Church software glossary

A blockout date is a date a volunteer marks as unavailable, so they aren't scheduled to serve that day.

Blockout dates are how volunteers say "I'm away that weekend" before the schedule is made rather than after. Collecting them up front prevents most last-minute cancellations, and the guilt that leads volunteers to quietly step back.

In Churchory Sunday, volunteers enter their own blockout dates, and the scheduler won't put them on those dates.

A branded church app is a mobile app listed in the App Store and Google Play under the church's own name and icon, rather than inside a software vendor's app.

With a branded app, a member searches the store for your church's name and your church is what installs. It is usually published from the church's own Apple and Google developer accounts, which means the church owns the listing (Apple charges $99 a year for its developer account; Google charges a one-time registration fee).

Branded apps often include a guest mode, so a visitor can look around (service times, plan a visit) before they create an account.

In Churchory, your church's own app comes with Churchory One. A publishing wizard handles the steps that can be automated, and the team joins a call for Apple and Google enrolment.

A care ministry is the part of a church that looks after people in hard seasons (illness, a new baby, grief, job loss) through meals, visits, prayer and practical help.

Care is often led by deacons or a care team. The willingness to help is rarely the bottleneck; coordination is: knowing who needs what, who has said they'll do it, and whether anyone has followed up.

Churchory Care brings together meal trains, prayer chains, funds with your church's own giving methods, and follow-ups assigned to a named person.

A check-in kiosk is a tablet or laptop in the church lobby where families check their children in (and adults record attendance) without a volunteer typing everything for them.

A check-in kiosk lets a parent find their family, tap the children who are here, and print name labels and a pickup ticket, usually in under a minute. A well-designed kiosk:

• needs no staff login, so there's no session to expire mid-morning;
• shows nothing else from the church database (no directory browsing from the lobby);
• lets siblings check in together;
• prints labels with allergy flags and a security code.

Churchory's kiosk runs from its own link that needs no volunteer login and reaches nothing else in your church. It prints to Brother QL label printers or plain paper, and a small Print Agent for Mac and Windows prints silently.

A ChMS, or church management software, is the system a church uses to keep its people directory and run the ministries around it: groups, events, attendance, volunteers, communication and giving.

More about ChMS (church management software)

ChordPro is a plain-text format for song charts in which chords are written in square brackets inside the lyrics, so software can display and transpose them.

In a ChordPro file, a line like [G]Amazing [C]grace places each chord above the syllable it falls on. Because the chords are text, an app can transpose the whole chart to a new key instantly and render it cleanly on any screen.

Churchory's song library stores charts in ChordPro and transposes them live.

A church app is a mobile app members use to stay connected to their church during the week: events, groups, chat, serving schedules, giving and announcements.

More about Church app

A church directory is the list of a church's people and families (guests, members and staff) with contact details and household relationships.

A directory is the foundation of every other ministry tool. Keeping it accurate is easier when households are real records (not a shared surname), when members can update their own details, and when duplicates can be merged without losing history.

In Churchory, the people directory and families are part of Core, which is free forever.

A congregational vote is a formal decision made by a church's voting members, for example approving a budget, electing officers or amending the constitution.

Many churches, especially congregational and Baptist churches, make major decisions by member vote, following their bylaws. A vote needs a defined electorate (who is eligible), often a quorum, a threshold for passing (simple majority, two-thirds), and frequently a secret ballot.

Churchory Voting lets eligible members vote from a phone or the web, keeps ballots secret (nobody, staff included, can see who voted which way), supports quorum and thresholds such as two-thirds, and shows results when the vote closes.

A digital bulletin is a church's weekly bulletin of announcements, the order of service and events, published as a phone-friendly page instead of (or alongside) paper.

A digital bulletin can be corrected after it goes out, reaches people who weren't there on Sunday, and doesn't need reprinting for a typo. People usually reach it by a push notification, a link, or a QR code in the lobby.

Churchory Digital Bulletin builds the bulletin in reusable sections and publishes it once as a push notification, a public link and a lobby QR code.

A church duty roster (or rota) is the schedule of who is on which duty on which Sunday: welcome, tea and coffee, sound, readings, kids and so on. In the US it is usually called a serving schedule or volunteer rotation.

More about Duty roster

A family intake form collects a family's children, allergies, medical notes, authorized pickups and emergency contacts before they first check in.

Clipboard forms filled in at 9:58 are hard to read and rarely get typed up, which means allergy information isn't where volunteers need it. An intake form sent ahead of time fixes that: the parent fills it in on their phone during the week, and the information arrives in the church's records already typed.

In Churchory, each family gets its own intake link, with no account or app download needed, covering children, allergies, authorized pickups, emergency contacts and media consent.

First-time guest follow-up is how a church welcomes and stays in touch with people after their first visit, so a visit becomes a relationship rather than a one-off.

Most guest follow-up plans run over several weeks: a thank-you within a day or two, a personal contact from someone they met, an invitation to a next step (a newcomers' lunch, a group), and a check-in a few weeks later. The plan works only if each step has a named person responsible.

In Churchory, Sunday check-in records who's new, and with Care, first-time guests land on a follow-up list where each follow-up is assigned to one person and every touchpoint is logged.

A group waitlist holds people in order when a small group or event is full, and moves the next person in when a spot opens.

Waitlists matter because a "full" group with no next step loses the person who wanted to join. In Churchory Groups, people join a waitlist when a group is at capacity and are promoted automatically, in order, the moment a seat opens.

Kids check-in is the process of recording which children are in which room, printing name and pickup labels, and making sure each child goes home with an authorized adult.

Kids check-in covers three moments: drop-off (who is here, which room, any allergies), the hour in the room (who's in each room right now, how many volunteers), and pickup (matching the parent's ticket to the child). It also covers what happens before Sunday: collecting allergies, authorized pickups and emergency contacts.

Paper sign-in sheets fail at the last two. A digital system gives the person running the hallway a live, room-by-room view and keeps a record that holds up if anyone ever asks "who picked up Emma?"

Churchory Kids includes a lobby kiosk, family intake links parents complete without an account, labels and pickup codes, and a live room dashboard.

Live Q&A is a way for an audience to submit and upvote questions from their phones during (or before) a meeting, so the most-asked questions get answered first.

Live Q&A replaces the microphone in the aisle. People submit questions from a link, upvote the ones they also want answered, and the leader works down the list on screen.

Churchory Open Floor gives each session a public link (no app, no account), opens submissions before the meeting, supports upvoting and live polls, and has a projector-ready present mode with a record of what was answered.

A meal train is a schedule of meals that friends and church members sign up to bring to a family going through a hard season: a new baby, a surgery, an illness or a loss.

A meal train turns "let us know if you need anything" into specific dates someone can claim. A good one shows:

• which dates and slots are still open;
• drop-off instructions (time, place, whether to knock);
• dietary notes: allergies, preferences, how many people;
• an option to send a gift card instead of cooking.

The usual failure is the reply-all thread: four lasagnas on Tuesday and nothing on Thursday.

In Churchory Care, a meal train has slots per date, drop-off and dietary notes, gift-card links (DoorDash, Uber Eats, Grubhub, Instacart, Amazon, Walmart) that count toward the same meal, and a public share link so neighbours and relatives can claim a slot without an account.

A members' meeting (or business meeting) is a gathering of a church's members to hear reports, ask questions and make decisions such as budgets, elections and bylaw changes.

A members' meeting usually follows a set agenda: opening prayer, approval of the last minutes, reports, old and new business, votes and closing. The hardest part is often the questions: the person with the question everyone is wondering about rarely walks to the microphone.

Churchory's Open Floor collects questions before and during the meeting, lets the room upvote them and shows them on the projector; Voting handles the ballots.

Online giving lets people give to their church by card or bank from a phone or computer, one time or on a recurring schedule, with records that feed year-end giving statements.

Online giving works through a payment processor (such as Stripe). Important questions to ask: who holds the money, what fees apply, whether givers can cover the fee, and whether online gifts and cash/check gifts end up in the same records for statements.

Churchory Giving runs through your church's own Stripe account (your church is the merchant of record and Churchory takes no percentage), with one-time and monthly gifts from $1 to $25,000, funds, cover-the-fee and year-end statements.

A prayer chain is a way of organizing a congregation to pray for a need around the clock, with people claiming specific time slots until every hour is covered.

Historically a prayer chain was a phone tree: one person called the next. Today it usually means a schedule: people claim a date and a time slot so that the hours of a surgery, a vigil or a day of prayer are covered without gaps.

Churchory Care lets a care train run a prayer chain where people claim a time slot until the hours are covered, or a simpler prayer wall.

A quorum is the minimum number or share of eligible members who must take part for a vote or meeting to count, as set by a church's bylaws.

Bylaws commonly set a quorum as a share of the membership roll (for example one half) or a fixed number. If quorum isn't reached, the vote doesn't stand regardless of the result.

Quorum is separate from the threshold, which is the share of votes a measure needs to pass (such as two-thirds of ballots cast).

In Churchory Voting, a church can set quorum as none, a share of the roll, or a fixed number, and a threshold of simple majority, two-thirds, three-quarters or a custom percentage. A ballot counts toward quorum even when it leaves a question blank.

Roles and permissions decide what each person can see and do in church software, so a volunteer gets exactly what their ministry needs and nothing more.

Without fine-grained permissions, churches end up making everyone an administrator, which exposes giving records and children's medical notes to people who don't need them.

Churchory roles are named by your church (Elder, Deacon, Ministry Lead) and set as a grid of 23 areas with four levels each: none, view, manage what you're assigned to, or manage everything. Church settings and billing are administrator-only and can't be granted through a role.

A secret ballot is a vote in which no one, including church staff, can see how any individual voted.

Secret ballots protect members who would vote differently if their vote were visible, which matters in small congregations where everyone knows everyone. A digital secret ballot must still make sure each eligible member votes only once.

Churchory Voting keeps one member, one vote while ensuring nobody can see who voted which way.

A security code is a short code printed on both a child's name label and the parent's pickup ticket; at pickup, the codes must match before the child is released.

Security codes are the simplest safeguard in kids check-in. When a child is checked in, the same code (for example K-82) prints on the child's label and on a claim ticket the parent keeps. At pickup, the volunteer compares the two. No match, no release: the volunteer calls the ministry lead instead.

Good practice:

• print a new code each check-in, so an old ticket can't be reused;
• never release a child to someone without the ticket, even someone familiar. Involve the ministry lead;
• volunteers' own labels don't need a claim ticket.

In Churchory, codes are a letter plus two digits, printed on both the label and the parent claim ticket.

A serving rotation is the repeating schedule that decides which volunteers serve on which Sundays or services, so the load is shared and no one serves every week.

A serving rotation spreads the work across a team (greeters, sound, kids, worship) so each person serves on a predictable rhythm (for example every third Sunday). A healthy rotation:

• starts from availability: people enter their blockout dates before the schedule is built;
• sets limits per person, so the reliable few aren't scheduled every week;
• has a clear swap path for when plans change.

Churchory Sunday includes an auto-scheduler that fills the rotation within per-person limits and blockout dates, plus swap requests that go to the people who can actually cover.

A small group is a group of church members (often 6 to 15 people) that meets regularly, usually in a home, for study, prayer and friendship.

Small groups go by many names: life groups, home groups, community groups, cell groups. They are where many people actually experience belonging, which is why churches care when groups stall or people quietly drift away.

Running groups well means making them findable (who meets where, which have room), keeping rosters current, taking attendance so drift is noticed, and supporting leaders with material and a place to ask for help.

Churchory Groups covers map-based discovery with a privacy radius, capacity and waitlists, attendance, prayer requests and weekly guides.

A swap request is a volunteer's request to trade a scheduled serving slot with someone else on the team who can cover it.

Swaps arranged in private messages tend to go wrong: two people agree to trade, nobody updates the schedule, and both stay home. A swap request keeps the schedule in the loop.

In Churchory, a volunteer requests a swap from the app, the teammates who can cover are asked, and when one accepts, the schedule updates itself and the team lead can see the change.

Volunteer scheduling is planning who serves where and when across a church's teams, and keeping that plan current as availability changes.

Volunteer scheduling covers the rotation itself, the reminders that get people there, and the changes in between. Most small churches start with a spreadsheet owned by one person; it's out of date the moment it's sent.

Software helps by letting volunteers enter their own availability, filling the rotation automatically within limits you set, sending reminders, and handling swaps without a coordinator in the middle.

Worship planning is preparing the order of a service (songs, keys, readings, prayers and transitions) and getting it to the musicians and tech team in time to rehearse.

A worship plan (or service order) lists everything that happens in a service, in order, with timings, song keys and who is leading. The plan only helps if the team gets it early enough to practise.

Churchory Sunday includes service plans with ordered items, a searchable song library, ChordPro chord charts with live transpose, a rehearsal view, and song import from SongSelect, OnSong, OpenLP files and Planning Center Services.

A year-end giving statement is a summary of everything a person gave to the church during the year, which givers in the United States commonly use for their tax records.

Statements list each gift (or a total by fund) for the calendar year. They are only as good as the records behind them, which is why online gifts and hand-entered cash and check gifts need to live in one place. Churches should follow their own tax advisor's guidance on statement wording.

Churchory Giving generates year-end statements for every giver in a click.