Get your church off the group text.
A channel for every ministry and every group, direct messages, and moderation you actually control, plus email for the things that have to land, and texts too once Texting leaves beta. This is the most-used surface in the product, and it’s built like it.
You’re not competing with other church apps.
You’re competing with a group text, a paper bulletin, and a Facebook group. If the conversation isn’t in your app, nothing else in your app gets opened.
Eleven group texts
One per ministry, none searchable, all of them missing whoever changed their number.
No oversight, at all
Nobody can see how an adult volunteer is talking to a student. That’s not a feature gap. It’s a safeguarding problem.
Announcements nobody reads
The email goes to 400 people and 62 open it. The bulletin goes in the recycling.
Chat & Communication, in detail.
A channel for every ministry, every group, every event
Members browse channels and join the ones that are theirs. Add Groups, and every group gets a channel automatically. Everything you expect from a real messaging product is there, because if it isn’t, people go back to the group text within a week.
- Channels, group chats, and direct messages
- Mentions, replies, edits, pins, reactions, polls, typing indicators, seen-by
- @everyone for the things that genuinely are for everyone
- Photos, videos, files, and GIFs attached to a message, staged before you send
- Per-chat mute and unread counts
Moderation, and a record of it
Name moderators per conversation: a small group leader moderates their own group’s chat and the channels they created, and nothing else. Administrators have a chat audit view for the moments when someone has to look. It exists because youth ministry and adult volunteers share a platform, and pretending otherwise isn’t responsible.
- Per-conversation moderators, scoped to what they lead
- A church-wide chat audit view for administrators
- Moderation powers granted through the role matrix, not handed out ad hoc
Email and texts for the things that have to land
Chat is where the conversation lives; email and text are how you reach the people who aren’t in it yet. Email and push come with free Core; texting will be the Texting product, now in beta. Send to the whole church, one group, or one team, and let every person choose, per category, how they want to hear from you.
- Church-wide or targeted email, and SMS, with Texting (in beta)
- A per-person notification preference matrix: they pick the channel
- Automatic reminders for events, serving slots, and RSVPs, from the Events and Sunday products
- Push notifications that deep-link straight to the right screen
A back room for leaders, and an open floor for everyone
Two rooms most church tools don’t have. The Leader Forum comes with Chat: a discussion board only your leaders can see. It’s for questions, wins, and hard weeks, away from the people they lead. Open Floor, a product of its own, runs live Q&A sessions with audience submission and a present mode you can put on the screen at a members’ meeting.
- Leader Forum: post and reply, with moderation for the people who need it
- With Open Floor: live Q&A, audience submission, projector-ready present mode
- Public Q&A links so people can submit before the meeting starts
- Add Documents, and a file from your church library can be shared right in a conversation
The rest of what Chat does.
Where this connects
Chat works on its own, on free Core. Newsletters and Digital Bulletin are separate products you can add beside it, with Texting coming soon (every product shares one directory), or get them all with Churchory One.
Churchory Chat gives every ministry, team and group its own channel, plus group chats and direct messages, with moderation that belongs to the people who lead each conversation. Church-wide email and push announcements are free forever in Core; Chat, Newsletters and Digital Bulletin are $99 a year (or $25 a month) each, or all included in Churchory One.
What problem does Chat solve?
Most church communication lives in group texts and Facebook groups the church can't see or steward: one per ministry, none searchable, all missing whoever changed their number. Nobody can see how an adult volunteer is talking to a student, the church-wide email gets opened by a fraction of the church, and the paper bulletin goes in the recycling.
How does it work?
Create your channels
Set up channels for ministries and teams; with Groups, each group can get a channel automatically. Members can also start a chat space with the people they pick.
Name moderators
Moderators are set per conversation: a group leader moderates their own group's chat and nothing else, and administrators have a chat audit view.
Talk like a real messaging app
Replies, reactions, mentions, polls, photos, videos, files and GIFs: the features people expect, so they don't drift back to the group text.
Reach everyone who isn't in the chat
Send church-wide or targeted email and push announcements (part of Core). Each person chooses, per category, how they hear from you.
Give leaders a back room
The Leader Forum, included with Chat, is a discussion space only your leaders can see, for questions, wins and hard weeks.
Common situations
The youth group lives in a group text
Move it into a Chat channel where leaders moderate and administrators have an audit view, so conversations with students happen somewhere the church can see.
An event needs a last-minute update
Post in the event's channel and send a push announcement that opens the event, not the home screen.
Someone only reads email
Their notification preferences send them email instead of push; you write once and each person hears it the way they chose.
A leader is struggling
They post in the Leader Forum, where other leaders and staff can respond away from the people they lead.
What should you expect during setup?
Start by creating channels for the groups and teams that already have a group text, and ask their leaders to post first in week one. It's the single biggest predictor of whether a church app sticks. Chat works on its own; texting is in beta and not on sale yet.
Who uses it?
More questions
Is Chat included in free Core?
Church-wide email and push announcements are free in Core; Chat is its own product at $99 a year (or $25 a month), and it's included in Churchory One.
Can church leaders moderate chats?
Yes. Moderators are named per conversation, and administrators have a chat audit view.
Can members message each other directly?
Yes. Direct messages and member-created chat spaces are part of Chat.
Does Churchory send text messages?
Texting is in beta and not on sale yet; join the waitlist and we'll tell you when it opens.
Can people mute a busy channel?
Yes. Each chat can be muted individually, with unread counts so nothing important is missed.
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.
Can we email and notify the whole church for free?
Yes. Church-wide email and push announcements are part of Core, so every church can reach, for free, the whole church or one group. Each person chooses, per category, whether they hear about things by push or email.
Does Churchory do text messaging?
Texting is in beta and not on sale yet. It will bring a shared two-way inbox, keywords people text to join a list, and blasts to everyone or one group; join the waitlist and we'll tell you when it opens.
Is church chat safe for youth ministry?
Chat is built with oversight in mind: moderators are named per conversation, a group leader moderates only what they lead, and administrators have a chat audit view for the moments someone has to look. Who can do what in Chat is set through the same role grid as everything else.