Church Themes – X Theme

[vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][image type=”none” float=”none” info=”none” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” src=”1537″][vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][skill_bar percent=”90%” bar_text=”Design 90%”][skill_bar percent=”95%” bar_text=”Development 95%”][skill_bar percent=”80%” bar_text=”Ease of Use 80%”][skill_bar percent=”95%” bar_text=”Features 95%”][button shape=”square” size=”large” float=”none” block=”true” target=”blank” info=”none” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” href=”http://themeforest.net/item/x-the-theme/5871901?WT.ac=search_item&WT.oss_phrase=x&WT.oss_rank=1&WT.z_author=THEMECO&ref=andrewpeters”]Buy Now![/button][/vc_column][/vc_row]The X Theme as a church theme is a solid choice for a ton of reasons. I haven’t used it to build a church website, but I have used it to build two ministry sites. One is the New Breed Revivalists site, and the other is a venture of mine, TheChurchPlanter.org, that will help chronicle our own church planting journey and resource other planters and leaders. As a church theme it has great appeal, solid framework, has tons of ‘how-to’ vids, and can be picked up quickly if you devote yourself to it. I’m gonna start with some cons of using this as a church theme and then layout some of my positives! I’m personally using it on two sites so this is something I’m actually using with success and loving it.

Cons:

• Can be intimidating if you just jump right in. There’s a bit of a learning curve with this theme that can seem overwhelming if you just click on options and start playing around. I recommend going and watching the ‘how-to’ videos in conduction with your setup. It made my job and setup time a lot easier and faster!
• Even after the videos the options panel on the front end can seem a bit much. Maybe i’m just used to doing everything in the dashboard area, but I prefer to work my theme options on the backend. This maybe not be a con…more a preference.
• The price. This is priced a little higher than the other themes I use. I don’t usually by themes in the $40 range. Most of mine are around $50. But this one is $63. That extra few bucks is a con, but it certainly doesn’t have to be a deal breaker.
• Make sure you go to settings on the back end to set a static home page. Most themes have it in the customizer on the front side…for a theme with such a heavily customized front end, I couldn’t find it.

Now let’s lay out some of the reasons that this theme is awesome. Keep in mind, I use this site myself and have enjoyed it. I only have one client right now that uses it, and they are enjoying it as well. I hope the review of using X as a church theme helps you in selecting the right fit for your church or ministry.

Ease of Information

One thing I love about this church theme is that there are tons of neat places to insert information that are already built in. Sometimes, when you don’t be a theme specific to a church or a business, you will have to create a widget area somewhere that lets you display service times and other pertinent information that needs to be above the fold. With this theme there are multiple areas to add info in the header area. One of my favorite is the hidden drop down area.

When you click on that little yellow corner up in the top right it drops down to show an information area that is populated by a widget area. You can make multiple columns. Two will usually suffice to get your point across.

You might say ‘well who is going to see that.’ When I was testing the site that little thing in the top right corner caught my eye immediately and said to my brain ‘please click me.’

If you use this area, find something useful to put there because just about everyone that comes to your site for the first time will see it and most will click it.

Community

One of the biggest plusses of using X as a church theme is that it integrates with BuddyPress beautifully! Buddy press basically turns your site into your own personal Facebook.

FB is the most popular website on the planet, and outside of Google, the most visited. People want online community, and you can bring that to your church’s site.

There are expensive Church Management solutions, such as The City, that are making a TON of money by building on this concept…and you just did it for 63 bucks and downloading BuddyPress for free.

My Church Planter site is about resourcing, but just as important to resourcing is the community that it provides. Imagine your small groups having their own online community to communicate within your church site. Or your leaders having the same.

Push it as a place to connect specifically with people in the church, a place to share what God is moving, and a place to build relationships and encourage all of your leaders to utilize it. It will do wonders for the connectivity of your church, and X theme does it better than any other theme I’ve come across.

Customizability

X Theme comes with 4 ‘stacks.’ Basically, its 4 themes in one. The stacks are Renew, Integrity, Icon, and Ethos. I always end up recommending Integrity for church sites. It just looks best to me for what Church Themes are meant to accomplish.

On top of the four stacks, each stack has 10 demos that you can view. That means that out the gate they have made 40 custom site layouts for you to take a gander at. You can find a site that suits your fancy, import the data and settings, and just tweak it to make it look how you want. I started from scratch on one site and then imported and tweaked on another. The import saved me about an hour and a half or so (remember learning curve?) on customizing my site.

One of a Kind Pages

The headers and image options are customizable on every page. If you go to my church planting site the first thing you see is not some header with the menu and logo, its a big picture letting you know that the site is coming soon. I didn’t use any coming soon plugin, I just moved the header ‘below the masthead’ on the header features when you’re making the page. This is a great idea for a special event you are having.

This theme comes with a highly customized version of Visual Composer built in. This allows you to make every page look exactly the way that you want it to. Watch a quick video on it and play around and you’ll be good to go. This is also where the demo content comes into play. You can find a home page that you love and just import it directly! And then use Visual Composer to customize your church theme’s home page!

It’s a Complete Theme

This is one of the features that makes up for that extra $20 bucks you just spent. It comes stacked with Revolution Slider (I like layer slider better but hey FREE), Visual Composer (there’s $30 you didn’t have to spend), and all the X-shortcodes that round out the theme. I am only using two plugins that add to the design that I had to pay for. One is Gravity Forms. I have a developer license, so you could just as easily use Contact Forms 7 for the low price of free. I also didn’t really like the team short code, so I bought a Visual Composer add on to create a staff page.

Awesome Support

This really did it for me too. I’m not a WP pro. I’m a pastor that knows a pretty good bit…at least enough to help other church leaders! The support forum, how to vids, and knowledge base for this theme is top notch and will help you make your church site look just how you want it!

Other Pros:

• All purpose website theme. You can use it for anything…including your church.
• Responsive theme. Very fluid in mobile forms.
• Retina display enabled.
• Over 600 Google fonts to use
• Customize your church site using shortcodes
• Super Clean coding
• Over 400 icon fonts available
• Integration with Woo Commerce for when you start selling your books
• About $50 of free plugins
• Lazy Load (basically, your site will load quicker
• Straightforward options (once you watch a tutorial it makes a ton of sense)

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my experience with the X theme as a Church Theme. let me know about your experience with it! 

[button url=http://themeforest.net/item/x-the-theme/5871901?WT.ac=search_item&WT.oss_phrase=x&WT.oss_rank=1&WT.z_author=THEMECO&ref=andrewpeters target=blank size=14]Buy Now[/button] Price : $63