When I launched Churchly Sites, I knew my customers needed two main things. First was a theme and theme builder that was powerful, but easy to use. Second was a way to manage the great content their churches were publishing. When I discovered Divi theme, I knew it was the theme I wanted to partner with. And when I discovered the Church Content plugin, I knew that it did everything I needed a sermon plugin to do — and more.
I’m a huge fan of Divi theme, and an even bigger fan of the Church Content plugin. Both products are high-quality, well-supported, and a dream to work with. Unfortunately, the two didn’t play nicely together.
That’s how Churchly for Divi was born. Churchly for Divi was designed to turn Divi into a compatible theme for the Church Content plugin. And I have to say, it worked pretty well out of the box.
Not long after launching Churchly for Divi, I joined the team at my home church as their Director of Digital and Churchly (which was once my full time gig) became a side project. As the developers of Divi Theme and the Church Content plugin continued to develop their products and release new features, it started to introduce quirks and bugs into Churchly for Divi.
At first, I helped customers patch things up with CSS, hoping to invest more time into a substantial rewrite of Churchly for Divi to leverage new Divi features like custom modules, but my free time grew more limited and the gap that needed to be bridged with development grew wider.
I’m not content with the product that Churchly for Divi has become and because of that, I have discontinued development on the Churchly for Divi product.
If you are a Churchly for Divi customer, I want to thank you so much for your support. You saw value in what I brought to the table and you helped create something that solved a real problem at the time you purchased it. While your license will soon become inactive, your product will continue to work indefinitely and any subscription renewals will be cancelled.
While official support is discontinued effective immediately, I want to help you with any issues that may arise as a result of this decision. Feel free to email me at rob [at] getchurchly.com and I’ll do my best to help out as I have availability.
What is the future of Churchly for Divi?
I still believe that a solution such as Churchly for Divi can be an asset to the WordPress community. While it would take a substantial rewrite at this point to be fully compatible with Divi and the Church Content plugin, I’d like to give my wholehearted support and encouragement to anyone who would like to take the project and run with it.
The only condition is that I’ll soon be turning the Churchly brand over to a colleague who can nurture it better than I can, so the project will need to take a different name.
If you are interested in continuing the Churchly for Divi project, either in an open source model or commercially, please reach out to me at rob [at] getchurchly.com to start a conversation.
How does this impact Churchly Sites?
If you are a Churchly Sites customer, I’ll soon be transitioning accounts to a full freelance model. You’ll still receive the same exceptional hosting and support that you enjoy now. The only change you will experience will be a few changes in billing as I transition sites over to the new model.
Can I work with you in a different way?
While I’m discontinuing the Churchly for Divi product, I am still open and available for freelance consulting and development projects for select clients. I’ve worked with some of the largest and fastest growing churches in the nation to design and execute digital strategies — including WordPress and RockRMS websites, digital communication plans, and short-term marketing campaigns. If you’d like to explore working together, send me an email at my personal email address, rob [at] roblaughter.com.
What do I do now?
If you have any questions, or want to send me a nasty email (or an encouraging one, for that matter), please reach out to me directly by emailing rob [at] getchurchly.com.
If you need WordPress and/or Divi support, you can find me and a host of other professionals in the following Facebook communities:
Thank you again for your support and encouragement.
