backend. This blog runs as a self-hosted Wordpress-powered blog and I host it myself on a server I lease from Hostgator (aff link).

I recently had the privilege of being a beta tester for the new Standard Wordpress Theme (aff link) and decided to use it as the code base for Life Here and There. I’ve used plenty of other premium Wordpress themes before, I’ve released some of my own free themes, and most of the websites I design for others are built on Wordpress… so it’s an interest. I know a thing or two.

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I sometimes use space on my blog to pass along recommendations to church leaders who know my heart for technology and the church. I’m a big fan of using Wordpress as the basis of church website development projects, and when I run across a theme that I can instantly visualize as being used by churches, I pass it along.

Brian Gardner and the StudioPress team have created a very nice theme designed for use by educational institutions, but my assessment is that the educational emphasis is found only in the sample theme itself. Add your church’s logo and content and this is a very nice, very elegant theme with some great features such as drop-down menus, multi-columnar options for different pages, and a beautiful interface and color scheme.

Check it out here!

Disclosure: In the name of full disclosure, I am an affiliate with Studiopress. Any purchases you make clicking the above link may benefit me financially.

Today I released a new WordPress theme for the general public called Old News. I mention it here, partly because I want to get the word out, but also because I think it’s a great theme for ministry leaders who blog, or want to get started blogging. I’m especially happy with the strength of the code. It was developed in a WordPress 2.8 environment, is well-widgetized, and features such things as threaded discussions, breadcrumbs (without a plugin), and tabbed sidebars (like this site).

Head on over to my web design site and preview or download the theme.

Another cool premium-quality theme for churches has been released by Brian Gardner and his team over at the Revolution Theme Website. The theme is dark and includes the Featured Content plugin as well as two dhtml menus – one for pages and another for categories. The theme was designed around the needs of churches and ministries.

If you’re in need of a great WordPress theme for church or ministry, but can’t afford a custom site design, then take a look at the demo or visit Revolution Two for purchasing details.

I’ve been blogging for almost four years now, but I think I’d still call myself a late adopter. It’s only been within the last year and a half that I’ve begun to realize the power of optimizing my site for search engines, so I spent a couple of years blogging while nobody was listening. I’ve also been slow to catch on when it comes to social networking, but I’m quickly realizing I’m not alone – though many networks seem huge, most people I know still aren’t on them.

I thought I’d take just a few minutes and talk about the power of social networking and why I wish all my friends would jump in with both feet, as well as a couple of warnings…

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I’m releasing a free WordPress theme called Balance of Blue. It’s intended for bloggers and businesses and it’s loosely based on the code I used for the Ministry Free theme.

It has two columns in the main content area and three in the footer. It’s a bit more graphically involved than previous theme releases but still errs on the simple side. It’s optimized for some ad blocks – a banner in the header and a 300 x 250 in the sidebar.

If you need help, just leave a comment.

View the Live Demo

Download Balance of Blue

A note about support for this theme: If you find a bug, something broken that doesn’t work correctly, please let me know in the comments, but I’m afraid I can’t always answer questions about customizations – how to add a graphic, change font colors, etc. These are not bugs, but enhancements. I’d love to answer every question, but a great deal of time is required to do so.

If you require graphic or styling customization, you can check out the services I offer through my freelance site, eGrace Creative. You are also welcome to find someone else to customize the theme or do so yourself. Enjoy it!

Update: 09/21/2009

I’d love it if those of you who are using the theme on a live site would post a link in the comments. You’ll gain a wee bit of traffic and it will encourage me greatly!

Adding Your Logo or Header Image

One of the most frequently asked questions about this theme is about adding your own image to the header. Open up header.php either in the Admin > Appearance > Theme Editor window, or in a text editor on your computer. You’ll find a line of code that looks like the image below…

You’re basically going to upload your logo or header image to the theme’s directory on your server, then link to it. Everything in red in the image below has been added to display my custom image. Notice that I’ve kept the php call to the title in tact, but have used it as the alt= text of the image for SEO purposes. It will only be displayed if the image can’t load.

Need help with something else? Peruse the comments to see if your question has been answered and if not, leave a comment of your own. I’d rather answer questions via comment than by email so that others may benefit from the public answers.

I’m a huge advocate of using WordPress for ministry. To put it simply, Pastors can’t go wrong blogging with WordPress and church secretaries will find it super easy to change the content of a church web site powered by WordPress. Now and then, someone releases a very cool and totally free theme (design you can plug right in) for WordPress and I like to pass them along.

It looks awesome, has a great layout, a theme switcher on the left hand side, a featured article block at the top, and a nice barnwood background to boot! I like this one and I highly recommend it!

Visit the source: Color Paper: A Free WordPress Theme released by Smashing Magazine.

What do I do in my spare time? I design web sites. In particular, I design themes for a content management system called WordPress. I believe that WordPress is one of the most powerful and easy-to-use tools for online ministry. I’ve released several free themes to the general public and my newest one, Bible Scholar, may look familiar, since I formed it from the design of this site.

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Hey fellow Pastors, I’ve been writing my own blog since 2005. I’ve recently passed the 300 article mark and consisently receive a good number of visits via various search engines and other incoming links. It’s been a fun way to reflect on life, Scripture, culture, family, and everything in between. Here’s a link to a great article on John Piper’s blog on why every Pastor ought to have a blog.

The easiest way to get started is with a blogger blog, though I’d highly recommend WordPress as the ultimate blogging platform. You can use the free, hosted solution at WordPress.com or I’d be happy to host your blog for you (and handle some backend issues like email, upgrades, etc.) for a minimal hosting charge – just contact me if you’re interested.