Does your church need an app? An honest answer for most churches

Every few months a pastor asks me some version of the same question. "Should we get a church app?" Usually someone on the board saw the app a big church in the next town has, with sermons, giving and push notifications, and it looked like the thing that makes a church feel current. It's a fair question, and the honest answer is shorter than most app companies would like it to be.

For most small and mid sized churches, a custom church app is not the first thing to buy. A website that works well on a phone does more, for more people, and there's a good chance you already have access to a free app that covers what your members actually need. Let me walk through why, and when a custom app really does make sense.

Who a church app is really for

Here's the part that gets missed. An app only helps people who download it, and the people who download a church app are the people already committed to your church. Members. Volunteers. The family that's there every week.

A first time guest is not going to find your church in the App Store. They search Google for a church near them, tap your website or your Google Business Profile, and decide in a minute or two whether to visit. Nobody installs an app for a place they haven't been yet. So an app does very little for outreach. It's a tool for caring for the people you already have.

That's not a reason to skip one. Caring for your people matters. But it changes the question from "do we need an app?" to "what do our members need from their phones that they can't already do?"

Your website is already the app most people use

Across six of our client church sites, 57% of visits over 90 days came from phones, and on one site it was 68%. People are already using your church on their phone. They just do it through the browser.

When a guest or a member opens your website on a phone, they want the same handful of things: service times, the address, what to expect, the latest sermon, how to give, and what's coming up this week. If your site puts those on the first screen and loads quickly, it's doing most of what a church app promises, with no download and no login.

This is why I always start with the website. If your service times are three taps deep or the page takes forever to load, an app won't fix that. It just adds a second place to keep up to date. If you're not sure how your site holds up on a phone, our church website audit checklist walks through it in an afternoon.

The free church app you might already have

If your church uses Planning Center, you already have an app. Church Center comes with every Planning Center subscription at no extra cost, and the basic version (app setup, home page and analytics) is free. When I checked their site this week, Planning Center listed paid tiers of $15 a month for custom pages and themes, and $32 a month for audio and video channels and sermon notes.

What members can do in it is the stuff that actually matters week to week. They can give by card, Apple Pay or bank transfer and manage recurring gifts. They can see events and sign up. They can find a group and message other people in it. Parents can check their kids in ahead of time and scan a code at the door.

Calvary Christian Church in Lynnfield, Massachusetts is a good example of how this works together. We built their website, and their calendar, forms and registrations run through Church Center. Members get the app experience for the things they do every week, and guests get a clear website in English, Spanish and Portuguese. Nobody had to build a custom app to make that happen.

If you're on a different church management system, check what it includes before you shop. Several giving and people platforms bundle a basic app.

When a custom church app makes sense

There are churches where a custom, branded app is worth it. In my experience they tend to have a few things in common:

1. A large, engaged congregation that already uses digital tools during the week, not just on Sunday.
2. Someone on staff whose job includes keeping the app fresh with new sermons, events and announcements.
3. A clear plan for push notifications, so people get a few useful messages instead of noise they turn off.
4. Content worth coming back to, like a sermon library, a reading plan or devotionals your team actually produces.
5. A budget for it every year, not just the year you launch it.

If you can say yes to most of those, go for it, and compare a few providers carefully. If you can't, an app tends to go stale. The last announcement is from Easter, the event list is empty, and members quietly delete it. That's worse than no app, because it tells people nobody is minding the store.

What I'd do first instead

If you're a church of 50 or 150 and the app question keeps coming up, here's the order I'd work in.

Start with the website. Service times, address and a plan a visit page on the first screen, sermons that stay current, giving that takes one tap. Then make sure your Google Business Profile is accurate, because that's where many guests see you first.

Next, use the app you already have. If you're on Planning Center, set up Church Center, put giving and events in it, and tell your people about it from the front on Sunday. That covers most of what members ask for.

Then put your energy into following up with people. An app can't call a first time guest or invite them to lunch. A simple weekly rhythm can, and we laid one out in our post on following up with first time guests. That's where small churches really win.

Only after all of that would I look at a custom app, and only if you have someone to run it.

The bottom line

A church app is a good tool for a church that has the people and the content to keep it alive. For most churches, the better first step is a website that works beautifully on a phone and a free app like Church Center for members. It costs less, it reaches guests as well as members, and it's one less thing for your volunteers to keep up with.

If your website is the part that needs work, that's what we built Church Studio for. It's a church website made for phones, with service times, sermons, giving links and guest follow up by email built in, and you can update it from your phone too. It's $39 a month, and you can try Church Studio free for 14 days and see how your church looks on a phone before you decide anything.