Run your own pastor website.

The setup prompt

Copy all of it into your AI builder.

You are building a personal website for a pastor. Build it completely, then walk me through publishing it and connecting my domain. Ask me only for things you cannot work out yourself, one question at a time, in plain language. I am a pastor, not a programmer.

# What the site is
A warm, simple, fast personal website for one pastor. It is about the pastor and their teaching, not a church website. Pages:

1. Home
   - Header: logo (or initials in a colored square if there is no logo), the site name, and links to the sections below that are turned on.
   - Hero: a small line with role and church (e.g. "Lead Pastor · Grace Hill Church"), a large welcome line (the tagline), one sentence under it ("[pastor name], [church]. Sermons, stories and a way to connect, all in one place."), and two buttons: "Read the latest sermon" and "Invite [first name] to speak" (opens an email to the contact address with the subject "Speaking invitation for [name]").
   - The pastor's photo in a card in the main color, with an optional short line in the accent color under it (e.g. "Love God. Love people. Go.").
   - About: "Meet [name]" and the About text in paragraphs.
   - Sermons: the newest sermons as cards (date · series, title, passage, short summary). If there are more than 6, add a search box (title, passage, series). Show 9, then a "Show all" button.
   - Speaking and Contact: two cards side by side. Speaking shows the speaking note and a "Send an invitation" button. Contact shows the email address as a link.
   - Toolkits (optional): cards linking to each toolkit page.
   - Footer: "© [year] [site name]".
2. One page per sermon at /sermons/[sermon-address]: back link, date · series, title, passage, summary, the video (YouTube or Vimeo as an embedded player using youtube-nocookie.com for YouTube; any other link as a "Watch the sermon" button), then the full sermon text rendered from Markdown.
3. One page per toolkit at /toolkits/[toolkit-address]: title, opening note (Markdown), a short "In this toolkit" list, then each step with its title and text (Markdown).
4. A 404 page that says "This page isn't here" with a link home.

# Content
If I attached a file named like "[name]-website.json", it is my content. Use it exactly:
- site.display_name, pastor_name, role_title, church_name, tagline, statement, about, contact_email, speaking_note
- site.style is one of classic (serif headings, calm), modern (clean sans, crisp corners), warm (soft rounded corners), bold (header filled with the main color, larger headline), minimal (square corners, lots of white space)
- site.primary_color is the main color, site.accent_color the accent
- site.photo and site.logo are images stored as data URLs. Save each as a real image file in the project (photo.jpg, logo.png) and use those files.
- site.speaking_link and site.coaching_link are my own booking or payment links (use them for the Speaking and Coaching buttons; otherwise email me). site.coaching_note describes my coaching; add a Coaching card next to Speaking when site.pages.coaching is true.
- site.pages says which sections are on (about, sermons, speaking, coaching, contact, toolkits, tools). Hide the ones set to false. "tools" is an optional section linking to the free tools at https://parkermanuel.com/tools; if it's on, add a short "Free tools for pastors" section with that link.
- sermons: title, slug (use it as the page address), preached_on (date), passage, series, summary, body (Markdown), video_url, published (only show true)
- toolkits: title, slug, intro (Markdown), steps (each has title and body in Markdown), published. Build toolkit pages only from this top-level list.
- site.toolkits only records which of Parker Manuel's toolkits I showed on my hosted site. Don't build pages from it. If any are "on", add one card in the Toolkits section linking to https://parkermanuel.com/kits.
- site.domain_request is my own domain, if I have one. Use it for canonical links and the sitemap.
If there is no file, ask me for: my name, church, role, a welcome line, my About, my contact email, my colors, a photo, and one sermon to start with. Then make a simple way for me to add more sermons later (see "Adding sermons").

# Adding sermons later
Keep each sermon as its own Markdown file in a "sermons" folder. The file name (without .md) is the page address. Add a small header at the top (add "draft: true" to hide a sermon):
---
title: Come to Me
date: 2026-10-12
passage: Matthew 11:28-30
series: Rest
summary: One or two sentences.
video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=...
---
(the sermon in Markdown)
The site builds its sermon list and pages from that folder, newest first. Explain to me, in three short steps, how I add a new sermon file and publish it.

# How it should look and behave
- Mobile first. No sideways scrolling on a phone. Text at least 16px. Buttons and links at least 44px tall.
- Accessible: real headings in order, alt text on the photo ("[pastor name]"), visible keyboard focus, a "Skip to content" link, good color contrast (if my main color is too light for white text, darken it for buttons).
- Fast: no heavy libraries, images resized for the web, no pop-ups, no tracking or analytics unless I ask for it.
- Each page has its own title ("[page] | [site name]"), a description, and share tags (og:title, og:description) so links look good when shared. Add a sitemap.xml and robots.txt.
- Bible references in the text (like "John 3:16") can stay as plain text.
- Markdown must be rendered safely: no raw HTML from the content is executed.

# Publishing and my domain
When the site is built:
1. Publish it. If your builder hosts sites, use that. Otherwise put the project on GitHub and connect it to Cloudflare Pages or Netlify (both have free plans), and give me the live address.
2. Walk me through connecting my own domain step by step, including exactly which DNS records to add where.
3. Make sure it is on https.
4. Tell me how to set up an email address at my domain (free forwarding through my domain company, or Google Workspace / Microsoft 365).

# Credit and boundaries
- If a toolkit's intro says "Adapted from a toolkit by Parker Manuel", keep that line on its page.
- Optionally add a small footer link: "Free pastor website template from ParkerManuel.com".
- This site is for my own ministry. Do not add selling, ads, or anything that collects visitors' personal information.

Start by telling me in two sentences what you're about to build, then build it.