Configuration
site.toml keys juicerchurch reads, per-page frontmatter for sermons / events / ministries, and the [juicerchurch] palette table.
juicerchurch reads its configuration from three places:
- A small set of top-level site keys (the same ones every juicer theme uses, plus a few church-specific ones for services / visit info).
- A namespaced
[juicerchurch]table for theme-specific palette + sizing overrides. - Per-page frontmatter for sermons, events, ministries, and photo albums.
Quick example
A minimal site.toml that produces a credible parish site:
title = "St. Stephen's Parish"
tagline = "Anglican community, Riverdale."
author = "St. Stephen's Parish"
baseURL = "https://example.com"
theme = "juicerchurch"
calendarMonths = 6
eventsSection = "events"
[visit]
address = "120 River St"
city = "Toronto"
state = "ON"
zip = "M4M 2P3"
mapURL = "https://maps.example.com/ststephens"
[[services]]
day = "Sun"
time = "8:00 AM"
label = "Said Eucharist (BCP)"
[[services]]
day = "Sun"
time = "10:30 AM"
label = "Sung Eucharist"
[[services]]
day = "Wed"
time = "7:00 PM"
label = "Evening Prayer"
[juicerchurch]
brand = "#2c5282" # muted blue# muted blue
fontSerif = "'Source Serif 4', Georgia, serif"A typical sermon page (content/sermons/2024-12-24-christmas-eve.md):
---
title: "On Comfort, and Why It Comes from a Manger"
date: 2024-12-24
author: ann
scripture: "Isaiah 9:2–7; Luke 2:1–14"
audioURL: "/audio/2024-12-24.mp3"
audioDuration: "23:14"
videoURL: "https://youtube.com/watch?v=..."
videoDuration: "24:02"
summary: A meditation on Christmas Eve, on what comfort means and where it comes from.
---
The transcript or summary body goes here.A typical ministry page (content/ministries/food-bank.md):
---
title: Riverdale Food Bank
layout: ministry
leader: Mara Sanderson
meets: "Saturdays, 10am–noon"
contact: "foodbank@ststephens.example"
---
The ministry's narrative — who, what, why, how to get involved.Top-level keys
| Key | Type | Default | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
title | String | required | Brand text in topbar + footer; <title> element. |
tagline | String | unset | Italic subtitle next to the brand. |
author | String | unset | Footer copyright. Falls back to title. |
baseURL | String | required | Standard juicer key. |
theme | String | required | Set to "juicerchurch". |
favicon | String | unset | Path to a favicon. |
hideJuicerCredit | Boolean | false | Set true to remove the “Built with juicer” line. |
customCSS | [String] | unset | Site stylesheets loaded after the theme CSS. |
eventsSection | String | "events" | Section name juicer treats as events; populates .site.events and .site.calendar. See Configuration → Calendar / events features. |
calendarMonths | Int | 12 | Months of calendar grid .site.calendar pre-computes. |
visit | Object | unset | {address, city, state, zip, mapURL} — surfaced in the footer on every page. |
services | Array | unset | Regular weekly services: [[services]] rows of {day, time, label}. Surfaced in the home page hero and the footer. |
Palette + token overrides — [juicerchurch]
All optional. Anything you don’t set keeps the muted-blue defaults.
| Key | CSS variable | Notes |
|---|---|---|
brand | --brand | Primary brand accent. |
brandStrong | --brand-strong | Hover-emphasis. |
brandSoft | --brand-soft | Subtle paper-tinted backgrounds. |
accent | --accent | Warm secondary. |
leaf | --leaf | “Today” indicator on the calendar grid. |
brandDark … | dark counterparts | One per light token. |
fontSans | --font-sans | Body / UI / nav face. |
fontSerif | --font-serif | Headings, sermon titles. |
fontMono | --font-mono | Scripture references, calendar cells. |
measure | --measure | Prose column max-width. Default 38rem. |
gutter | --gutter | Outer padding around content blocks. |
radiusLg | --radius-lg | Large border-radius. |
Per-page frontmatter
Sermon pages
Sermons are dated, single-author posts that opt into the sermon
layout. They live under content/sermons/ and surface on the
sermon archive page.
| Key | Type | What |
|---|---|---|
layout | String | sermon. The sermon-archive page uses layout: sermon-archive. |
title | String | Sermon title. |
date | ISO | Required. Drives sort order and archive grouping. |
author | String | Single preacher ID — references [[authors]] in site.toml. |
scripture | String | Scripture reference text ("Isaiah 9:2–7; Luke 2:1–14"). Rendered in a tagged block above the body. |
audioURL | String | Path or absolute URL to an audio file (mp3/m4a). Theme injects an <audio> element. |
audioDuration | String | Display duration ("23:14"). Shown next to the audio control. |
videoURL | String | Path or absolute URL to a video (YouTube / Vimeo / mp4). |
videoDuration | String | Display duration. |
series | String | (Engine feature.) Sermons share series support with juicerblog — Advent series, Lent series, etc. |
summary | String | Short blurb on the archive page. |
Event pages
Event pages live in the eventsSection (default events).
| Key | Type | What |
|---|---|---|
date | ISO string | Required for an event to surface in .site.events. |
eventTime | String | Display time ("7 PM", "6:30–8 PM"). |
eventLocation | String | Address or named location. |
recurring | String | "weekly" for weekly recurrence. Expands onto every matching weekday in .site.calendar. |
recurringDay | String | Day name for recurrence. Defaults to the start date’s day of week. |
photos | [String] or [Object] | Photos. |
Ministry pages
| Key | Type | What |
|---|---|---|
layout | String | ministry. |
title | String | Ministry name. |
leader | String | Person’s name (free text, not a registry ID — ministries often have non-clergy leaders). |
meets | String | Display string for meeting cadence ("Saturdays, 10am–noon"). |
contact | String | Email / phone / freeform contact info. |
Photo albums
Same as juicercafe — layout: album for one event’s gallery,
layout: photo-album for the site-wide aggregate.
Going beyond config
Drop a file with the same path under your own site to override anything in the theme — this is the ordinary theme overlay pattern:
| You want to change… | Override at… |
|---|---|
| The topbar | <src>/partials/topbar.html |
| The footer | <src>/partials/footer.html |
| The calendar grid | <src>/partials/month-grid.html |
| The photo grid | <src>/partials/photo-grid.html |
| The 404 page | <src>/layouts/_default/404.html |
| Custom CSS | <src>/static/site.css (and list it under customCSS in site.toml) |
Site files always win over theme files, so overrides are a one-file-at-a-time operation — no forking the theme.
SEO
Every juicer theme ships a shared SEO partial (partials/seo.html) that emits the standard meta block: description (with site-level fallback), canonical link, author meta, robots noindex, OpenGraph + Twitter cards (via the ogTags builtin), Atom feed discovery, and theme-specific JSON-LD. The engine separately writes sitemap.xml and robots.txt.
Site-wide keys
description = "Trinity Community Church — Sunday services at 9 and 11, Wednesday Bible study at 7."
ogImage = "/og/sanctuary.jpg"
robots = true
noindex = false
disallow = ["/admin/"]
# Optional: Church JSON-LD on the homepage. Subtype of PlaceOfWorship —# Optional: Church JSON-LD on the homepage. Subtype of PlaceOfWorship —
# helpful for Google Maps Knowledge Panel.# helpful for Google Maps Knowledge Panel.
[church]
phone = "+1-555-0100"
address = "412 Maple Street, Springfield IL 62701"
image = "/img/sanctuary.jpg"Per-page frontmatter
---
title: The Sermon on the Mount
summary: A one-sentence dek for search results and OG cards.
date: 2026-04-12
author: pastor-rob
image: /img/sermons/sermon-on-mount.jpg
ogTitle: A snappier social headline
ogDescription: Tightened for socials
noindex: true # excluded from sitemap, JSON-LD suppressed, <meta robots> emitted
---Structured data emitted
| Page | Schema |
|---|---|
| Root section | WebSite (+ Church when [church] is set in site.toml) |
| Dated non-section page | Article (with author / image / dateISO) |
| Any page with ancestors | BreadcrumbList |
noindex: true suppresses ALL JSON-LD on that page.
Overriding the SEO partial
Drop a file at <src>/partials/seo.html (or seo-jsonld.html for just the structured-data part). Site overrides win over the theme’s copy.