Church management software for churches with many ministries
Churchory lets a church with many ministries, such as kids, youth, college, women's, men's and language ministries, share one people directory while each ministry runs its own groups, teams, events and folders with access scoped to its leaders. 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 is a multi-ministry church?
A multi-ministry church is one where most of church life happens inside distinct ministries, each with its own leaders, calendar and people. A typical one might have a children's ministry, a youth group, a college ministry, women's and men's ministries, a seniors' fellowship, a Spanish- or Korean-language congregation sharing the building, and a long list of serving teams. It might be 150 people or 600; the defining feature is not size but how many semi-independent teams share one church.
These churches need two things that pull in opposite directions: one shared picture of the church's people, and enough separation that each ministry can run its own work without stepping on, or seeing into, everyone else's.
What problems do multi-ministry churches run into?
- Every ministry has its own tool. Youth uses one app, the women's ministry a spreadsheet, kids a check-in system, and none agree on who a family is.
- Access is all or nothing. To let the youth leader update their roster, they are given a login that sees the kids ministry's allergy notes.
- Calendars collide. Two ministries book the fellowship hall for the same Saturday, and three of them email the church on the same Monday.
- Files scatter. Each ministry keeps its handbook, forms and permission slips in someone's personal drive.
- Families get counted twice. A parent in the women's ministry whose children are in kids and youth appears in four lists.
How does Churchory keep one directory across many ministries?
Every Churchory product reads from one shared people directory with real households. A family is one family whether the children check in on Sunday, the teenager is in the youth group, and a parent leads a women's Bible study. That foundation, called Core, is free forever and includes the directory, families, roles and permissions, church-wide email and push, and the Churchory web and mobile apps. See the Core page.
How does each ministry run its own work?
Most ministries run as groups. In Churchory's Groups product, a youth group, a college ministry or a women's Bible study is a group with its own leaders, roster, meetings, attendance, prayer requests and weekly content. Your church can choose what it calls groups. With Chat, each group can have its own conversation, and leaders get a leader forum to compare notes across ministries.
Other parts of a ministry's work map onto other products:
| Ministry need | Where it lives | Product |
|---|---|---|
| Rosters, meetings and attendance | Groups | Groups |
| Ministry events, RSVPs and room booking | Events, with one event handed to one organizer | Events |
| Camps and retreats with cabins and rides | Retreat Builder, on top of Events | Retreat Builder |
| Serving teams for each ministry | Serving schedules | Sunday |
| Children's check-in | Kids check-in kiosk | Kids |
| Handbooks, forms and permission slips | Folders with their own access | Documents |
| Meal trains and follow-ups | Care | Care |
Retreat Builder is its own product at $99 a year or $25 a month, works with Events, and is included in Churchory One.
How do permissions work across ministries?
Churchory's permissions are a grid of 23 areas, each with up to four levels: None, View, Manage (assigned) and Manage (all). Manage (assigned) is the level that makes a multi-ministry church work: it gives a leader full control of what they lead, and nothing else.
- Groups at Manage (assigned) lets a ministry leader run the groups they lead, but not create or delete groups or see inside another ministry's.
- Serving at Manage (assigned) lets a team lead schedule their own team without touching another ministry's rotation.
- Events at Manage (assigned) lets a leader create and run their own events; group events stay private to the group, and only Manage (all) can list an event church-wide, charge for it or book a room. You can also hand one event to one person without granting them anything church-wide.
- Kids has View and Manage (all), so the children's director owns check-in and families while other ministries see none of it.
- Insights are granted per area, so the youth pastor can see group dashboards without seeing giving.
The church administrators page explains how to design roles, and the small group leaders page shows the seeded leader role.
How do many ministries share one communications calendar?
Church-wide email and push announcements are free forever in Core. Newsletters can go to the whole church, one audience or a mailing list, so a ministry can send its own email with unsubscribe and suppression handled properly. Digital Bulletin separates drafting from publishing: a ministry leader with Manage (assigned) can build their section, and only someone with Manage (all) publishes. Owning either product unlocks a shared communications planner, so every send from every ministry sits on one calendar.
What about language ministries?
The Churchory app is available in five languages: English, Spanish, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese and Korean. Members and leaders can use it in the language they are most at home in, while the church keeps one directory.
Does Churchory support multiple campuses?
Only partly, and we would rather say so plainly. A church can name its campuses in settings, and once it has two or more, a campus filter appears and people can have a home campus. People, groups and church-wide events always stay shared. If your church is genuinely multi-site, with separate staff, schedules and reporting per campus, please talk to us before choosing Churchory, so we can tell you honestly whether it fits today.
Which plan should a multi-ministry church choose?
Almost always Churchory One. A church with many ministries typically uses Groups, Events, Sunday, Kids, Chat and Documents at least, and often Care, Newsletters or Retreat Builder as well. Churchory One is $599 a year, which saves $949 against $129 a month, for every product, every future product and your church's own app. Bought separately, six products are $594 a year or $150 a month and seven are $693 a year, so One is the better deal from the sixth product on monthly billing and the seventh on yearly billing, and it is the only way to get your own app. There are no people-count tiers.
The larger value for a church with many ministries is that each ministry stops buying its own tool. One directory, one calendar and one set of permissions replace the separate sign-up sites, group chats and spreadsheets each team tends to collect, and the church office keeps one list instead of reconciling several. Giving carries no Churchory platform fee, only Stripe's processing fees. Every church starts with a 45-day free trial with no card.
How do we bring every ministry's lists together?
Churchory's team migrates your data for free from Planning Center, Breeze, Church Community Builder, Tithe.ly and Elvanto, Realm, Servant Keeper, ChurchTrac and spreadsheets, with 12 to 24 months of history. The switching page explains how, and the growing churches page covers the delegation side of a larger church.
Churchory products in this page
Frequently asked questions
Can each ministry have its own leaders without seeing the whole church?
Yes. Permissions are set per area and per role, and Manage (assigned) limits a leader to what they lead: their groups, their serving teams, their events. A youth leader can run youth without seeing the kids ministry's records.
How are ministries like youth or college set up?
Each one runs as a group in Churchory's Groups product, with its own leaders, roster, attendance, meetings and weekly content. With Chat, each can have its own conversation.
Does Churchory support multi-site churches with several campuses?
Partly. You can name campuses in settings, and a church with two or more gets a campus filter, but people, groups and church-wide events stay shared. If running separate campuses is central to how your church works, talk to us before you choose.
Can different ministries keep their files private?
Yes. Documents uses folders with their own access, so a ministry's folder is open only to the people you choose, and a file can still be shared publicly by link when it is meant for everyone.
Is Churchory available in other languages for language ministries?
Yes. The Churchory app is available in English, Spanish, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese and Korean.
Does each product work on its own?
Yes. Every product runs on Core by itself except Retreat Builder, which needs Events because every retreat is an event. Products light up extra features when you own them together: Groups plus Chat gives each group its own channel, Sunday plus Care puts first-time guests on the follow-up list, and Events plus Newsletters pulls upcoming events into a newsletter.
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.