The Free Church App
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Please walk through the following checklist:
It’s likely you’re waiting on a Church leader or admin to see your flag and correct the mistake or for other members of your church to also flag the same post. For SmartChurch Premium users, flagging simply alerts them of something that needs to be changed on the Church Wall. A Church leader or admin will see this flag and immediately remove or edit it. For Freemium users, flagging is a democracy and 3 flags will remove a post. If your members are concerned with the person who posted it, they can have that person blocked from following your church. If it’s simply a mistake, they can just vote to remove the post.
SmartChurch is proud to be one of the few church apps that offer web access. Simply login at SmartChurch.com and use your computer to access our app.
There’s a great chart on our homepage that displays it, but if you’re still not sure, here’s the answer in quick bullet form:
Not at all and we’re saddened to hear false rumors being shared with church leaders. Freemium is truly free for life and we do not charge anything extra. There are no hosting fees and no costs whatsoever to having this account. Just enjoy it!
No. Since our inception in 2014, our prices have only come down for Premium and Freemium has always been free-for-life.
Yes. It takes about 30 seconds to link the accounts. Here’s our helpful guide on how to do it.
Yes. It takes about 30 seconds to link the accounts. Here’s our helpful guide on how to do it.
If you set up an account with First American (you can do that by going HERE), then your members can add their credit card to the app and give in less than 15 seconds after doing that. Transactions on Direct Connect or PayPal may take longer because there is no ability yet to store their credit cards in SmartChurch.
If your church sets up an account with First American (you can do that by going HERE), then your members will be able to set up daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annual donations to your church. It’s fast and easy.
Yes. It takes about 30 seconds to link the accounts. Here’s our helpful guide on how to do it.
Yes.
Yes. If you want to limit your Building Fund to $5,000 per month or your missionary in Bulgaria to $1,000 per month, you may do that. Research shows that people will give more to specific needs so by giving options, you will see your church’s overall giving increase.
Yes. Our preferred partner is First American because within our app, they provide reports and will allow your members to set up recurring gifts and remember previously used credit cards making check out fast. Click HERE to set up your own First American account. We also have secure integrations with PayPal and Direct Connect. First American and Direct Connect are available to U.S. churches only.
First American and Direct Connect can do that. PayPal is set up like a separate bank account and they make it very simply to transfer money to your main checking account at any time.
No. We partner with the highest quality merchants to assist us with this and while they do charge a fee that is close to the lowest in the industry, we do not.
No. You will have one Personal Profile on SmartChurch that you will use with any churches you follow. Your information is private meaning no one can see your personal information except the church leaders unless you “connect” with them.
You will click a button on the Church Followers page called “Connect” that will send a connection request to that person. If they accept, you’ll be able to see their Profile and they will be able to see yours.
You do not have to share anything. You can share whatever you’d like to share such as phone, email, home address, social media accounts, biography, etc. It’s up to you what you do and do not share.
In Premium, yes. But in Freemium, everyone is an equal vote and there is no way to distinguish a church follower from a pastor. 3 votes will remove that post.
This is highly unlikely. Posting to your church wall with malicious intent is an extremely rare occurrence and as the writing of this post (10/10/15), it has never happened on SmartChurch to our knowledge. Remember, this Follower can be removed if they are flagged for inappropriate posts three or more times in Freemium or removed instantly if your church uses Premium.
Yes. If three or more (depending on the size of the church) people flag a post and choose “Block This Follower” as their reason for flagging it, that person will be blocked from posting to that church. In Premium, the church admins can block or remove a follower instantly. Also in Premium, a church can add back a follower who was previously blocked.
The checkin button should only be clickable on the day of your event so you can see how many people are there and so that people can talk about your event on that day. You will see it on the Event on that day.
Yes. Simply click on RSVP again to unRSVP from that event.
When you’re looking at the event, under participating, click on the RSVP’s to see who has responded.
You do not have to sell tickets to an event. This only shows up if you enter a link to direct people to a website where tickets will be sold.
An event is deleted by flagging it on the Events page. Deletion requires more than one flag from different users to delete the events. This is so that no one accidentally or improperly deletes an event.
We do not believe your members will post events improperly. It is far more likely that members will do a great job with a little guidance from the church leadership. If they make a mistake, a gentle correction will prevent it in the future. We recommend taking ten minutes of Sunday School time to introduce and educate your members on what is and is not appropriate to post to the event section.
Yes, anyone can post an event in Freemium but only the church leaders may post an event in Premium.
Yes. Currently, your posts go to all of the Church Followers. In the future, churches will be able to set up groups so that you can post only to a specific group (i.e. Women’s Adult Sunday School Class).
Simply click on the post or the comment icon. You’ll see a box at the bottom that you can type into. When you are finished, click the button at the bottom that says “Comment.”
While on a post, click the heart icon in the upper right corner.
Yes, anyone may post however, Followers can be removed or blocked from the app.
Go to your toolbar by sliding your finger from left to right on the screen. Go to the bottom and click on My Profile. Here you can add your picture.
Once you scroll down the page, the name of your church and the picture will disappear. This is to give you more room on your phone to view posts.
To avoid having certain posts removed without cause or by accident, we require multiple people to flag a post before it is removed. For example, currently, the logic is that at least 5 followers in a church that has 100 total followers must flag a post before it will be removed. This logic is subject to change.
You can click on the megaphone icon to “Broadcast” a post to your personal Facebook or Twitter page. If it won’t allow you to connect to your Facebook or Twitter page, leave the SmartChurch App and go to your “Settings” on your smartphone. Once there, search for your Facebook or Twitter settings in here and you can “allow” SmartChurch to access them from there.
Upgrade to Premium. In Premium, the church can control everything on their Profile. However, in Freemium, each follower has one voice and one vote. But don’t miss out on the church’s opportunity to “train” their members on how they’d like them to use the app. In Freemium, your church could “instruct their members to not change the church profile settings and to only approve settings that are suggested from someone in leadership. The community will likely get behind this and “flag” any posts that are not from church leadership before they have a chance to be approved.
Currently, no. However, please send your suggestions to [email protected] and we will likely plan to add these in the future.
In Freemium, yes. Once you have a certain number of followers on your app, it will require multiple people to approve changes to the Church Profile. This is very similar to the flagging logic. It is likely that 3 people will need to “Love” your change before it can take effect. This too prevents people from changing the Church Profile without cause. But it also provides the church with a Wikipedia style ability to get mistakes caught and updates posted more quickly. In Premium, church leadership has the ability to reject or approve all updates to the Church Profile before they go live.
Change the name of the church you want to remove to “Do Not Follow” and change the city & state to “Smart, NC”. Or upgrade to Premium and we will remove it for you.
Those field are not required. You can leave them blank for now and someone else can update the church profile later on if they know this information.
Do not select any worship styles at this time but continue to add your church. Then, email [email protected] with this issue and what worship style you would like to see on here. We will verify and then add new worship styles every month.
Go ahead and select “Other” for denomination but continue to add your church. Then, email [email protected] with this issue and what denomination you would like to see on here. We will verify and then add new denominations every month.
Yes, so long as each church at the same address has a different name.
To avoid duplicate churches, we need to know this information.
The app keeps you logged in unless you do not open it for 30 days.
SmartChurch has tens of thousands of people downloading the app which raises the chances that someone outside of your congregation will find and follow your church. From the goal of growing your church, you want to make sure you have a presence on SmartChurch when someone moves into your town. Likewise, a visitor is more likely to download SmartChurch and keep it on their phone than a custom built app for a specific church.
Yes. Custom church pricing is available for you if you would like us to build a custom church app. Please email [email protected] to find out more.
One of the biggest problems churches are discovering with building their own apps is that they are getting lost in the App Store. A quick search for “Church App” currently pulls up 6,722 apps (as of 5/2/14) on Apple’s store. Searching “First Baptist” pulls up 124. Unfortunately, you can’t search by location or denomination. But searching “SmartChurch” brings up just one. So yes, SmartChurch is a lot easier.
Yes. Once a user logs in and follows your church, the app will always open to your Church Wall. A person can close the app and open it the next day and immediately land on your Church Wall if they set it up to be their “Home” church.
Yes. All of your members can use the app from a computer if they do not have a smart device.
Premium will be available in Summer 2014. Visit SmartChurch.com to sign up for the email list to be notified of when Premium comes out. Once it’s out, it will be easy and quick to upgrade via SmartChurch.com or by calling us. And your church and members will not lose the content you’ve already posted in the Freemium version.
The only way for one person to get full control of their church on the app is to upgrade to Premium (due out in Summer 2014). When this is done, someone from SmartChurch will “verify” your church and their leadership. Until then, every follower on the church is considered one voice or one vote. This is similar to Wikipedia in that it should produce a church app that is surprisingly accurate and well maintained.
