Church management software for Baptist churches
Churchory supports congregational governance with Voting, which handles members' meeting ballots with a fixed electorate, quorum, majority or two-thirds thresholds and secret ballots, and Open Floor for questions before the vote, at $99 a year ($25 a month) each. Churchory is church management software for small and mid-size churches. Start free with Core (your people directory, families, roles and church-wide email and push), then add only the products you need, like groups, events, Sunday serving and check-in, kids, care, chat and voting, or get everything with Churchory One.
What do Baptist churches need from church management software?
Baptist churches need software that respects congregational governance. Most Baptist churches are self-governing, and the church in a members' meeting, sometimes called a business meeting or church conference, makes decisions that in other traditions belong to a board or a denomination: adopting the budget, calling a pastor, electing deacons and officers, receiving members, and amending the constitution and bylaws. Every church's bylaws set its own rules for who may vote, what makes a quorum and what margin a motion needs.
That makes membership a real, recorded status rather than a feeling, and it makes the members' meeting one of the most important hours in the church's year. It is also, in many churches, the hour people dread most.
What problems do Baptist churches bring to us?
- Paper ballots and long counts. The vote takes five minutes and the count takes forty.
- "Who is actually a member?" The membership roll lives in a binder or a spreadsheet that disagrees with the directory.
- Bylaws that are hard to apply. Two-thirds of what, exactly: ballots cast, or members present, or all members?
- The same few voices. The quiet member with a good question never asks it from the floor.
- Deacons with no shared picture. Each deacon cares for families, but nobody can see who has been visited.
How does Churchory handle members' meeting votes?
Churchory's Voting product is built for congregational votes. A ballot can hold one question or several, so the whole agenda can go on one ballot paper, for both motions and elections. Members vote from a phone or the web, during the meeting or before it, and the result is there when the vote closes, ready to read into the minutes.
Each vote has its own rules, and your church can set a default that every new vote starts from:
| Rule | Options in Churchory |
|---|---|
| Who may vote | Church members and/or attendees; a minimum age; one or more tags, such as Deacon Board |
| Quorum | None, a number of ballots, or a percentage of eligible voters |
| Passing threshold | Majority, two-thirds, three-quarters, or a custom percentage |
| Threshold measured against | Ballots cast, or all eligible voters |
| Ballot | Secret: no one, staff included, can see how anyone voted |
Eligibility rules combine sensibly: different kinds of rule must all be true, and options within a rule are alternatives. "Members, 18 and older" means both. A ballot that leaves one question blank still counts toward quorum. Proxy ballots are not supported yet.
What happens to the voting roll during a vote?
The roll is fixed the moment the vote opens. Someone who joins the church, or turns eighteen, while a vote is open does not join that vote, which is what most bylaws expect and what a members' meeting can defend. If you set a minimum age, anyone with no birth year on file is left off the roll and listed for the ballot committee, so the committee can correct the records before the vote opens rather than guess.
Who can run a vote?
Voting has its own permission area. View is the ballot committee's seat: they see votes in preparation and closed tallies. Only Manage (all) opens, closes or deletes a vote. No permission level, not even an admin's, reads an individual ballot. Moderators and clerks can be given exactly the access they need and nothing else; the church administrators page explains roles.
How can members ask questions before a big decision?
With Open Floor. Before a budget vote or a pastoral call, open a Q&A session with a public link that needs no app, account or login. Members submit questions before the meeting and during it, upvote the ones they most want answered, and the moderator works through them on the projector in the order the room chose. Quick live polls give a read of the room before a formal motion. Open Floor and Voting are designed to be used together: Open Floor for the discussion, and Voting when a question needs a formal decision of the members.
How does Churchory keep the membership roll?
Churchory's directory records whether each person is a church member or an attendee, and your church can rename those labels to match its own language. Custom member fields hold the dates many Baptist churches track, such as a baptism date or the date someone was received into membership. A scheduled request for everyone to re-confirm their details keeps addresses and phone numbers current before the annual meeting. This is all part of Core, which is free forever; see the Core page.
How does Churchory help deacons care for the church?
Churchory creates a Deacon role for every church. It is a church office that shows on a person's profile and carries no extra access on its own, so naming someone a deacon does not open the directory to them. You decide what deacons can do.
Many churches pair deacons with Care. Follow Ups at Manage (assigned) lets each deacon see and act on the people assigned to them, while the pastor, with Manage (all), sees the whole list and hands people out. Care also runs meal trains and prayer chains when a family has a hard week, with a public link so relatives and neighbours can help without an account.
What about Sunday School and committees?
Sunday School classes run as groups in Groups, and your church can call them Sunday School classes. Each class has its teachers, roster, attendance, prayer requests and weekly lesson guides. Committees, such as a pastor search committee or finance committee, can work in a private Chat space with exactly the people chosen, and keep minutes, the constitution and bylaws in a Documents folder only they can open, or published by link when they are for the whole church.
Which products should a Baptist church choose?
| Church | Products | Yearly | Monthly |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wants better members' meetings | Voting + Open Floor | $198 | $50 |
| Also wants deacon care and Sunday School | + Care + Groups | $396 | $100 |
| Wants everything, including its own app | Churchory One | $599 | $129 |
Each product is $99 a year, which saves $201 against paying $25 a month; Churchory One is $599 a year, which saves $949 against $129 a month, and includes every product. One becomes the better deal from the sixth product on monthly billing and the seventh on yearly billing. An annual price is easy to bring to a budget committee as one line, Core is free forever, and giving carries no Churchory platform fee, only Stripe's processing fees. Every church gets a 45-day free trial with no card. See pricing.
Is Churchory only for Baptist churches?
No. Any congregationally governed church, and any church that holds members' meetings, can use the same tools. The pastors page explains what a pastor uses week to week, and the small churches page covers the setup many smaller Baptist congregations prefer. If you are moving from another system, the switching page explains our free migration.
Churchory products in this page
Frequently asked questions
Can Churchory run a members' meeting vote that follows our bylaws?
Yes, for the common rules. Each vote can set who is eligible, a quorum as a count or a percentage, and a passing threshold of a majority, two-thirds, three-quarters or a custom percentage, measured against ballots cast or against all eligible voters.
Are ballots secret?
Yes. Nobody, staff included, can see how any individual voted. People with View access to Voting see drafts and closed tallies, and no permission level reads an individual ballot.
Can only members vote, and not regular attenders?
Yes. Churchory distinguishes church members from attendees, and a vote can be limited to members, to members over a minimum age, or to people with a particular tag.
Can a member vote by proxy?
Not yet. Proxy ballots are not supported, so members vote for themselves from a phone or the web, during the meeting or before it.
Can we call our groups Sunday School classes?
Yes. Your church chooses what Churchory calls groups, and can rename the labels for church members and attendees. Renaming changes the wording only, never who can see what.
How does Churchory help us notice people drifting away from groups?
Leaders take attendance in seconds and get reminded when they forget, and with Care added, someone who misses three meetings in a row prompts a drafted check-in note for their leader to send. Staff see which groups are healthy and which are quietly emptying.
Who is Churchory for?
Churchory is for small and mid-size churches, and especially for the pastors, church administrators and ministry leaders who run them with a few staff and a lot of volunteers. Nothing in it assumes a full-time IT person: the kiosk, the sign-up links and the apps are built for the volunteer who was trained once and is standing at a table at 9:58 on a Sunday.