How SmartChurch Began Franklin, TN

The legend surrounding the humble beginnings of SmartChurch, a church app that is free for churches to use for life, continues to dissipate through technology circles. I’ve heard it all. Some believe SmartChurch is run by a wealthy benefactor while others have asserted that their goal will be to keep the church app free for now but charge people once they are fully “hooked” on their services. There is also a fear that they have started with the plan to sell advertising in the near future.

As one of the founding members of Lockeland, the parent company of SmartChurch, I can dispel all of these rumors. SmartChurch was created in 2013 to serve church planters and missionary churches all over the world. It was and remains a simple concept: a free church app to help churches grow. And it’s funding comes from the revolutionary concept of “giving” a percentage of income from the parent company to the sustainment and future development of SmartChurch.

Today, this goal remains the same. The team at SmartChurch have a conservative and steady growth plan that they believe is sustainable for at least the next few decades. As they build, they are careful to build things the right way in a “native” environment. This approach ensures the app is less dependent on other technologies going out of business or changing their systems which can add time and cost to other church apps.

Other than new development, the costs are very low for SmartChurch. Almost everything in SmartChurch is automated giving the control to the church which reduces the need for large numbers of Smartchurch staff to run the app. In fact, SmartChurch continues to build new features in direct correlation with the biggest concerns or issues facing their customers today. This process has greatly reduced the cost and burden on their customer service department.

SmartChurch also welcomes third party apps to build off of their API or to fund our costs to integrate with their services. When these integrations make sense to the overall strategy and when the outside third parties are willing to financially contribute to this integration, SmartChurch will do this.

Church Giving - smartchurch

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SmartChurch Adds Push Notifications Nashville, TN - September 1, 2016

SmartChurch, makers of the world’s first free church app, have announced the launch of ANY-TIME PUSH NOTIFICATIONS on their SmartChurch Premium church app.  Beginning today, church leaders using SmartChurch Premium will be able to send out push notifications anytime they want to everyone following their church on the app for no additional charge.

 

SmartChurch already provides “automatic” push notifications whenever a new event, new need, or new media gets added or when a Follower gets a comment on their post, a new connection request, or an event that they’ve RSVP’d to is changed.  However, this is the first time in their almost three year history that Church Leaders can send out notifications whenever they need to.

“Pastors have shared with us all year that they want to send out emergency prayer requests, event reminders, and other alerts without a limit and without extra charges,” states Gresham Hill, CEO at Lockeland (lockeland.org), the company that develops and runs SmartChurch.  “We are happy to respond quickly and continue to build a reputation as a company who is constantly improving and expanding our church app to meet the needs of every church.

What’s the Catch?

Can SmartChurch’s Free Church App Really Be Free?

I get asked this question all the time. What’s the catch? Can SmartChurch really provide any church in the world a free church app for life?  And the answer is 100% yes.  There is no catch.  There are no strings attached. It’s really free for life.

So how do we do it? Well, first of all, SmartChurch was always intended to be free. We currently have a Premium version of our app but that was not the plan in the beginning. We wanted to give church planters, small churches, and missionaries a free church app so that their churches could grow. Our whole mission was just that: a mission. So how is that sustainable?

Well, believe it or not, SmartChurch does make money. We have several sources of income.  Our main source is an entirely separate company that gives us a generous gift every month.  That’s really nice. Second, we are owned by a larger company called Lockeland that builds cus-tom software and mobile apps. They love us and have a longterm commitment to us. And finally, SmartChurch Premium, the feature-rich, costlier version of our church app brings in a little money too (although many churches pay less than $10 per month for it).

All in all, there is no catch. Please support SmartChurch by getting Premium for your church or by hiring Lockeland to build your business an app. Your investment is helping thousands of churches worldwide.

Connection Leads to Community- Finding the right church app

Does our church need a Church app?  That’s a question pastors are asking themselves as this new technology has become the big trend in Christian circles. However, many church leaders dismiss the concept because they either have seen a poorly designed app or they fail to understand the real goal behind a good church app.

Church apps can do a lot of things significantly more efficiently than websites or printed paper:  Giving, Events, Push Notifications, Member Directory, Sermons, etc. However, by far, the biggest benefit provided to a church is not the bells and whistles but something far more simple: connection.

A few years ago, our family moved and began visiting churches.  My wife and I were primarily concerned with the children’s ministry, teaching and theology. However, our biggest need, which we only realized after we started looking, was to connect to people and get to know them. It turns out we’re not alone. This is often cited as the #1 determining factor when finding a church.

Yet, believe it or not, most of the churches we visited did this poorly. In some churches, we were greeted warmly when we arrived. Others, not so much. In the church we finally settled on, members of the church would walk over to us and introduce themselves which went a long way towards making us feel welcome. However, after we chose our church and committed to it, we realized that like all churches, this one was not perfect either.

Our church was loving and friendly, but very disorganized. We tried four times to get involved in a community group at our church, but all four times it was botched in different ways. We also had a difficult time reaching out since we were fairly introverted and found it awkward to walk up to people in our church and randomly strike up a conversation. We got involved in almost everything that happened at the church but simply felt secluded. We were not making connections like we had hoped.

Ironically, in our outside lives of work and play, we were making lots of connections with people in our new city. And as crazy as it sounds, almost all of our connections were happening via social media such as LinkedIn and Facebook.  Which is when it dawned on us, a church app is all about connecting.

Today’s world is different than it was just ten years ago. When you meet someone, most people go home and connect to them online and then get to know them. As they do this, when there comes a time for a gathering or get-together, you are now on the invitation list. The in between are the conversations, updates, and other things that build this connection. If a church app could figure out a way to connect their members and start conversations, this will lead to greater unity, stronger retention, and ultimately church growth.

This has led me to believe that if you have only one goal for your church app, it has to be that “connecting point.” A smart church app starts with connection and leads to community.

Best Giving Apps for Churches

There are many great ways for your church to receive funds via a mobile device.  However, many are very limited.  Here are our top 3.

1.    SmartChurch - The Smart Church giving platform is integrated with Direct Connect and PayPal and provides a simple but beautiful interface to give quickly and easily.  What we love most about it are the pictures and ability to give various amounts to multiple funds in one transaction.  What we do not like is that they do not have a separate app just for Giving.  We wish they’d do that.

2.    PushPay - PushPay provides a simple giving platform without many distractions that allows someone to give to any church that is set up here.  What we like best is that its simple and easy to use and does not require you to get an entire church app.  What we do not like is that the interface is boring and you can not see what you’re giving to. It would be nice to be able to give to specific needs in the church in the future.

3.    Venmo - Venmo is the way young people give these days for free.  It’s not a church-based or faith-based app but it works like a charm.  What we like best about it is there are no transaction fees and simply transfers money from one bank account to another.  What is not great about it is you can not set up funds to give to on here and the interface, while socially viral, is not exciting.  Still, it could be a solution for churches in the future.

Privacy and Church Apps

How private are church apps? What are the security risks of getting a Church App for your church?  What legal ramifications should a church think through before getting a church app?

Privacy, security, and legal issues surrounding church apps is a new and growing field. For the sake of brevity, I want to direct church leaders to ask the following questions before purchasing or licensing their church app.

Will the church app store personal information of our members such as address, phone number, birthday, etc?  If so, who has access to this information?  -  It is fine if a church app stores this information.  The answer you are looking for here is whether the app limits the access to this information to church leaders or if everyone on the church app can see it.  Legally, a church likely will want to know this information but they will want to make sure the app puts the church member in control of who (besides the church itself) can view this information.  Double check to make sure that a church member has control of their personal profile and can easily edit and update it as she/he pleases.  Also, make sure that they can control who has access to see their personal information.  Often, this can be done similar to how Facebook does it by allowing members to approve “Connection Requests” inside the app. 

One of the best apps for providing a church member directory while also keeping that directory private is SmartChurch.com.  This app takes the legal responsibility off of the church (which is right) and moves it to the individual church member.  Each member’s profile is hidden until it is “shared” with another church member.  This is how online church member directories must be created in the future.