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For churches to stay connected with their communities, they need a strong mobile presence. 96% of Americans own a mobile phone, and they spend an average of over 5 hours online every day on their mobile devices. Since most people prefer to use their mobile devices to communicate, get information, and consume media, it’s essential for churches to have a mobile app.
So how do churches connect with today’s mobile culture? The most effective tool available is an app for churches loaded with features designed to help them engage their communities.
Subsplash built the very first church app back in 2009. Since then we’ve kept track of which features are must-haves for churches. Before building your own church app, you should become familiar with the best available app features and how they can help your ministry.
Here are the 15 best church app features that you should be looking for with any mobile app provider:
Taking advantage of these features can have a huge impact. For example, when Cornerstone SF added a short daily devotional video to their custom church app, they saw an increase of over one million additional app views year over year! This increased engagement allows churches like Cornerstone SF to expand their reach far beyond their physical location.
Let’s dive into each of these features to see how they can make your mobile church app an amazing engagement tool.
One of the most popular features offered by apps for churches is a video player, used to stream sermons, devotionals, and other gospel content. Your church community should be able to watch your videos anytime and anywhere through their mobile devices!
It’s important to note that many mobile church app providers merely offer a YouTube or Vimeo player, neither of which are ideal video players for your mobile app. Your videos are pulled from those third-party sites into your app, along with distracting ads and other content. Plus, by uploading and hosting your videos on those sites, you no longer have complete ownership or control of them—they can be taken down at any time, without notice.
The best church app platforms offer both video delivery and storage. For example, Subsplash Media provides you with 1–5 terabytes of video storage and a custom video player. This means your users can quickly play your videos without seeing unwanted ads, and you own and control your video content.
Listening to audio, especially podcasts, is one of the fastest growing areas of mobile media. Make sure that your church app provides an audio player that starts quickly, remembers where you left off, and has an option to download audio for listening offline!
Top church app platforms have audio players that also continue playing while you’re using your device to do other things outside of your church app. For example, you can continue to listen to a sermon while reading the news or searching for a nearby coffee shop on your phone. Compare this experience with the apps that only offer YouTube players. You can’t keep playing their media content unless your phone is unlocked with that app open.
Many people don’t carry cash or checks anymore, and therefore don’t have anything to drop into the collection plate when it gets passed around. This is why mobile giving has tripled in recent years—it’s more convenient and secure than donating with cash or checks. Adding an in-app giving feature allows your donors to easily give anytime from anywhere.
Good giving solutions have no monthly fees, no hidden fees, and allow you to match your app’s giving tab with your church’s branding. People are much more likely to complete their donation if your app looks and feels like it’s part of your church.
While most mobile apps process donations outside of the app on an external webpage—due to app store policies—Subsplash Giving does it better. Not only can your donors enter their donation amount within the app, but they’ll be redirected back to your app right after completing their transaction! This user experience helps keep your audience engaged with your content and prevents them from hitting any “dead ends.”
Push notifications allow you to send personalized messages directly to your users’ mobile devices. This matters because push notifications are opened 50% more often than emails, making them much more effective for connecting with your community.
The best church apps allow you to send tailored push notifications to specific groups at no extra cost. Your app users can then choose which group notifications they want to see. People who receive useful and relevant messages are much more likely to keep their notifications turned on.
One of the most effective tools for increasing engagement is in-app messaging. Messaging equips your church community with an authentic way to create connections, engage with each other, and build meaningful relationships through their mobile devices.
Rather than juggling multiple messaging services and platforms, look for ways to centralize communication in one place: your branded mobile app. People can easily share prayer requests, coordinate small groups, or communicate with their volunteers within your secure app environment.
Find out more about using in-app messaging for your church.
Live streaming allows you to connect with your church audience in real time. The best live streaming platforms make it simple to broadcast your live events simultaneously to any device through apps for churches, as well as to other platforms like your websites, Facebook Live, and YouTube.
Learn more about how to set up your live streaming for your church.
Your app should be as unique as your church is. The best church app platforms allow you to customize your app with your church’s name, logo, and branding elements so it truly looks and feels like your church’s app.
It should be easy for your community to stay up to date with a calendar of upcoming events inside your app. People will return to your app over and over again to browse through upcoming events and access the event details. Your church app builder should also allow you to provide maps, signup forms, contact information, and more for each event.
Thanks to mobile technology, your blog posts and devotionals can easily be integrated into your custom church app. By simply connecting your blog’s RSS feed to your app, your newest posts appear within your app right after you submit them. Your readers can see which posts haven’t been read yet, and they’ll appreciate the convenience of having your blogs and devotionals available on their mobile devices.
With a free-form note-taking feature in your app, your users can journal their personal thoughts. This helps your app become the hub for your community’s spiritual journey. In addition, with fill-in notes, you can create outlines of your sermons and church classes with fill-in-the-blank spots to help your audience follow along.
Churches can save hundreds to thousands of dollars every year by going digital with forms and connect cards. Using digital forms also saves you time with no more printing, sorting, or distributing printed forms. Your app can provide digital versions of your visitor cards, connect cards, prayer requests, and signup forms for potlucks, fundraisers, and other events.
Your app provider should also integrate custom forms through your church management system (ChMS) or third party form providers.
Similar to forms and fill-in-notes, providing digital bulletins to your app can reduce your printing costs. They also provide a convenient way for your congregation to participate in your services online. Better yet, there’s no need to pick up and throw away all of those printed bulletins left behind every week!
Watching a video on a mobile device works well when only one person is watching, but what if you want to watch it along with your friends or family? People enjoy watching church videos from the comfort of their homes, so being able to cast your content from your app onto TV screens has become a very popular feature.
Allow your church community to comfortably watch your media by casting your content from your custom mobile app to a TV, smart speaker, and other devices through Google Cast and Apple Airplay.
When it comes to church apps, people expect a Bible feature. Make sure your church app provider has a Bible that functions within the app itself, as opposed to a link to an external Bible website. In-app Bibles allow users to copy, share, and highlight their favorite verses within the app. Your church app platform should also give you the option to create custom Bible reading plans for your congregation.
Many churches may wonder if having an app will actually create more work for their team. While it's true that most apps for churches will require you to manage your app separately from your other engagement tools (like your website), that isn't the case with Subsplash.
Perhaps the most important church app feature of all is a seamless integration with your other engagement tools. For example, Subsplash created The Ultimate Engagement Platform™ that connects your mobile app to your church’s website, online giving, media storage and delivery , instant messaging, and live streaming services.
This means no more managing multiple tools and dashboards from different platforms! You can upload your content to one dashboard that automatically updates your app and your website, saving you time, reducing confusion, and streamlining your processes.
Only Subsplash offers all of these church app features to help your church reach and connect with your community anytime from everywhere. Subsplash also offers you world-class support for every stage— whether you’re building your app, putting your app onto the app stores, or wanting to promote your app to your church and the world.
[.blog-contact-cta]Talk with one of our ministry consultants [.blog-contact-cta]before starting to build your church’s mobile app, and discover why over 10,000 churches and organizations have chosen Subsplash to help them take their mobile engagement to the next level.
