Plainsong
Reformed and confessional congregations where the sermon is the centre
Cornerstone
Episcopal, Anglican and Lutheran parishes that keep the calendar
What it is
A parish church site for a congregation that keeps the calendar and does not want a website that fights it. The design is quiet and the structure is conventional on purpose — somebody looking for a service time should find it without learning your navigation first.
The site knows what season it is. Advent turns it violet, Easter gold, Ordinary Time green — computed in the browser from the date, with no plugin and nothing to remember to change. A traditional parish site otherwise: services, sermons, giving, and a plan-your-visit page written for somebody who has never been to a liturgy.
What is in it
- The season engine: the accent colour follows the church year, computed from the date including Easter, so it is right in a year nobody has touched the site
- A giving page that says where the money actually goes, and offers the ways to give that are not online
- A connection card and a prayer request form, both plain HTML you can point at any form service
- Life events in one place — baptism, confirmation, marriage and burial — because that is what people ring up about
- A safeguarding section with a named person, not a PDF nobody opens
All 7 pages
Every one is written — there is no placeholder text in any of them. Click any page to open it in the live demo.
What to change first
The church name, address and service times live in one config file. After that, the page most worth rewriting is “Plan your visit” — it is written for somebody who has never been to a liturgy and does not know when to stand up.
Questions about Cornerstone
Do I have to use the season colours?
No. The engine is one small JavaScript file and one block of CSS custom properties. Delete the script tag and the site keeps whichever colour you set as the default — nothing else depends on it.
Does it handle Sarum blue for Advent?
Yes. The config has a `use` block where you choose violet or Sarum for Advent and Lent independently, because parishes differ and the template should not have an opinion.
