One directory your whole staff actually trusts.
A searchable directory where every name is a card you can tap from anywhere in the product, real household records, honest attendance, and a permission system precise enough that you can give someone exactly what they need and nothing else.
Every church has four directories.
The database, the giving tool’s donor list, a spreadsheet the office keeps, and the one in the secretary’s head. Only one of them is right, and it isn’t written down.
Duplicates everywhere
“Jon Smith”, “Jonathan Smith”, and “J. Smith” are three people to your reports and one person to your church.
Families aren’t modelled
Which makes kids check-in, mailing addresses, and “who is this child’s parent?” all harder than they should be.
Permissions are all-or-nothing
Either someone is an admin or they can’t do their job. So everyone becomes an admin.
People & Attendance, in detail.
One card, reachable from anywhere
Tap a name in a chat, on a roster, on an event registration, in a group: you get the same contact card. Search runs instantly because the directory is held in memory on both web and mobile, so finding someone is typing three letters, not waiting on a spinner.
- Instant search across the whole directory
- One canonical contact card, reached from every surface
- Guests, members, deacons, staff, and pastors in one place
- Person lifecycle (active or archived), kept separate from account status
Real households, not a shared surname
Families are their own records, with a shared address and the relationships that matter for kids ministry and mail. Members can see and correct their own family from the app, which is how a directory stays accurate without an office staffer retyping it.
- Household records with a shared address
- Parent and child relationships that kids check-in relies on
- A “My Family” view members maintain themselves
- Whether a join request is an adult or a child is an explicit approval
Getting your data in, and keeping it clean
Import your existing membership from a spreadsheet, then use merge and cleanup tools when (not if) you find duplicates. Every church arrives with a messy list. The tools to fix it are in the product, not in a support ticket.
- Bulk import from a spreadsheet
- Merge duplicate people without losing their history
- Orphan cleanup for records that lost their family
- Account status tracked separately: none, invited, pending, active, revoked
Attendance without a clipboard
Sunday check-in comes with the Sunday product (a headcount at the door and who’s new), and small-group attendance with the Groups product, with a follow-up list for the groups that forgot to take it. With Kids, every child checked in counts too. Numbers you can look at over a year and actually believe, because they were captured in the room rather than reconstructed on Monday.
- Sunday check-in and headcount run by your Welcome Team, with Sunday
- Group attendance taken by leaders, with Groups
- A missing-attendance list so gaps get chased, with Groups
- Week-over-week history for staff and elders
Permissions precise enough to actually use
Roles are free in Core, whatever products you run. Every role is a grid: each area of the products you own, four levels each: none, view, manage what you’re assigned to, or manage everything. Your youth pastor can run youth and see nothing else. Your treasurer can see giving and no one’s medical notes. And you can rename the roles to whatever your church already calls them.
- Access set product by product, four levels each. Build the role, don’t pick from a menu
- Manage assigned: full control of your group, your team, your care train, and nothing else
- Church settings and billing are admin-only and cannot be granted through a role
- Custom role names: Elder, Deacon, Ministry Lead, whatever you say
The rest of what comes free.
Insights ride on top of all of this.
Where this connects
Core is free for every church. Every product you add plugs into the same directory and permission system, or get them all with Churchory One.
Churchory's people directory, families, roles and permissions, and church-wide email and push are Core, the shared foundation that is free forever. Every product plugs into the same directory, so your people are entered once and every ministry sees the same, current record.
What problem does Core solve?
Most churches have four directories (the database, the giving tool's donor list, an office spreadsheet and the one in the secretary's head), and only one is right. Families aren't modelled, so kids check-in and mailing get harder than they should be, and permissions are all-or-nothing, so everyone ends up an administrator.
How does it work?
Bring your people in
Import a spreadsheet from your current system, or request the free migration and we'll do it. People are matched into households, with a duplicate review before anything merges.
Model real families
Households have a shared address and parent-and-child relationships; members can see and correct their own family in the app.
Build your roles
Name roles the way your church does (Elder, Deacon, Ministry Lead) and set each of 23 areas to none, view, manage what you're assigned to, or manage everything.
Invite people
Invite staff, leaders and members when you're ready. Nobody gets an invite email until you say go. They sign in to the web app or Churchory Mobile.
Keep it clean
Merge duplicates without losing history, and update many people at once from a spreadsheet with a preview of every change.
Common situations
Three records for the same person
"Jon Smith", "Jonathan Smith" and "J. Smith" merge into one person without losing any of their history.
A volunteer needs access to one ministry
Give their role "manage what you're assigned to" for that area; they run their group or team and see nothing else.
A family moves
The household's shared address updates once for everyone in it, or the member updates it themselves from the app.
The treasurer needs giving, not medical notes
Grant Giving and nothing in Kids; the permission grid makes that a two-click decision.
What should you expect during setup?
Plan the first week around your directory: export from your current system (a messy spreadsheet is fine), import or request the free migration, and review duplicates. Then build roles before you invite anyone. Most churches finish this in a few days.
Who uses it?
More questions
Is the people directory free?
Yes. The directory, families, roles and permissions, church-wide email and push, and the member apps are Core, which is free forever.
How many permission areas are there?
23 areas, each with four levels: none, view, manage what you're assigned to, or manage everything. Settings and billing are administrator-only.
Can members update their own details?
Yes. Members can see and correct their own profile and family from the app.
Can we export our directory?
Yes. You can download your people as a spreadsheet at any time.
Can we import from Planning Center or Breeze?
Yes. Import a spreadsheet export yourself, or request the free migration. We migrate from Planning Center, Breeze, CCB, Tithe.ly/Elvanto, Realm/ACS, Servant Keeper, ChurchTrac and spreadsheets.
What is Churchory?
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. It runs in a web app for staff and leaders and in Churchory Mobile on the App Store and Google Play for everyone else, and it is built and supported directly by a husband-and-wife team.
Who is Churchory for?
Churchory is for small and mid-size churches, and especially for the pastors, church administrators and ministry leaders who run them with a few staff and a lot of volunteers. Nothing in it assumes a full-time IT person: the kiosk, the sign-up links and the apps are built for the volunteer who was trained once and is standing at a table at 9:58 on a Sunday.
Is there a free trial?
Yes: 45 days free, with no credit card, on the products you pick, or on everything if you start with Churchory One. Want to try another product along the way? Add it during the trial in one click, free. The trial is the real product, not a sandbox or a separate demo version, so nothing you set up is thrown away when it ends. When you sign up you can let yourself straight in, or tick the box asking us to set it up for you; if you tick it, we import your people and groups and build out your ministries before you log in, then walk you through your own church rather than a sample one.
What's included in the free trial?
The trial includes the products you pick at sign-up, plus Core (your people directory, families, roles and permissions, church-wide email and push, and the member apps). Pick Churchory One at sign-up and the trial includes everything. Adding another product during the trial is one click and costs nothing; Your own app is the one exception, because it only comes with Churchory One.