Title: Blocks for ChurchSuite
Author: Alwyn Barry
Published: <strong>November 3, 2025</strong>
Last modified: May 27, 2026

---

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![](https://ps.w.org/blocks-for-churchsuite/assets/icon-256x256.png?rev=3389027)

# Blocks for ChurchSuite

 By [Alwyn Barry](https://profiles.wordpress.org/dramb/)

[Download](https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/blocks-for-churchsuite.1.0.6.zip)

 * [Details](https://wordpress.org/plugins/blocks-for-churchsuite/#description)
 * [Reviews](https://wordpress.org/plugins/blocks-for-churchsuite/#reviews)
 *  [Installation](https://wordpress.org/plugins/blocks-for-churchsuite/#installation)
 * [Development](https://wordpress.org/plugins/blocks-for-churchsuite/#developers)

 [Support](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/blocks-for-churchsuite/)

## Description

Blocks For ChurchSuite allows you to display certain data from ChurchSuite
 on your
WordPress website without resorting to embedding iframes. This plugin provides Blocks
that are easy to drop into any page or post. Each block will, behind the scenes,
request data from your ChurchSuite feed, and will display the data returned in a
similar way to the usual ChurchSuite iframes, but natively to your website. Many
aspects of the display can be modified in your theme to make the display match your
website theme. The blocks allow you to use a range of attributes so that you can
display just the information you want for each part of your website.

### Current features include:

 * block to return events as ‘cards’ with the event image and details
 * block to return events in a ‘list’ group by date
 * block to return a full month calendar, for the current month or a date
 * block to return groups as ‘cards’ with the group image and details
 * All API requests are cached with a 4 hour cache to ensure fast performance

### A little Technical information

For the technical among you: This block works on the ‘server side’,
 building the
response which is delivered to your browser from churchsuite.

### Support

If you have a problem or a feature request, please send a message to the author.

### Demo

Currently there is no demo site, but you can view examples on a church website:

 * the [Featured Events](https://www.cambray.org/),
 * the [Small Groups list](https://www.cambray.org/connect/smallgroups/),
 * the [Events List](https://www.cambray.org/whats-on/),
 * the [Calendar](https://www.cambray.org/whats-on/calendar)

### Contributions

This plugin relies on information provided by ChurchSuite using their
 ’embed’ JSON
feed. Details of this JSON feed can be found here:

https://github.com/ChurchSuite/churchsuite-api/blob/master/modules/embed.md

### Usage

 * For the _Event Cards block_, place the block into a page or post. Set
    the name
   of your ChurchSuite feed in the Church Name attribute (ie. the name that is at
   the start of your churchsuite url e.g. https://mychurch.churchsuite.com – the
   name is ‘mychurch’).
 * You should see the block populate with events in the
    editor straightaway
 * You can ude the various parameters in the side bar to refine your
    search for
   events – see below for the many options
 * Because your calendar will have _many_ events, we can limit the number
    of events
   which are returned using the Number Of Events attribute combined with the Days
   Ahead attribute. This latter attribute sets how many days ahead you will look
   over to find a set of events from. If this is set too large and you have a lot
   of events, the data request from ChurchSuite will take too long to return. So
   just experiment until you get the number of events over the time period you want.
 * Other attributes allow you to refine the events returned as follows:
    - Start Date – the starting date to look for events
    - Days Ahead – the number of days ahead from the start date to look
    - Number of Results – the number of events to display from those returned
    - Featured – whether to show only events marked as ‘Featured’
 * And, in the ‘Advanced’ group you can do further refinements:
    - Categories – only look for events in the categories whose category
       numbers
      are given
    - Event Names – Only list events where the string given is in the
       event title(
      e.g. ‘service’ to return all services)
    - Sites – if you have a multi-site church, only look for events
       for the sites
      whose site numbers are given
    - Events – Only look for events in the list of event numbers
       (Useful if you
      want to highlight a few particular events)
    - Merge – List only the first event or all events in a sequence
    - Sequence – Only list events in a given sequence number
 * Details of these attributes and their values can be found here:

https://github.com/ChurchSuite/churchsuite-api/blob/master/modules/embed.md

 * For the _Event List block_, place the block into a page or post. Set
    the name
   of your ChurchSuite feed in the Church Name attribute (ie. the name that is at
   the start of your churchsuite url e.g. https://mychurch.churchsuite.com – the
   name is ‘mychurch’).
 * You should see the block populate with events in the
    editor straightaway
 * The comments above about attributes you can set also apply to this
    block. By
   default only a maximum of 5 days events are returned, but this can be overridden
   using the attributes.
 * For the _Calendar block_ , place the block into a page or post. Set
    the name
   of your ChurchSuite feed in the Church Name attribute (ie. the name that is at
   the start of your churchsuite url e.g. https://mychurch.churchsuite.com – the
   name is ‘mychurch’).
 * You should see the calendar block populate with events in the
    editor straightaway.
 * Fewer customization parameters are available for this block because
    only a subset
   of the parameters listed above make sense for a monthly calendar.
 * For the _Smallgroups block_,, place the block into a page or post. Set
    the name
   of your ChurchSuite feed in the Church Name attribute (ie. the name that is at
   the start of your churchsuite url e.g. https://mychurch.churchsuite.com – the
   name is ‘mychurch’).
 * You should see the block populate with groups in the
    editor straightaway.
 * The only parameter for SmallGroup lists that ChurchSuite supports is
    the sites
   parameter, which you will find under the ‘Advanced’ section.

### License

The plugin itself is released under the GNU General Public License. A
 copy of this
license can be found at the license homepage or in the top comment within the `blocks4cs.
php` file.

## Blocks

This plugin provides 4 blocks.

 *   Small Groups for ChurchSuite Display a Card for each Small Group from ChurchSuite
 *   Event List for ChurchSuite Display a list of Events from ChurchSuite
 *   Event Cards for ChurchSuite Display Cards for a set of Events from ChurchSuite
 *   Calendar for ChurchSuite Display a monthly calendar of Events from ChurchSuite

## Installation

 * From within WordPress – In the WordPress Dashboard use the menu to go
    to Plugins
   and from there choose ‘Add new plugin’. Search for ‘churchsuite’ and then look
   for this plugin. Select the ‘install’ button on the plugin to install it, and
   once installed use the ‘activate’ link to activate the plugin.
 * If you want to install from gitlab:
    - Download from ‘releases’
    - Rename the zip file downloaded ‘blocks-for-churchsuite.zip’ (i.e. remove any
      
      version info in the filename)
    - In WordPress use the Install New Plugin page to upload the zip
       file, or alternatively,
      unpack and upload the blocks-for-churchsuite directory to your ‘/wp-content/
      plugins/’ directory.
    - Once you have done either of the above, Activate the plugin
       through the ‘
      Plugins’ page in the WordPress dashboard.
 * Once you have used either method to install the plugin, you need to
    then add
   a block (see examples below) to your wordpress posts or pages where you need 
   them

## FAQ

### The block produces no output

The default behaviour when there is an error is to give no output
 rather than produce
error messages all over your website. Check that you have supplied the correct churchname,
or test it with the churchname ‘demo’ to see if that is the problem. Check that 
you can actually get to your ChurchSuite JSON api url – try entering the following
URL in a browser with your church name instead of `mychurch`:

    ```
        https://mychurch.churchsuite.com/embed/calendar/json?num_results=3
    ```

### How do I add my church so that I get the JSON feed for my church?

You must use the block `Church Name` attribute to enter the name of
 your church
which appears at the start of the churchsuite URL for your church.

### I want to limit the number of events in the block

You can use the Number of Events block attribute to show a
 particular number of
events.

### The block is not showing any results

By default the Events List only looks ahead 5 days and Events Cards
 only 20 days.
If your future events are beyond that nothing will show, or if you are only looking
for featured events or events within a particular category or with a particular 
name, none may be within the number of days being searched. So just adjust the Days
Ahead attribute or the search parameters.

### I’ve changed a search attribute but the seems to be no change to the results

All search attributes are ‘sanitized’ to legal values before they are
 used, and
if a sane legal value cannot be found the attribute is discarded. So, for example,
a date like 2025-02-40 would be ignored. The block doesn’t change what you have 
entered into the attributes so as not to confuse you. So, just try some different
attribute values until you get something legal. If in doubt, remove the block and
add a new block – this will start with ‘sane’ default values, and you can test on
the ‘demo’ site ChurchSuite provides to see what it returns. Alternatively, use 
the Church Name ‘cambray’ to test – it has a busy programme of events and so most
queries will return a result if legal search values are given.

### I want to change how the output looks:

In general the blocks don’t seek to set fonts and only use relative
 text sizes.
So, by setting fonts or text size in surrounding blocks you will see changes in 
the blocks themselves. You can also use the font size attributes in the style tab
to set the base font size.

In addition to the text size, the background, margins and padding of
 the containing
box, and whether it is displayed in normal, wide or full width can be adjusted from
the block attributes in the sidebar style tab.

For things like line or background color within the block, all block
 output is 
formatted via css – just override the default css rules in your theme. All the CSS
rules begin with ‘b4cs-‘ and so these are easy to find in your browser’s inspector
panes. Once overridden in your theme css file you can make them fit well with your
theme.

### I want a list of events which looks very different to those you provide

Because there are css rules for every part of the block, there is a
 lot you can
do just in css. For example, the dramatic change in format of the calendar from 
a monthly grid to an events list when it is displayed on a narrow screen is all 
accomplished by css rules. So, you may be able to achieve what you want via css 
rule changes.

If your idea is dramatically different, however, please use the
 support forum to
put in a request for a new feature. We will do what we can to provide anything which
might also be useful to others.

## Reviews

There are no reviews for this plugin.

## Contributors & Developers

“Blocks for ChurchSuite” is open source software. The following people have contributed
to this plugin.

Contributors

 *   [ Alwyn Barry ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/dramb/)

[Translate “Blocks for ChurchSuite” into your language.](https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/blocks-for-churchsuite)

### Interested in development?

[Browse the code](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/blocks-for-churchsuite/),
check out the [SVN repository](https://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/blocks-for-churchsuite/),
or subscribe to the [development log](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/log/blocks-for-churchsuite/)
by [RSS](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/log/blocks-for-churchsuite/?limit=100&mode=stop_on_copy&format=rss).

## Changelog

#### 1.0.6

**2026-05-27**
 * Version bump to 1.0.6 and bump to WordPress 7.0.0 compatibility

#### 1.0.5

**2026-04-15**
 * Version bump to 1.0.5 to ensure plugins are updated for new features

#### 1.0.4

**2026-04-14**
 * Added a distinct ChurchSuite icon for each block, and added a 
new block category to group the ChurchSuite blocks within. * Further minor change
to CSS for Event Lists to make the shadow more subtle.

**2026-04-13**
 * Added image pickers for the default image for Event Cards and 
Small Groups so that the provided default image can be overridden. * Minor css fixes
to space the Event List text better. * Version bump to 1.0.4

#### 1.0.3

**2026-03-27**
 * Minor changes to add readme.md file and to change comments from
github to gitlab after moving the development repository.

**2026-02-26**
 * Refactored the Locale code to use the wordpress site locale rather
than the server locale, and to use the wordpress admin settings for full date or
time output. This means the time and date output should always be sympathetic with
the WordPress site settings. Also moved all the time and date string creation to
a new module so it can be easily modified without having to update many files. *
Version bump to 1.0.3

#### 1.0.2

**2026-02-23**
 * Added ability to render the various views which have dates using
the Locale to render them in local style and language. * Version bump to 1.0.2

#### 1.0.1

**2025-12-08**
 * Bump for WordPress 6.9. Updated ‘Tested up to:’ in readme.txt,
and to version 1.0.1 as the stable tag in blocks-for-churchsuite.php. Checked that
all block.json files were on API_VERSION 3 … they were. Updates all blocks to version
1.0.1 in their block.json files.

#### 1.0.0

**2025-11-03**
 * Final approval from WordPress Plugin Directory given. Last tidy
ups to bring the plugin name in line with the one the Plugin Directory allocated.

**2025-09-29**
 * Added all ChurchSuite attributes to each block that were not previously
present. Added the santizers for all the permitted attributes. Added i18n support
to the blocks for potential future translators. Tidied up code where needed. Removed
now unused js scripts and html includes for the old Alpine.js support. Removed duplicated
css and moved non-shared styles into each block. Fixed an error in the display of
calendar, and made sure we remove days with no events from the small screen event
list rendering of the calendar. Edited the readme.txt to reflect these changes.

**2025-09-27**
 * Added some block attributes to allow background setting for the
whole block, permit left, right alignment of the block or wide or full spread for
the block, and add adjustment to block padding and margins.

**2025-09-26**
 * Working version available and ready for testing prior to submission
to the WordPress Plugin

#### 0.1.0

**2025-09-09**
 * Initial release – Everything is tested and working, but only a
subset of the attributes which could be used are provided.

**2025-04-26
 * Working version with all blocks using Alpine.js. But back-end would
not use Alpine.js. So needed to refactor it all to use PHP only.

**2025-04-02
 * First attempt to move the Shortcode plugin cs-js-integration to 
a block

## Meta

 *  Version **1.0.6**
 *  Last updated **2 months ago**
 *  Active installations **10+**
 *  WordPress version ** 6.7 or higher **
 *  Tested up to **7.0.0**
 *  PHP version ** 8.0 or higher **
 * Tags
 * [blocks](https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/blocks/)[ChurchSuite](https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/churchsuite/)
   [events](https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/events/)[groups](https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/groups/)
 *  [Advanced View](https://wordpress.org/plugins/blocks-for-churchsuite/advanced/)

## Ratings

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[See all reviews](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/blocks-for-churchsuite/reviews/)

## Contributors

 *   [ Alwyn Barry ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/dramb/)

## Support

Got something to say? Need help?

 [View support forum](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/blocks-for-churchsuite/)