"I saved our church A TON of money..."
— Eric Johnson What They Say

Jubilee Homepage

Jubilee features a widget-based homepage builder. You can use any widget in any order with a variety of settings for a custom homepage. Use your homepage to introduce your most important content. See demo for example.

Add Your Homepage

If you imported the Starter Content, this should have been done automatically. Otherwise, follow these instructions.

  1. Go to PagesAdd New.
  2. Enter “Homepage” as title and leave the content empty.
  3. Click Document, then…
  4. Under Template choose “Homepage”.
  5. Click Publish.
  6. Go to SettingsReading.
  7. Set Front page displays to “static page”.
    • Set Front page to the page you just added.
    • Set Posts page to your Blog page, if you have one.
Jubilee Add Homepage

How to add your homepage and make it show

Using Homepage Widgets

The homepage is a widget area so you can use the Customizer to manage your widgets with a live preview. No complicated page builder plugin is needed. We’ve made it simple by utilizing core WordPress features. Some aspects of your homepage’s design will be automated. For example, widgets with an image on the side will alternate between left and right to achieve balance.

Jubilee Homepage Builder

How to start building your homepage with widgets

Available Widgets

Use any widget in Jubilee’s homepage widget area. How they appear will depend on the settings you choose and whether or not they are a primary or secondary widget.

Primary Widgets

Several widgets are given special treatment when used on the homepage. They have an enhanced layout and additional settings compared to their use in the footer widget area. They’re bigger and bolder.

  • CT Section  – Heading, content and buttons with optional image on the side
  • CT Highlights – Small elements (three to a row) with heading, text and image that can be linked
  • CT Locations – Map and details for primary location with “Locations” button for more
  • CT Events – Upcoming events with dates, times, “More Events” button and optional image on side
  • CT Sermons – Most recent sermons (filterable by category) with optional image on side and archive buttons
  • CT Posts – Most recent posts (filterable by category) with optional image on side and category buttons
  • CT People – Manually ordered profiles (filterable by group) with optional image on side
  • CT Gallery – Five most recent photos in all galleries or a specific gallery

See Widget Tips below for additional details on some of the more noteworthy widgets.

Secondary Widgets

All other widgets are considered secondary and will show three per row when placed consecutively. They appear the same as when used in the footer widget area.

Adding a Widget

  1. Go to Appearance > CustomizeWidgets > Homepage.
  2. Click Add a Widget then choose any widget and drag it into the desired position.
  3. Customize the settings and content for your widget.
  4. Repeat for additional widgets on your homepage.
  5. Click Publish after previewing.

Jubilee Home Widgets

Reordering, Editing and Deleting Widgets

  • You can drag and drop the widgets to re-order them. There is also a Reorder button beneath all widgets.
  • Click a widget to expand it for editing.
  • To delete a widget, click it then click Remove at the bottom.
  • Click Publish after previewing your changes.

See the Widgets guide for additional information.

Homepage Widget Tips

CT Section Widget

The CT Section widget is very flexible. Show a heading, text content and buttons. Optionally choose an image to show on the side. Decide how tall the section should be and how its content will be oriented. In our demo, the first section, the Scripture passage, “Customizable Homepage” and “Give Online” all use this widget to achieve a different result.

Many settings have tips right next to them in the Customizer. There are a few tricks that may not be so obvious or that require some extra explanation so let’s highlight them here.

First Widget

We recommend using the CT Section widget as the first widget on your homepage to introduce your church and add a few call to action buttons (e.g. “Plan a Visit” or “What to Expect”). This widget can be used in other positions on the homepage but it behaves different as the first section in that the heading font is larger.

Quotations & Testimonies

If you enclose your content in quotation marks, the entire text will be italicized. This is handy for quotations and testimonies — especially when combined with the Large Text setting.

Jubilee Section Quote

Highlighted Text

In our demo you can see that the first section’s heading has “The Way” highlighted. You can achieve the same effect by using the <mark> HTML tag as shown below.

Jubilee Mark Tag

Jubilee Mark Example

CT Highlight Widget

Highlight widgets show three per row when placed consecutively. If you add more, they will appear in a second row. Every setting is optional. Choose to show an image in the background (or use your site’s main color without an image), a heading or short piece of text. You can enter a URL that the user will be taken to when they click the highlight.

Jubilee Highlight Widgets

CT Locations Widget

It’s important to make visitors to your website immediately aware of where you are and when you meet. The CT Locations widget will show your primary location with a large map. It makes your address very clear. Service times are shown and there is a “Directions” button. When you have multiple locations, a “Locations” button is shown so they can see all their options. We recommend placing this near the top of your homepage like in our demo.

This widget also shows the social icons you choose in Appearance > Customize > Icons.

Widgets with Side Images

The following widgets have an Image field when used on the homepage. When you provide an image, it will be shown to the side of the widget’s content. The theme will automatically alternate the position of these widgets’ images from the left to the right side to create balance. Two posts will be shown instead of four when no image is uploaded in order to fill in the space where the image would be.

  • CT Section
  • CT Sermons
  • CT Events
  • CT Posts
  • CT People

Jubilee Give Section

Finding Quality Images

Jubilee’s homepage offers many opportunities to to place images on your homepage. We recommend using photos taken at your church whenever possible. In some cases, it may be appropriate to use professional stock photo like you see in our demo. Please see our Stock Photo Recommendations.