From the stage to “we’re going” in two taps.
A three-step wizard, a real registration switch, RSVPs by email, and sign-up sheets for the potluck, plus a way to hand one event to one volunteer without handing them your whole church.
The picnic is not the hard part.
The hard part is the sign-up sheet in the lobby, the headcount nobody trusts, and the four people who volunteered to bring chairs in four different places.
Three sign-up systems
A clipboard, a Google Form, and a reply-all email thread. Nobody has the real number.
Email-only RSVPs miss half the church
The people you most want at the retreat are the ones who don’t read church email.
Delegating means over-sharing
To let a volunteer run one event, most tools make you give them the keys to everything.
Events & Sign-ups, in detail.
Three steps, then it’s live
The event wizard walks you through the event itself, how people sign up, and publishing it. Registration is an explicit switch you flip, never something derived from dates behind your back, so an event can never quietly close itself the night before.
- A three-step creation wizard, not a wall of fields
- Registration on or off is a switch you control, never inferred from the calendar
- Multi-day events where people pick the days or sessions they’re coming to
- Room assignment, so two ministries stop booking the same space
RSVPs by email, in a tap
Invitations go out by email. People answer yes, maybe, or no from wherever they are, add it to their calendar in a tap, and see who else is coming. Add Chat, and events also show up as cards inside chat, with the RSVP buttons right there in the conversation.
- Yes / maybe / no over email
- Add-to-calendar, so it lands in the phone people actually check
- “Who’s coming,” visible to the people it should be visible to
- With Chat, event cards inside chat with inline RSVP
Sign-up sheets for the parts people bring
Potluck dishes, set-up crew, greeters, drivers. Create slots, let people claim them, and watch the sheet fill in without anyone maintaining a spreadsheet. Slots can be limited to a team, to parents, or opened to everyone.
- Sign-up sheets for dishes, roles, and shifts
- Slots that fill first-come, with a live count
- Audience-gated slots: everyone, a specific team, or parents only
Hand one event to one person
Name someone the organizer of an event and they get the full manage page for that event and nothing else: the roster, the registrant list, the ability to message everyone who signed up. No church-wide permission, no admin account, no risk. It’s the smallest useful grant in the product, and it’s enforced in the database, not just hidden in the interface.
- A per-event grant that stands entirely outside the normal permission ladder
- Full organizer panel: roster, registrants, messaging, for that one event
- Grants nothing church-wide, ever
- Works the same on web and on the phone
Retreats and conferences, without the spreadsheet.
A weekend away is a different animal from a Sunday potluck: people have to sleep somewhere, get there somehow, and somebody has to account for the money afterwards. Switch on Event Ops and those become part of the event rather than three side documents.
Rooming
Cabins, hotel rooms, or discussion tables, each with a capacity, a room leader, and a policy of male, female, coed or family. Assign people, or let the roster fill. Everyone sees their own room; the organizer sees all of them.
Carpools
Self-serve, where drivers offer seats and riders claim them, or admin-built, where staff assign every seat from the logistics workspace. Your call per event.
Expenses & reimbursements
Log against venue, catering, speakers, transportation, materials or merch, and move each one through pending, approved, and reimbursed. The treasurer stops chasing photographs of receipts.
Multi-track schedules
A real agenda: sessions with start and end times, a speaker, a location, and a track, so “Main Hall” and “Youth” can run side by side without two schedules.
Chats that build themselves
If you run Chat, every room and every carpool gets its own channel automatically. The cabin sorts out lights-out, the car sorts out the petrol stop, and neither of them lands in a church-wide thread.
Fee reconciliation, then a recap
Mark off the people who paid you by cash or transfer so off-platform payers reconcile against the same registration list. When it’s over, an AI recap pulls together what worked and what to change next year.
Off by default, per event
Rooms, carpools and expenses are toggles on the event itself. A Wednesday night dinner never has to see any of it; the winter retreat switches on all three.
The rest of what Events does.
Where this connects
Events works on its own, on free Core. Add any of these when you need them (every product shares one directory and one permission system), or get them all with Churchory One.
Churchory Events is online event registration software for churches: a three-step creation wizard, RSVPs by email, sign-up sheets, room booking and paid registration through your church's own Stripe account. It's $99 a year (or $25 a month) on its own, or part of Churchory One, with unlimited events and registrants.
What problem does Events solve?
Church events get organised across a clipboard, a Google Form and a reply-all thread, so nobody has the real headcount. Email-only invitations miss the people who don't read church email, and letting a volunteer run one event usually means giving them access to everything.
How does it work?
Create the event
A three-step wizard walks you through the event, how people sign up and publishing it. Registration is a switch you control (never inferred from dates), so an event never quietly closes itself.
Open registration
Members RSVP yes, maybe or no and add it to their calendar; guests can register on a public page without an account. Multi-day events let people pick the days or sessions they're coming to.
Collect payment if needed
Paid events take card payments through your church's own Stripe account, with per-ticket-type capacity, discount codes, deposits and an optional waiver people agree to when they register. Off-platform payers can be marked as paid so everyone reconciles against one list.
Fill the sign-up sheets
Add slots for dishes, set-up crew and drivers; people claim them and the count updates live. Slots can be open to everyone, one team or parents only.
Hand it to an organizer
Name a volunteer the organizer of this one event: they get the roster, registrants and messaging for that event and nothing church-wide.
Common situations
The church picnic needs a headcount by Friday
Send the RSVP email and post it in the app; the yes, maybe and no counts are live, and a reminder can go out before the deadline.
A visitor wants to bring their family to VBS
They register on the public event page without making an account, and the registrations land with your kids team.
The retreat needs a deposit
Turn on paid registration with a deposit ticket type; payments settle to your church's Stripe account and the registrant list shows who has paid.
Two ministries want the fellowship hall the same night
Room booking shows the clash before it happens, so the second event picks another room instead of discovering it on the night.
What should you expect during setup?
You can publish your first event the day you start. Paid events need your church's Stripe account connected once (a few minutes if you already have one). If you request the free migration, we bring your upcoming events across for you. For retreats and camps, add Retreat Builder (its own product that works with Events) for rooms and cabins, rides, discussion groups and the budget.
Who uses it?
More questions
Can people register without creating an account?
Yes. Public event pages support guest registration, so visitors and relatives can sign up without an account.
What does it cost to take payments?
Stripe's standard processing fees apply to paid registrations; Churchory adds no percentage, and the money goes to your church's own Stripe account.
Can we limit how many people register?
Yes. Set a cap on the event and per-ticket-type capacity on paid events.
Can a volunteer manage one event without seeing everything else?
Yes. An event organizer gets the full manage page for that event only, enforced in the database.
Do events show up in the app and in newsletters?
Events appear in Churchory Mobile, and with Newsletters or Digital Bulletin you can pull upcoming events straight into a send.
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 people register for church events online without an account?
Yes. Events can have public pages and guest registration, so a visitor or a relative can sign up without creating an account; members RSVP yes, maybe or no and add the event to their calendar in a tap.
Can we take payments for retreats and events?
Yes. Paid registration runs through your church's own Stripe account, with per-ticket-type capacity, discount codes, deposits and an optional registration waiver, and the money settles straight to your church. Stripe's standard processing fees apply; Churchory doesn't add a percentage.
Can a volunteer run one event without admin access?
Yes. Name someone an organizer of one event and they get the full manage page for that event (roster, registrants and messaging) and nothing church-wide. The grant is enforced in the database, not just hidden in the interface.