How to Add a Bible Reader to Your Church Website
Most church websites link out to Bible Gateway or YouVersion when they want to reference Scripture. The problem? Your visitors leave your site — and they may not come back. They land on someone else's platform, see ads, get distracted, and your church website loses them.
There's a better way: host a full Bible reader directly on your own website. Your congregation reads Scripture on your domain, in your ministry's environment, with no ads or third-party tracking.
BibleBridge is a free Bible reader you can install on any website in under 60 seconds. No account, no credit card, no coding. Download a ZIP, upload it, and your church has a full Bible reader.
What you get
BibleBridge isn't an embed or an iframe. It's a full-featured Bible reader that runs on your server:
You can see it live here — that's exactly what your visitors would get.
How to install it (3 steps, under 60 seconds)
Download the ZIP
Download BibleBridge — it's a single small ZIP file (266 KB). Everything is included.
Upload to your web server
Unzip and upload the folder to your hosting — shared hosting, VPS, or any server with PHP. Upload it to a subfolder like /bible or wherever you want it to live.
No database required. No config files to edit. No dependencies to install.
Visit the page and enter your site name
Open the URL in your browser. Type your church or site name. BibleBridge automatically provisions a free API key for your domain — no signup, no email, no account.
Your Bible reader is live.
That's it. No account to create, no email to verify, no credit card, no config files. The entire process takes under 60 seconds.
Why not just link to Bible Gateway?
| Bible Gateway | BibleBridge | |
|---|---|---|
| Readers stay on your site | No — opens external site | Yes — your domain |
| Third-party ads | Yes | No |
| Tracking | Yes | No |
| Your branding | No | Yes |
| Search | Limited embed | Full search with book filtering |
| Cross-references | No | Yes |
| Reading plans | No | Yes |
| Works offline | No | Yes |
| Cost | Free (with ads) | Free (no ads) |
Hosting requirements
BibleBridge works on most web hosts, as long as these requirements are met:
- PHP 7.4+ with
curl,json, andmbstringextensions enabled - HTTPS — required for API communication
- Outbound HTTPS requests allowed — some restrictive hosts block this
- No database required — everything is served via the BibleBridge API
- No composer, no npm, no build tools
Most shared hosts (SiteGround, Hostinger, Bluehost, GoDaddy) meet these requirements out of the box. Some free hosts may not — if you run into issues, let us know and we'll help troubleshoot.
Pricing
The free plan includes every feature and handles about 50 daily readers. That's more than enough for most church websites.
If your church grows beyond that, the Growth plan ($9/mo) handles ~500 daily readers, and Scale ($29/mo) handles ~2,000. You can upgrade anytime from your dashboard — no migration, no reinstallation.
Try it in 60 seconds
Download one small ZIP, upload it, enter your site name. No account, no credit card, no commitment. Remove it anytime — just delete the folder.
Download FreeQuestions?
If you run into any issues installing BibleBridge or need help getting it set up on your church website, send us a message. We're happy to help with installs, hosting questions, or anything else.