Churchory's Kids product gives a children's ministry director secure check-in, printed name labels with pickup codes, allergy flags where volunteers will see them, and a live room-by-room view, at $99 a year ($25 a month). 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 does a kids ministry director's week look like?
A children's ministry director's week builds to about ninety minutes on Sunday morning, and everything before it is preparation for those ninety minutes. Monday is often spent following up on Sunday: a new family who checked in for the first time, a note from a volunteer about a child who had a hard morning, a room that ran over ratio. Midweek is lesson prep, supply runs, and a long string of messages to fill the nursery rotation. Saturday night is the text that someone's child is sick and they cannot serve.
Then Sunday arrives, and the director needs to know three things at a glance: which children are in which room, which of them have an allergy or a custody note, and which adult is allowed to take each child home.
What pain points do kids ministry leaders bring to us?
- The check-in line. Families arrive at the same five minutes, one volunteer is typing, and a parent is filling in a paper form for a visiting cousin.
- Allergy information nobody can find. It is in a binder, or in a spreadsheet on someone's laptop, not on the label in front of the teacher.
- Pickup that depends on recognising faces. In a growing church that stops being safe quickly.
- Volunteer access that is too broad. To let a volunteer run check-in, many systems hand them a login to the whole church.
- Rotations that fall on the same faithful few. The families who never serve are invisible; the ones who always serve burn out.
How does Churchory's kids check-in work?
Churchory's Kids product runs check-in from a lobby kiosk that a volunteer opens from a link. The link needs no volunteer login, and it reaches nothing else in the church, so the person behind the table can check families in without being able to browse anyone's address.
A typical Sunday looks like this:
- A parent searches for their family at the kiosk and checks siblings in together.
- Labels print with each child's name and a security code made of a letter and two digits, such as K-82. The parent keeps a matching claim ticket.
- Allergy and note flags appear on the label and in the room view, where the team will see them.
- The live room dashboard shows who is in each room, refreshing every 30 seconds, for whoever is running the hallway.
- At pickup, the codes have to match.
Labels print on Brother QL printers using DK-1202, DK-2205, DK-1201 or DK-1208 labels, or on plain paper if that is what you have. A small Print Agent on a Mac or Windows computer prints silently, so nobody is clicking through a print dialog with a line forming. You can design the label layout yourself. The kids solution page has more detail and setup notes.
How do new families get into the system before Sunday?
Send them a family intake link. Parents fill in their children, allergies, notes and the people authorized to pick each child up, without creating an account, and the family is ready at the kiosk when they arrive. First-time families can still be added at the table on the morning itself.
Because every Churchory product shares one directory, a child checked in on Sunday is the same person in the family's record, in a youth group later on, and in the church's attendance. Nothing has to be re-entered when they move up.
What else does the Kids product include besides check-in?
Kids also holds the parts of children's ministry that happen between Sundays:
- Curriculum planning by week, with upcoming lessons first, and a resources area for curriculum PDFs and policies.
- Check-in history, so you can see who came and when.
- A families view for the households in your children's program.
How do kids ministry volunteers get scheduled?
Scheduling lives in Sunday, Churchory's serving and check-in product, so a church that owns both gets the full picture. The Kids area shows a read-only window onto the upcoming schedules for your kids serving teams, and links into Sunday when something needs to change, so there is one schedule rather than two.
With Sunday you also get parent serving rotations: you can ask each family with children in the program to take a set number of serving turns each period. A Parent Serving view shows which families are behind and lets the director send a gentle reminder. And because the scheduler respects availability, blockout dates and swap requests, a sick child on Saturday night becomes a swap request to people who can actually cover, not twenty texts from the director. The volunteer coordinators page explains the scheduler.
What permissions should a kids ministry director have?
Give the director Manage (all) on the Kids permission area. Kids has two working levels, View and Manage (all), because a children's program is run as one ministry rather than room by room. Teachers who only need to read the room view and notes can have View.
Most churches also give the director View on People, so they can look up a family's contact details, and, if the church owns Sunday, Manage (assigned) on Serving so they can run the kids serving teams they lead without touching the worship team's schedule. The check-in kiosk itself needs no permission at all, which is the point. The full grid is described on the people solution page.
Which Churchory products should a church buy for kids ministry?
Start with the problem you have:
| Situation | Products | Yearly | Monthly |
|---|---|---|---|
| You need safe check-in and labels | Kids | $99 | $25 |
| You also schedule kids volunteers and track parent serving | Kids + Sunday | $198 | $50 |
| You want first-time families followed up by name | Kids + Sunday + Care | $297 | $75 |
| You want every product, or your own app | Churchory One | $599 | $129 |
Yearly billing saves $201 a product, and $949 on Churchory One. Churchory One becomes the better deal from the sixth product on monthly billing and the seventh on yearly billing. If your kids ministry pays for its own check-in or label tool today, compare that with Kids on the same directory the rest of the church already uses, so a family is entered once. Every church gets a 45-day free trial with no card, and adding a product during the trial is one click and free. See pricing for details.
Is Churchory a good fit for a small children's ministry?
Yes. A church with one kids room and one volunteer can run the same kiosk and labels as a church with ten rooms, and Kids is priced flat, with unlimited kids, rooms and check-ins. For a church just getting started, the church plants page explains how a plant can set up check-in in a rented building, and the small churches page covers a lighter setup.
Can we switch from our current check-in system?
Yes. Churchory's team offers a free migration from Planning Center, Breeze, Church Community Builder, Tithe.ly and Elvanto, Realm, Servant Keeper, ChurchTrac and spreadsheets, with 12 to 24 months of history, including kids check-in history. The switching page has the details.
Frequently asked questions
Do check-in volunteers need their own Churchory login?
No. The check-in kiosk runs from a link that needs no volunteer login, and that link reaches nothing else in your church. Volunteers can check families in without ever seeing the directory.
What label printers does Churchory support?
Churchory prints to Brother QL label printers on DK-1202, DK-2205, DK-1201 and DK-1208 labels, or to plain paper. A small Print Agent on a Mac or Windows computer prints silently, without a print dialog each time.
How do pickup codes work?
Each check-in prints a security code, a letter and two digits such as K-82, on the child's name tag and on a claim ticket the parent keeps. At pickup the codes have to match.
Can parents fill in their family's details before Sunday?
Yes. Family intake links let parents enter their children, allergies, notes and authorized pickups without creating an account, so nobody is filling in a clipboard at 9:58.
Do I need the Sunday product as well as Kids?
No, Kids works on its own. Add Sunday if you also want to schedule the volunteers who staff each room and track how often each family serves.
What does Kids cost?
Kids is $99 a year, which saves $201 against paying $25 a month, with unlimited kids, rooms and check-ins. It is also included in Churchory One at $599 a year or $129 a month.
How does Churchory track attendance?
Attendance is captured in the room, not reconstructed on Monday: Sunday check-in and headcounts come with Sunday, group attendance with Groups, and kids check-ins with Kids. Staff see week-over-week history and a list of the groups that forgot to take attendance.
Can we run sign-up sheets for potlucks and work days?
Yes. Events have sign-up sheets with slots people claim (dishes, set-up crew, drivers) with a live count, and slots can be open to everyone, one team, or parents only.