How kids check-in works, from the lobby to pickup.
A kiosk in the lobby, a live dashboard for the room, intake links families fill in before they arrive, and a parent view on the phone. Built so the volunteer at the table on a Sunday morning can do the whole thing one-handed.
Sunday morning is nine minutes long.
Everything about kids check-in either works inside that window or it doesn’t work at all.
The line at 9:58
Three families deep, a volunteer who was trained once, and a laptop that just logged itself out.
Paper forms nobody transcribes
Allergies and emergency contacts on a clipboard are safety information nobody can find in an emergency.
“Who picked up Emma?”
A question you only ever have to answer on the worst possible day.
Kids & Check-in, in detail.
A kiosk that runs itself in the lobby
Set up a tablet or a laptop as a check-in station and leave it there. It runs in its own public kiosk mode: no volunteer account, no session that expires mid-morning, nothing on screen that belongs to the rest of your church.
- A dedicated kiosk link that needs no volunteer login
- Search by family, check in siblings together
- Nothing else in your church is reachable from the kiosk screen
A dashboard for the person running the room
Who is in each room right now, who is still expected, and which kids have something the team needs to know. Kids ministry is its own permission scope, so the volunteers who need this see it and nobody else does.
- Live room-by-room view of who is checked in
- Allergy and note flags surfaced where the team will see them
- Kids-ministry roster separate from the church-wide directory
- Its own product in the permission matrix: grant it to exactly the right people
Families fill in their own information, before Sunday
Send a family a single intake link. They add their kids, allergies, and emergency contacts from their phone during the week. No account, no app download, no clipboard. The information lands in your records already typed, already spelled right.
- Tokenized intake links, one per family
- No login required for the family to complete it
- Household records with a shared address, so siblings stay together
- Whether a person joins as an adult or a child is an explicit approval, never a guess
Curriculum and parents, on the same page
Store what your kids team is teaching alongside the roster, and give parents a view from the app they already have, the same app where they see whatever else your church runs on Churchory.
- Curriculum stored with the ministry, not in someone’s Drive folder
- A parent-facing kids section in the mobile app
- Kids counted separately from adults everywhere in the product, so your numbers stay honest
Kids sits next to attendance.
Household records come with free Core, so siblings stay together whichever products you run. Sunday check-in and attendance come with the Sunday product; group attendance and missing-attendance follow-up with the Groups product.
Where this connects
Kids 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 Kids is kids check-in software for churches: a lobby kiosk that needs no volunteer login, name labels with matching pickup codes, family intake links parents complete before Sunday, and a live room-by-room view. It's $99 a year (or $25 a month) on its own, or part of Churchory One, with unlimited kids, rooms and check-ins.
What problem does Kids solve?
Sunday morning check-in has about nine minutes to work. Paper forms put allergy information where nobody can find it in an emergency, a shared laptop logs itself out at 9:58, and "who picked up Emma?" is a question you only ever have to answer on the worst possible day.
How does it work?
Collect family information before Sunday
Send each family an intake link. Parents add children, allergies, authorized pickups, emergency contacts and media consent from their phone, with no account and no app.
Set up the kiosk
Open the kiosk link on a tablet or laptop in the lobby. It needs no volunteer login and reaches nothing else in your church.
Check in and print
Parents search by family and check siblings in together. A name label with allergy flags and a parent claim ticket print with the same security code (for example K-82) on a Brother QL label printer or plain paper.
Watch the rooms
Whoever is running the hallway sees a live room-by-room view of who is checked in, with allergy and note flags, refreshing every 30 seconds.
Release to the right adult
At pickup, the code on the parent's ticket must match the child's label. Admins can check a child out manually when needed, and the record shows who was in which room and when.
Common situations
A first-time family arrives at 9:58
A volunteer adds the family at the kiosk in a minute, prints labels and a pickup ticket, and sends the intake link so the details are complete by next week.
A child has a severe peanut allergy
The allergy prints on the child's label and is flagged on the room view, so every volunteer in the room can see it.
Someone without a ticket comes to pick up
No matching code, no release: the volunteer calls the kids ministry lead, who can see the authorized pickups the parent provided.
The label printer jams
Plain-paper printing works as a fallback, and the live room view keeps working whatever happens at the printer.
What should you expect during setup?
Plan a week: send intake links to your families, set up rooms and age groups, connect a label printer (the Print Agent for Mac or Windows lets the kiosk print silently), and do a test run with real volunteers the Sunday before. Kids works on its own; with Sunday added, adult check-in and serving schedules work alongside it.
Who uses it?
More questions
Does the kiosk need someone to log in?
No. The kiosk runs from its own link with no volunteer login and can't reach anything else in your church.
Which label printers work?
Brother QL printers with DK-1202, DK-2205, DK-1201 or DK-1208 labels, or plain paper. The Print Agent for Mac and Windows prints silently from the kiosk.
How do security codes work?
Each check-in prints the same short code (a letter and two digits) on the child's label and the parent's claim ticket; at pickup, the two must match.
Do parents need the app?
No. Parents complete the intake link and check in at the kiosk without an account; the app adds a parent view if they use it.
Who can see children's medical notes?
Only people whose role includes Kids. It's its own area in the permission grid.
Is there a separate youth ministry product?
No. Youth and college ministries run as groups in Groups, with their own leaders, rosters, attendance and chat. Age-group ministries and their rosters also live in Core's people directory, so every church can organise people by life stage whatever products it owns.
Does Churchory handle families and households?
Yes. Families are real household records with a shared address and the parent-and-child relationships that kids check-in relies on, and members can see and correct their own family from the app. Whether someone joins as an adult or a child is always an explicit choice by your staff, never a guess.
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.
How does kids check-in work?
A parent finds their family on a lobby kiosk, checks siblings in together, and a name label and a matching pickup ticket print with a short security code (like K-82). At pickup, the code on the parent's ticket must match the child's label, and the person running the hallway sees a live room-by-room view with allergy and note flags.