Church & ministry theme
A warm, accessible Ghost theme for churches — service times visitors can find, sermons with audio, ministries, events, giving and prayer, all set up from Ghost Admin without touching code.
Need more than one site? Choose the five-site agency licence — US$349. Or get Ghost All Access — every Ghost theme, now and in the future, for US$549.
Version 4.1.0 · released 7 October 2026 · see the changelog
Needs a Ghost plan that allows custom themes — Ghost(Pro) Starter does not. Publisher or self-hosted is the right fit. More on plans · Compare all eleven themes
The theme, in full
Every screen below is the real rendered theme on the live demo — no mockups. Hartwell Community Church, its people and its photographs are fictional and illustrative. Select any one to view it full size.
The demo runs in light mode with the default lake-blue accent. Your brand colour comes from Ghost's own settings, and one theme setting switches the whole site to Dark or Auto.
Plain, fast and private
Sanctuary is plain Handlebars, one hand-written stylesheet and a little vanilla JavaScript. There is no build step and no framework between your church and the person looking for your service times on a phone.
The default pairing, Source Serif 4 for headings and Source Sans 3 for text, is bundled with the theme, so there is no request to a font service and nothing extra to cover in your privacy policy. Traditional serif and System fonts options load no font files at all.
The hero image is prioritised and offered in a small-phone size, every image container reserves its space, and nothing animates on scroll, so the page stays still while it loads.
Memberships, the newsletter signup, search and comments work through Ghost itself rather than plugin layers. The signup shows a clear confirmation or Ghost's own error, and hides entirely unless memberships are open.
Built for the congregation
Sanctuary is designed around what visitors and members actually look for: when you meet, what to expect, a talk to listen to, a group to join and a way to give or ask for prayer.
The homepage opens with a photograph, a plain welcome card and a service times strip, then three next-step tiles. Choose Image, Split or Gradient for the hero, and one of four layouts — Welcome, Service-led, Sermon-led or Minimal.
Type your week in one line. Sanctuary builds the service cards, a next-service banner and a "We're live" badge during a service when you add a live-stream link, worked out in your site's timezone and shown as 18:30 or 6:30 PM to match your language.
The speaker is the post's author, the series is its tag and the passage is its excerpt. Each sermon gets a prominent audio player with a download link and more from the series, and the archive filters by speaker, series and topic.
Tag a page ministry and it joins a grid with its leader and meeting time. Bible reading plans are ordinary pages or posts with a print button and a print stylesheet.
Posts tagged event, testimony and everyday news feed their own homepage sections, and an optional scripture verse sits in a quiet band. Each section appears when it has content and hides when it does not.
Your provider's buttons and bank details sit on a Giving page, and paid Ghost tiers appear as recurring-giving options when Stripe is connected. A UK Gift Aid explainer is there if you need it and off if you do not.
Prayer and volunteer forms send to a webhook or email address that you control, with a consent checkbox, a link to your privacy page and spam protection. An optional prayer wall shows only the requests you approve.
A text size and high-contrast control sits in the header on every page, with no setting to remove it. The theme targets WCAG 2.1 AA with a skip link, visible focus, generous touch targets and reduced-motion support.
Your brand colour, a gold secondary colour, four typography options, light, dark or automatic mode and optional church-window arches on featured photos. Every piece of text is translatable, from a single locale file.
Fit check
Not the right fit: Ghost(Pro) Starter sites; magazines and newsrooms, where Society, Broadsheet or Columnist fit better; or churches that need event registration, a member database or a hosted podcast. Sanctuary links to your giving provider, forms send to your own endpoint, and its sermon feeds are for readers rather than for Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Technical details
| Ghost | Designed for Ghost 6.x |
|---|---|
| Hosting | Ghost(Pro) Publisher or higher, or self-hosted Ghost |
| Licence | Single site: one live Ghost site (US$149). Agency: up to five live sites using this theme (US$349). Staging and local copies included for each licensed site. |
| Updates | Included for the lifetime of the product |
| Support | Email support from the builder; target response within two business days |
| Dependencies | No jQuery, page builder or frontend framework |
| Fonts | Source Serif 4 and Source Sans 3 bundled, or system fonts; no third-party font requests |
| Languages | Every string is translatable; times and dates follow your publication language |
| JavaScript | Pages, sermons and navigation work without it; search, Portal, the live badge, the accessibility control and in-page form messages need it |
Ghost(Pro) Starter does not support custom themes. Read the compatibility FAQ.
Explore the working demo
These links open the real Ghost demo, populated for a fictional church: sermons with audio, ministries, events, a prayer wall and a reading plan.
What you receive
After purchase
After checkout, Gumroad emails your download link. You receive the production theme ZIP, setup documentation, lifetime product updates and support from the person who built it. If Sanctuary is not a fit, the 14-day refund policy applies.
Buyer questions
Quick answers to the questions that usually decide whether a Ghost theme is the right fit.
Sanctuary is designed for Ghost 6.x and requires a Ghost plan that supports custom themes. Ghost(Pro) Starter does not support custom themes; Ghost(Pro) Publisher or a self-hosted Ghost install is the right fit.
Yes. Twenty documented theme settings cover the colour scheme and fonts, the announcement bar, your live-stream link, your service schedule, the homepage layout and hero, a scripture verse, giving and Gift Aid, the footer's charity number and safeguarding contact, and where your forms send. Ministries, sermons, events and reading plans are ordinary Ghost pages and posts, so your team can manage them without touching code.
No. Homepage sections appear when their content exists and hide when it does not, so a new site never shows empty blocks. Add the pages you want, such as Plan Your Visit, Giving and Prayer, as you are ready, following the settings guide.
No, and it does not pretend to. The Giving page shows your own provider's buttons and bank details, and offers recurring giving through Ghost tiers if you connect Stripe. Prayer and volunteer forms send to a webhook or email address that you set, and the theme stores nothing itself.
No. The theme is neutral by default. The UK-specific pieces, a Gift Aid explainer and a charity number in the footer, are switched off until you turn them on, and service times follow your publication language, so 18:30 or 6:30 PM.
You get email support from the person who built the theme for installation, documented settings and confirmed defects, with a target response within two business days. Your purchase is covered by the 14-day refund policy.
Sanctuary · US$149
One-time purchase, lifetime product updates and a 14-day money-back guarantee.
Free Ghost launch checklist
Work through the free Ghost Publication Launch Checklist before you publish. You can also get three short emails about choosing a theme and launching your site, followed by occasional theme news.