How To Develop A Church Management Mobile App for Ministries & Churches

In the times we are living in, mobile phones have become a crucial part of our everyday lives, and when used correctly they can prove to be a great tool helping us excel in day-to-day tasks. Now there is an app for everything today, literally, hence you must also have heard about the church apps as well, and that there are many who are looking to create such an app. Church management apps prove useful for a number of purposes, be it promoting events, or collecting donations, and using these apps can really help in modernizing your congregation. All you need is to get in touch with a good church app development service to create a great app for this purpose. And in this blog, we will be taking you through the step-by-step process of creating an app for managing a Church. But first, let’s understand what is a Church management mobile app.

Understanding Church Management System

The Church management apps come a set of digital tools that allows managing people, events, attendance, groups, contributions, and more. It allows reaching the audience in a new manner. These apps allow to:

• Automate the tasks: Here each and every administrative process taking place in the Church can be easily tracked and automated. This saves a lot of staff time and helps to focus on the spiritual aspects rather than focusing on the management.
• Close contact with the members: With the apps, it gets easier to receive feedback from the congregation and stay closely connected with the app members.
• Communicate with the volunteers: The apps will help in managing the donation way more efficiently and at the same time will keep the volunteers informed regarding the requirements of the church.
• Comprehensive Reports and Analytics: A Church app allows to get full insights into the church events, donations, congregation information, and the internal processes.

All in all, having a Church Management Software allows shifting the attention from routine tasks to other significant matters that need to be focused upon.

How To Create A Church Mobile App?

Creating a Church mobile app consists of a few steps that we have discussed here:

Analyze Client’s Requirements
Here, first a meeting is arranged with the client to get a good understanding of their requirements with the app so that specific results can be delivered to them. It is good to have software developers around in the meeting as that makes that helps the customers in expressing their demands.

Wireframing While creating the app, it is essential to keep in mind what you really want to create. It is a great idea to have wireframes that focus on your idea as that explains all the screens, functionalities, features, etc.

Designing

Once the wireframes are approved, the UX designers go ahead with the design of app interfaces keeping in mind the style guide that is helpful in the app’s usability.

Development

As soon as the layout is ready and is validated, it is time for the development stage, which involves the steps to create the app codes. Different methodologies can be used in this stage of software development.

Testing

This step is crucial to ensure that there are no bugs, errors, or security holes in the app. Once the app is given a green signal for release.

Deployment

Once the app is ready, the app constantly needs improvements and evolution, as the technology is constantly evolving.

What Are The Benefits Of Creating Church Management Mobile App or Software?

The church management app is not just useful to spread the word about the Church, but it also makes the work easier and has many advantages for the users as well. Here we discuss a few of the benefits that Church apps have, such as:

• They enable seamless & effective communication: These apps make communication a lot easier by allowing the users to be aware of the latest happenings within their Church community. At the same time, having an app makes it easier to influence a new audience directly and increases the church’s visibility locally & globally.
• Offers many opportunities: So, the churches constantly receive donations, and it is not easier to manage them. And having a mobile app allows you to not be bothered about payment-related worries. With this, the payment processes get a lot simpler, comfortable, and secure.
• Access to Sermons: Having a Church allows the users to have access to Sermons, Videos, Holy Bible 24×7, with just a few taps on their mobile screen. To the church, the app allows spreading the holy message of God among the people through daily messages and sermons.
• Cost & Time: A lot of Churches spend a lot of their money to get the newsletters printed and send emails so to keep their people informed about the latest happenings, events. However, having an app saves the Church from all these hassles as then the admin can easily draft and send messages, alerts via push notifications in no time.
• User-Engagement: An app makes it easier to inform the user via push notifications when there is an important event in offering or special prayer sessions. This is also a great way to keep the users engaged with the app.

Few Other Benefits of Church Sermon App

• Church apps also allow receiving feedbacks via polls, surveys, or RSVPs.
• It makes it easier for the Church to keep a digital record of all members.
• These apps allow tracking the users’ behavior.
• With the GPS functionality integrated into the Church app, precise directions can be offered to the congregants of the Church.
• The app makes it easier to submit prayer requests to the congregants.
• Through these apps, it is easier to send pictures, texts, or videos to your app audience with just a few taps.
• These apps enable congregants for viewing and sharing the latest updates on social media platforms.
• Church management apps make it easier to connect with the community while being on-the-go.
• Unlimited Push Notifications can be sent to the users who have the Church app installed on their phone devices.

So, these were the many benefits of Church management apps, now let’s explore more about the Church app.

Top Church Management  Apps & Software

RockRMS, E-zekiel Church Management, Sheepmug, TimeToChurch, Church Manager, Church Office Online, Churchme, Church Center App are some of the app and software available for church management.

General Features Of Church Mobile App

• Audio and Video Versions of Past Sermons
• Daily Devotional/Daily Scripture
• Push Notifications for Church meetings
• Play audio recordings of Sermons
• Calendar/Events
• Home groups/Bible study times and locations
• The Bible in audio and text version
• Contact Us/Find the Church
• Private chat with the church
• Sharing on Social Media
• Accept & Give Donations
• Youth Attendance Rewards
• Appointment setting
• Forms Submission
• Polls, Surveys, RSVPs
• Listen to Christian Radio
• Voter Registration

Features Of Devotees App Panel

• Register The devotees can register in to the app through email, or social media accounts.
• Nearby Churches This functionality allows users to find nearby churches using the Global Positioning System (GPS) functionality.
• Church Listing Here the users conduct the Search on the basis of searched data and matched Church is listed here.
• Sermons The app is constantly updated with the sermons and notes so the users can watch, listen, save and download the sermons and notes.
• Audios & Videos This functionality integrated into the app allows the users to listen to the sermons and watch them. The app also supports video recordings.
• Reminder & Calendar This functionality allows the users to stay up-to-date regarding the latest church activities and other related happenings.
• Community Feature This feature allows the users to join and share information, post queries and answer the questions asked by other users.
• Push Notifications This functionality is great for reminding the users about forthcoming events, activities, and sermons.
• In-App Chat This functionality is useful for users so they can easily get in touch with the Church owner.
• Donations This functionality allows the users to make easy donations to the church through online payment with the app integrated with multiple payment gateways.
• Transaction History Here the app displays the past transactions made by the users with date ad date range. Here the transactions can even be exported.
• Language Translation This functionality enables the users to easily translate the app language and view the content in their chosen language.

Features Of Church App Panel

• Accounting Integration In this section, the church owners manage all the accounting-related information.
• Attendance Tracking From here the church owners can track the number of users who attend the church, and how frequently.
• Built-in Accounting The Church app can even be integrated with built-in accounting as this allows to efficiently handle the financial information.
• Child Check-in The app allows easy child check-in from the app itself so that they don’t have to stand in the long queues.
• Donation Management This functionality will help to track the donations coming to the church and manage them well.
• Event Management A lot of events take place as it comes to religious places, and it is no different for the Church, and functionality for this purpose will allow to efficiently handle the events.
• Member Directory It consists of the contact information of the church members.
• Member Outreach From this section, the church owners can find out the church member outreach.
• Group Management From here the church owners can manage the groups easily.
• Membership Management Memberships can be constantly checked and managed from this section, and when near expiry the particular members can be informed about the same.
• Mobile Access While some church users access the Church system from the web, but mobile access is also offered for mobile users.
• Multi-Site Management Using this functionality, the Church owners will be able to manage the matters of multiple sites.
• Online Calendar The app is integrated with an in-built calendar so that the important dates can be saved and the users can be reminded about the same.
• Online Giving The users are not required to visit the church to send their donations as it can easily be done online.
• Pledge Management Often in the case of religious aspects it happens that the people raise pledges, for instance, it can be to pledge to raise money for Church reconstruction or revival, and this section is to manage the pledges raised by different people at different times.
• Small-Group Management This functionality in the app allows managing a small group of people using the Church app.
• Volunteer Management As it comes to religious and spiritual affairs, often the volunteers come forward to offer help, and the volunteer management functionality allows to manage all from the app itself.

Features Of App Owner Panel (Super Admin)

• Dashboard In this segment of the app, the dashboards are available so that the admin can easily view overall statistics of how the app is performing, in terms of a total number of churches, total users, total donations, sermons, and these are later filtered based on the data and date range.
• Manage Users & Church This functionality allows the admin to easily manage the church and users, like here the user list can be viewed and filtered by, and register on data and data range. It also allows the admin to view the active users.
• Manage Profile This section is managed by the admin, where he can choose to add/edit/delete the users.
• Content Management System From this section, the admin will be able to manage the app content, both in text and Image form.

Advance Features Of Church Management Mobile App

• Social Network Integration This functionality allows the app users to start using the app by signing-up or logging in from their social media accounts, instead of filling up a long list of personal information to start using the app.
• In-App Camera This feature will allow the Church app to click pictures from the in-app camera and save the images in the app itself. This way images of the prayer meet or other activities can be easily exchanged between the app users.
• In-App Chatting This functionality can be quite useful for the Church app as it allows the Church app users to easily get in touch with each other and stay connected.
• Push Notification To keep the users engaged with the app, push notifications and alerts can be constantly sent to the users. Alerts can be sent to the church app users to inform them about upcoming pray meet or newly released podcasts.
• Email Marketing Integration Integration of this functionality within the app allows to send emails to the users for marketing purposes and to enhance user engagement.
• Efficient CMS System Content Management System is crucial, especially in a Church app, but people are constantly using the app to enhance their knowledge or for spiritual reasons, and hence CMS should be handled well.
• Live Analytics This functionality allows the app owners to view the live analytics of the app.
• Multiple Donation Gateway Offering multiple donation gateways allows the users to easily send their donations, without any hassle.
• Podcasts, Sermons, media libraries This functionality allows the users to access the podcasts, sermons, and media libraries installed in the app at any time they desire.

What Does It Cost To Create An App For Church Management?

The cost to develop an app depends on a number of factors, so, here let’s explore them:

Choice Of App Platform

The two main platforms used for the apps for iOS and Android, and the cost of your Church apps will differ as per the platform that you choose, and at the same time, the number of platforms also increase the app development cost, as with each platform, the overall development cost doubles up, as for each platform different development teams would be required.

App Complexity

The development cost of the Church apps also depends on the complexity levels of the app. Like, the mobile apps can be categorized on the basis of their complexity levels, so they can be simple, medium, or high-end. The basic app version costs a lot less as compared to the medium and high-end version. Hence, pick the complexity as per your features & functionalities.

App Development Team

Among the many factors, this factor greatly determines the app cost. So, the team needed for the making of Church mobile app consists of:

• Project Manager
• Requirement Analyst
• iOS Developers
• Android developers
• UX/UI Designers
• Quality Analysis Experts

You can pick the app development company on the basis of your budget and other requirements.

Location Of App development company

Apart from the development company, their location also influences the cost of the church app, as the development cost differs from region-to-region and country-to-country.

• Hourly development rates in North America is $150-$170
• Hourly development rates in India is $10-$80
• Hourly development rates in Australia is $100-$110
• Hourly development rates in Eastern Europe is $30-$150
• Hourly development rates in the United Kingdom is $60-$70

So, as we calculate the mobile app development cost, we multiply the number of development hours to mobile app developer cost and we can say that the budget gathered from India or Eastern Europe would be user-friendly, as the overall cost will be somewhere around $25000-$35000 for a single platform, whereas with the additional functionalities, it can go up to $50000.