Congregate for WordPress allows you to display Congregate-powered content within a WordPress site. This means you can use virtually any WordPress theme, page builder, plugins, etc. to completely customize your church website… all while still using Congregate Admin to manage your church-related content. You’ll still use Congregate Admin to upload sermons, articles, calendar, etc. in addition to all your member content.
Installation, Configuration, and Updates
Installing the Plugin
The Congregate team will typically install and authorize the plugin for you; if already installed on your site, no action here is necessary.
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- Install the Congregate for WordPress plugin, just as you would any other WordPress plugin.
- After activating the plugin, click “Congregate” in the navigation bar.
- Enter your Congregate URL (website address), your client ID key, and your client secret key. Your Congregate URL will be a free subdomain provided to you (e.g., *.congregatecloud.com) or a Congregate-pointed subdomain configured on your domain name (e.g., members.[your-domain-name.com]). This will not be the address of your public WordPress site.
- If your information is correct, your account will be validated and connected.
Configuring the Plugin
After installation, you’ll find the “Congregate” menu option in your WordPress admin navigation menu.
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- Module Registration: Re-register all modules and custom pages with the Congregate API. Only run this if pages are not loading correctly after setup.
- Sync Data: Re-fetch all song tracker, attendance, and finance chart data from Congregate. Use this after updating the plugin or if chart data looks out of date.
- Appearance Accent Color: Select an accent color used across all Congregate modules that matches your site.
Updating the Plugin
By default, the Congregate for WordPress plugin automatically downloads and installs updates automatically when updates are released.
Adding Congregate Content to Pages
Assigning Public and Member Modules to Pages
To display Congregate-powered content on your website, you’ll need to assign each module to a separate page. For member modules, we recommend placing all your member pages (i.e. child pages) under a main “Members” parent page on your site. This would also apply to your navigation menu. Note: ALL member modules and pages are hidden from view until a member logs in.
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- Click “Pages” inside of WordPress.
- Click the page title/”edit” link of the page you wish to display Congregate content.
- From the “Congregate” panel, select the Congregate Module option and then the module you wish to display on the current page. Note: The plugin will inject your Congregate-powered content within the page content area of your page. If you wish to place custom page content on your page, do so using the page editor and the plugin will inject the Congregate-powered content after your own page content.
- Save your changes to return to the pages screen.
- Congregate-assigned pages will be indicated as such on the WordPress pages screen to make it easy to identify what Congregate modules have already been assigned and where Congregate-powered content will appear on your site.
Creating Custom (i.e., Not Congregate-Powered) Member Pages
You can create your own custom member pages and have them hidden until a member logs in. This allows you to use Congregate-powered member modules, in addition to your own content you designate as “members only.”
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- Within the “edit” page screen, inside the “Congregate” panel, select the generic “Member Page” option.
- Add/edit your page content and save your changes.
- This page will now be designed as a “members only” page and hidden from search engines (and from view until a member has logged in).
Redirecting to Other URLs
There may be situations where you wish to have a member or public page actually redirect to another page on or off your website.
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- Within the “edit” page screen, inside the “Congregate” panel, select the “Member Page” or “Public Page” option.
- Enter a full URL of the website you wish to redirect users to via the redirect field. Note: When using the redirect option, the content on your page will not display; the user will be immediately redirected to the URL when they attempt to access your page.
- As a “members only” page, it will be hidden until a member has logged in; as a public page, you can use this function as a simple redirect.
Integration with the Congregate Members App
The Congregate Members app displays any “members only” page on your website within the app, regardless of whether they are in your navigation menu or not. There may be situations where you wish to hide member pages in the Members app.
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- Within the “edit” page screen, inside the “Congregate” panel, use the checkbox option to choose whether to exclude your page from the Congregate Members app.
Setting Up Your Navigation Menu
Creating a “Members” Menu Item
We recommend creating a custom link in your navigation menu called “Members” (or similar) and then placing all your actual member-only pages under that parent menu item. The main menu item itself should be a custom link and should point to the same URL as your “Member Dashboard”-assigned page. Do not select the member dashboard page from the page list to use on your menu. This will allow the main “Members” menu item to remain visible, since all member-only pages are hidden from view until a member is logged in (i.e., if you placed the “Member Dashboard” page directly in a navigation menu, logged-out members will never see it). For example, if you assigned your member dashboard page to a URL that is yoursite.com/members, you would create a “Members” custom link menu item and point it to the URL “yoursite.com/members”
Member Login/Logout Process
There is no need to create a unique page for members to log in nor a page for members to log out. Members who are already logged in will see member content/pages until they choose to log out. If a member is not logged in and attempts to view any member page, a “member login” button will appear asking them to log in before they can view such content. Members can only log out by using the log out button that appears on the top of their member dashboard page.
New Member Registration
If you allow for new member registration, assign the new member registration to a public page and exclude that page from your navigation menu. This will hide it from public view and will better prevent malicious, fake, and automated spam submissions. After assigning the new member registration form to a page, take note of that page’s URL and then supply new members with the website address to the page so they can access the form directly.
Linking to Congregate Admin
On the Congregate CMS, members who have access to Congregate Admin see a link in their member navigation menu to Congregate Admin. This link will not appear in WordPress and is no longer necessary. Congregate Admin can be accessed directly simply by adding “/admin” to the end of your church website URL (e.g., yourchurchwebsite.com/admin or members.yourchurchwebsite.com/admin).
Using Congregate Widgets
Adding Congregate Widgets to Your Site
You can display recent sermons (list or carousel), recent articles, and/or upcoming events using the included Congregate for WordPress widgets. You can learn how to add and configure widgets on your site by referencing this WordPress documentation.
Popup (for Urgent Announcements)
Customizing and Enabling the Popup
Click the “Popup” option within the plugin’s sub-navigation menu inside WordPress to create a custom popup alert window that appears for all visitors to your site. Use this option for cancelled services, weather delays, urgent news, etc. Use the checkbox to enable/disable the popup message, and enter your content using the title and announcement fields.
Utilities (Content Tracking, Login URL, Member/Public CSS Classes)
Click the “Utility” option within the plugin’s sub-navigation menu inside WordPress.
Analytics/Content View Tracking
The number of public views of sermons, articles, and blog posts (top 10 from each, from the past 90 days) can appear on the “Congregate Popular Content” dashboard widget if enabled. Find it on your WordPress dashboard. You can show/hide the widget via the Screen Options menu on your WordPress dashboard.
Alternative Login URL
Change the standard /wp-admin to /wordpressadmin to prevent bots and brute-force login attacks. Note that once this setting is active, you will only be able to login via this URL!
Member and Public CSS Classes
Use these CSS classes on any element (buttons, blocks, menus) on your website to show or hide it based on whether the user is signed in as a member. This allows you to define what elements can be seen by the public and/or members on your site. Note: CSS affects display only. Elements still exist in the page source regardless of if the user is a visitor or member. Always keep private information inside a formal members-only page.
Additional Customization and Notes
Customization via CSS
You can use custom targeted CSS rules to customize the Congregate for WordPress plugin’s styling to your liking. The plugin uses a mixture of styling from your current theme and built-in styling to ensure your Congregate-powered content looks great on any site. (Also use the member and public CSS classes to further customize your site.)
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and Indexing
Even though there are not actual pages on your WordPress website for Congregate-powered content (e.g., sermons), the Congregate for WordPress plugin updates your sitemap to include all of your Congregate-powered content, ensuring search engines can find all of your public sermons, articles, and content. The plugin is compatible with the (free) Yoast SEO plugin, which we highly recommend.
Congregate WordPress User Account Access
If your WordPress website came with a Congregate WordPress user account already in place, please keep that account intact so that we can access your site should we need to for any reason. Please do not remove Congregate’s access to your WordPress site.