Church Management Software

Church Management Software covers a wide range of tools designed to help church leaders manage administrative tasks, communicate with their congregations and streamline operations.

Built from the ground up to support the work of busy church leaders, Church Planner provides a range of church management tools. Contact management, communication tools, event planning, document managent and more -- all packed into one user-friendly package.

Church Planner is here to help you stay organised, plan efficiently and communicate effectively. But why choose Church Planner, and what are the benefits of using a too like it?

Benefits of Using Church Management Software

There are so many benefits to using church management software like Church Planner. Here are some of them:

Save Time

Managing lots of information can be time consuming. And with so many apps and devices vying for our attention it can be difficult to know what to use.

Opting for a single church management app like Church Planner will save you time. Having all your data in one place prevents you having to duplicate information across multiple platforms. No more switching between browser tabs, logging in, copying and pasting from one tool to another. With Church Planner everything's in one place. Which leads me on to the next benefit...

Store Information Centrally

Storing data centrally, in a single app, makes it easier to keep track of everything. If you're like me, over the years you'll have signed up for all kinds of apps and tools. You've got data stored in all kinds of places. Some locally, some in Dropbox or Google Drive, other stuff stored in your emails and so on. Church Planner makes it easy to keep all your data in one place. Next time you need to find a file, you'll know where it is. Next time you need to update someone's contact details you know where to go. Church Planner is a central store for all the information you manage. Simple.

Plan Efficiently

Church Planner is the 'grown-up' version of churchserviceplanner.co.uk, a simple tool I built during the pandemic to help churches create and share online services. Central to the app is powerful event-planning tools. Create one-off or repeat events, define roles and responsibilities and create interactive service plans. Sharing these by email or printing PDFs takes no time at all. Church Planner makes it easy to keep everyone informed.

Communicate Effectively

Clearly communicating with your congregation is vital to the smooth-running of your church. With Church Planner it's easy to create emails which contain key information, clearly presented and reliably delivered. It's easy to include event details, service plans, videos, files and links within your emails.

Church Planner Features

Church Planner supports the work of busy church leaders. It contains a selection of powerful tools.

Contact Management

Store all your church contact details in one place. Keep a record of individuals associated with your church, whether members, regular attendees or visitors. Contacts can be grouped together in families, which makes it easy to see how people are connected. Each contact can be 'tagged' with keywords, which can then be used to filter and group contacts. For example, you might use the tag 'member' to define all those who are formal members of your congregation. You can upload files against a contact (such as PDF documents or images). Notes can also be recorded against contacts, providing a convenient way to store key information.

Group Management

Once you've added some contacts you can use Church Planner to manage groups. Groups could be used to support mid-week Bible studies or connect those with a specific role, such as leaders. Contacts can be added to groups manually, one at a time. Alternatively, you can automatically add all Contacts tagged with a specific word. For example, you could create a group called 'Members', into which every Contact tagged 'member' would be automatically added. This makes it easy to keep your groups up to date, without having to manually add and remove individual Contacts.

Communication

Church Planner includes a simple but effective email tool. Use it to keep your Contacts informed and up to date. You can create engaging emails using a variety of drag and drop elements, such as:

• Headings
• Text
• Bible passages
• YouTube videos
• Files & images
• Event information and more

Sending yourself a test email to check the formatting is quick and easy. Once you're ready to send you can define a list of individual Contacts, or send your email to any of your Groups. You can see all the emails sent from within your account, including lists of recipients. Replies will be delivered to your mailbox.

Calendar & Service Planning

The Church Planner app includes a comprehensive calendar. Create one-off or recurring events, with venues and roles quickly defined. Share an iCal feed with your congregation, so everyone can subscribe to your calendar and automatically receive event updates. You can quickly assign individuals to roles (such as 'Welcoming' or 'Music'). Once roles have been defined can export PDF rotas, which can be printed or emailed to your congregation.

Within each Calendar event you can create a service plan. This can include various kinds of information, including Bible passages and YouTube videos. These plans can be printed off, or emailed using the Communication tool. This is a great way to efficiently plan services and share the details with other leaders and musicians.

Document Storage & Management

Within your Church Planner account you can create folders and upload files for safe keeping. This is a great way to store important documents centrally, such as church handbooks and policy documents. Any document you upload can be included within an email, so it's simple to share files with others. You can also copy and paste a public URL to any file, which can be shared via email or WhatsApp, for example.

Audio Library & Podcast Feed

The Audio tool makes it quick and easy to setup a podcast for your sermon recordings. Upload MP3 files, adding a name, description, speaker, series and so on. Share the RSS feed with your congregation, so they can download the audio directly. Alternatively, the RSS feed can be used to provide a feed of data to YouTube or other podcast services. Sharing your RSS feed in this way will help make your recordings easily available on popular platforms.

Training Portal

The Training portal provides an easy way to create interactive pages of information grouped by a particular topic. For example, you might have a Topic called 'Means of Grace' and within the topic have a Session on each of the following:

• Prayer
• The Bible
• Fellowship
• Learning through Suffering

Each of these Sessions could include text, Bible passages, videos, links to external resources and more. Sessions can be shared via public URLs (so you can link to them from your website, for example). They can also be included within emails sent from the Communication tool. It's so quick and easy to set up!

Use Church Management Software on your Phone

Church Planner is a web app. It runs in any browser (Chrome, Safari, Edge, Firefox) on any web-enabled device. It's got a user-friendly interface and has been specifically designed to be easy to use. I've purposefully chosen to keep the design clear and simple, making it easy to learn. This should reduce the time taken to feel confident using it, so you'll be up and running in no time.

Our Church Management Software Compliments Your Existing Tools

It might be that you already use other tools for certain aspects of church management. For example, you may already be using Google Calendar, Dropbox or Mailchimp. That's fine, there's no need to move everything to Church Planner if you don't wish to. It's designed to fit alongside your existing tools. Just use the bits you need.

As I write this (July 2025) I'm planning on developing to further integrations with third-party apps. Feel free to send me an email if you've got a particular integration in mind. And stay tuned for announcements later this year!

Software Designed By a Busy Leader for Busy Church Leaders!

Church Planner is built by me, Jack Barber. I'm a freelance website developer based in Whitby, UK. I'm also an elder at Grace Community Church, Loftus. I know what it's like to juggle the various responsibilities of ministry alongside a full-time job and a growing family! I built Church Planner primarily for myself and my fellow elders, Robin and Kris. Together we're using Church Planner to help us serve, lead and communicate effectively.

Start Your 30 Day Free Trial Today

Sigining up for a 30 day free trial only takes a few seconds. You don't even need to enter any card details. You'll get full access to every part of the app, so you can thoroughly test it before deciding if it's a good fit for you and your church or not. I'm also happy to provide free onboarding supporting and advice. You'll find a link to book a session with me within Church Planner.

So what are you waiting for? Go ahead and sign up for your free trial of Church Planner today.