church planning

Watching headlines over the last few weeks about the Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak has been surreal. Millions of Americans are sheltering at home while others are on the frontlines working in hospitals, grocery stores, and essential jobs. Information is changing by the minute, and no matter where people fit into the Coronavirus outbreak, they’re anxious.

During times like this, communities look to the local church to help them navigate through the daily uncertainties. Because we’re isolated in our homes, ministries are faced with a unique challenge of connecting online. Providing your congregation with a way to stay engaged with ministry has suddenly become essential.

A free church app is one solution that keeps you in touch with your congregation, so you can continue to be a pillar in your community. With a simple download, people can go to one place to listen to sermons, receive prayer requests, give, receive push notifications, and join small groups.

We know how important tech is at a time like this. We stand beside you during the Coronavirus outbreak and want to equip your ministry with a free church app for 90 days. Plus, we’ll provide resources to help you launch it.

Here’s a rundown of the steps to launch a church app ASAP, so you know what to expect.

Research church apps

The first step is simple—research church apps so that you can learn more about the features and functionality. Once you’ve made your decision, sign up! Setting up an app can be quick whether you choose our free church app for 90 days or go another route. BUT you can’t get started until you do a little research and sign up.

Here are some of the features you’ll get with our free church app for 90 days to help you get started:

  • Connect people to sermons, delivering videos right to the palms of their hands
  • Live stream with our partner ChurchStreaming
  • Empower admin with seamless ChMS integrations
  • Schedule messages or instantly send alerts with push notifications
  • Submit prayer requests
  • Embed a pre-made landing page on your website to promote the app
  • Utilize launch resources, like slides and social graphics to spread the word
  • Customize the app with your content, color schemes, and logo
  • Enable registration and payment for events, small groups, and classes
  • Equip people to give directly from their mobile devices with one-time and recurring giving
  • Safely manage child check-ins and communicate with parents
  • View a consolidated giving history for online and offline gifts

As you research, you’ll notice church apps can be as simple or complex as you’d like. For the sake of time, consider an app that you can customize yourself. Having to rely on a developer or tech professional is generally more time-consuming and costly.

Customize the app to your church’s brand

With apps like MinistryOne, it won’t take long to familiarize yourself with the control panel and manage your church’s brand. Seamlessly add giving options, sermons, your church’s logo and colors, events to the calendar, and images. The more you customize the technology—the more comfortable people will be adding it to their smartphone and using it to engage with the church.

Plan a soft launch

Before launching to your entire congregation, select a small group of volunteers or staff members to go through the process of downloading the app and using the features. Have them test the quality of media and other functions. This gives you time to correct any issues or to further customize the app to ensure the best experience for new users.

Share the app with your congregation

After the soft launch, share the app with your congregation and community. At the end of online church services, remind people they can listen to the latest sermon as well as their favorites any day of the week from their smartphone. Share information often on your website and social media that inspire people to take the simple steps to access the features.

We stand beside you during this unprecedented time. If you’d like to learn more about the free church app for 90 days or other free tech solutions, we’re providing for ministries to help them lead their communities, you can go right here.