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Church Content Plugin Guide

Church Content is our WordPress plugin for managing sermons, events, people and locations. All of our themes use this plugin which makes Switching Themes easy. The Pro add-on provides even more features.

Installation

See Plugin Installation for instructions on installing the Church Content plugin and Pro add-on.

Updates

Activate Your License Key for the Pro add-on to enable updates. The Church Content plugin is hosted in the official WordPress plugin directory so one-click updates are available without the need for a license key.

You can go to Dashboard > Updates to see updates that are available. Read our Updates guide for more.

Managing Content

This plugin adds links to your admin menu for managing church-oriented content. See our general guides:

  • Sermons – Publish sermons with text, audio, video and/or PDF. Categorize sermons by series, topic, book or speaker. Sermon podcasting also available with the Pro add-on.
  • Events – Show single or multi-day events with details and map. The Pro-addon enables recurring events and exclusion to save you time.
  • People – Publish staff and leader bios with contact details. Optionally organize people by group.
  • Locations – Show one or multiple locations, each with details, map and service times.

Pro Add-on

Church Content Pro is a plugin that adds additional features to the Church Content plugin. Upgrading to Pro can help you save time and attract more visitors. Usage of Pro features is covered throughout our guides. For example, go to the events guide to learn about recurring events. Below is an overview of Pro features with links to relevant guides.

Installing Pro – Use the Upload and Install method then Activate Your License Key to enable updates. Note that the Church Content plugin must remain installed as Church Content Pro is an add-on for it.
  • Sermon Podcasting – Easily podcast your sermons via iTunes, Google Play and other platforms using your automatically prepared WordPress feed.
  • Recurring Events – Save time by setting events to repeat automatically like “every Sunday and Wednesday” or “last Sunday of every third month”.
  • Event Date Exclusions – Hide events from the calendar on specific holidays, weather closings, etc.
  • Enhanced SEO – Automatically apply schema.org Structure Data using JSON-LD to help improve exposure on search engines. Auto-enabled in settings.
  • Location Memory – Save time adding events with location autocomplete and the ability to select previously used locations. Auto-enabled in settings.
  • Wording & URL Settings – For example, in Settings > Church Content, you can rename “Sermons” to “Messages”. You can also change wording in URLs.
  • Agency Mode – For agencies and freelancers to simplify license management on client websites.

Settings

The plugin’s settings are available at Settings > Church Content. Most settings for the Church Content plugin are optional. When you activate Pro, many of the Pro settings will be enabled automatically and you can adjust them as desired. Much of your website customization will be done in the theme’s implementation of WordPress’s Customizer feature.

The Google Maps API Key setting in the Locations tab is particularly important if you plan on showing maps for events or locations (recommended). See Create a Google Maps API Key for step by step instructions.

Translations

The Church Content plugin has been translated into several languages by its users, to whom we are very grateful. To activate a translation, just go to Settings > General and choose the language for your site at the bottom. Availability of a translation for the Pro add-on is noted. Translations may be partial and in that case we welcome your improvements.

If you would like to translate the plugin into another language, read Translating a Plugin. Please Contact Us if you would like to contribute your translation for the benefit of other churches.

Changelog

Church Content Plugin

Please see the Church Content Plugin Releases on GitHub to view what has changed.

Church Content Pro

The Pro add-on’s changelog is provided directly below. Most changes will be in the Church Content plugin itself as the Pro plugin only adds specific features.

1.2.3 (July 27, 2023)

Compatibility Update: This release begins preparation for PHP 9

Blog Post: All Themes and Church Content Pro Updated

  • FIX: Warning “Creation of dynamic property Church_Content_Pro::$priority is deprecated”
  • NEW: Add Czech translation

1.2.2 (October 14, 2021)

Compatibility Update: This release improves compatibility with PHP 8.

  • FIX: PHP warning on sermon embeds from Facebook with invalid duplicate HTML attributes

1.2.1 (September 15, 2021)

Compatibility Update: This release improves compatibility with PHP 8.

  • FIX: Sermon video embeds not working in some cases with PHP 8 (DOMDocument static deprecation)

1.2 (December 9, 2020)

Compatibility Update: This release involves changes related to the version of jQuery used with WordPress 5.6 (to prevent breaking changes when WordPress 5.7 is released).

Blog Post: All Themes and Plugins Updated for WordPress 5.6

  • IMPROVE: Replace deprecated jQuery events for WordPress 5.6
  • IMPROVE: Add googleplay:owner tag to podcast feed to help with Podcasts Manager verification
  • IMPROVE: Deployment tools
  • NEW: Add Vietnamese translation

1.1.3 (December 16, 2019)

  • Remove styles to fix button alignment issues with WordPress 5.3 (fixed in 5.3.1)
  • Update French translation from Bonnenouvelle.fr

1.1.2 (November 19, 2019)

  • Fix error when viewing a sermon with video while using a third-party theme not using the Church Theme Framework (with Enhanced SEO enabled)

1.1.1 (November 12, 2019)

  • Add Afrikaans translation

1.1 (November 6, 2019)

Blog: Church Content Plugin Update for WordPress 5.3 Compatibility

  • Style tweaks for changes in WordPress 5.3 (buttons)

1.0.7 (May 17, 2019)

  • Fix PHP notice: Undefined variable: embed_url

1.0.6 (March 12, 2019)

Blog: Spring Cleaning (Theme and Plugin Updates)

  • Add French translation
  • Make ccp_podcast_update_enclosures() use ctc_correct_all_sermons() for Church Content plugin 2.2+

1.0.5 (January 28, 2019)

  • Prevent podcast feed from showing HTML entities (decode in CDATA).

1.0.4 (January 8, 2019)

Blog: Church Content Pro 1.0.4 – Event Exclusions Improvement

  • Make ccp_correct_event() move recurring event to next non-excluded date when Start Date is set to be Excluded Date
  • Convert excluded_dates in ccp_event_recurrence_args to array format for calc_next_future_date() to use
  • Allow ccp_event_recurrence_args() to accept post ID or object
  • Make upgrader correct all events that have Start Date excluded
  • Add Danish translation

1.0.3 (October 24, 2018)

  • Allow excluded dates to be on Start and/or End date for an event.
  • Improve Norwegian (nn_NO) translation.

1.0.2 (October 12, 2018)

Blog Post: Theme and Plugin Maintenance Releases

  • Fix issue with event location memory failing when certain plugins enabled

1.0.1 (October 11, 2018)

  • Fix possibility of improper “Every Weeks” and “Every Months” admin events list

1.0 (October 2, 2018)

  • First release

Resources