3 Ways to Engage Church Members with an App

The COVID-19 pandemic forced churches to embrace an online-first approach.

This transition for churches (maybe yours?) wasn’t easy.

“How do we handle online giving?”

“What are we going to do about livestreaming?”

“Is there a way we can remotely work as a church staff?”

At Tithe.ly, one of the most frequently asked questions we received was, “What’s the best way we can use our church app to engage our church?”

This makes perfect sense—even as your church moves toward re-opening.

You can use social media, direct mail, and email to communicate with your congregation. But these methods have their limitations. They don’t provide an ongoing way for you to keep your church members informed and engaged.

This is where a church app comes into play.

A church app can be to go-place for your congregation.

In your church app, you can include:  

• sermons;
• interactive sermon notes;
• social media updates;
• prayer requests;
• Bible;
• church bulletin
• photos and videos;
• blog;
• church events; and
• mobile giving.

That’s a lot to think about.

But I’m going to share three ways you can leverage your church app to engage your church community.

Let’s get started!

1. Send push notifications

Push notifications are a great way to engage your congregation.

We recommend that you send more push notifications during this time than you normally would. This will be one of the only ways some of your church members will hear from you.

Send encouraging Bible verses and thoughts from your pastor. Also, don’t forget to remind people to invite their friends and family to your worship services.

Need to get more people to download your app?

Send the download link for your app to your church. Send an email. Mail a letter with instructions. Share it on social media with a video post. These are just some ways you can encourage your congregation to download your app. This way you can ensure they’re receiving your push notifications.

Not sure what push notifications to send?

Here are eight push notifications that will keep your church engaged.

2. Make livestream available in your church app.

If you’ve put off streaming your weekly services until now, there’s no better time to start.

We recently rolled out the ability to sync your livestream with Tithe.ly Sites and your church app.

Here’s what’s up:

Now, more than ever, people want to feel connected and you just need your phone to stream. Most churches are livestreaming their “services” that are actually taking place in the pastor’s home. You don’t need a sound guy or anyone else. Just set up your phone to record and get started.

We recommend using services like YouTube or Vimeo for sharing your livestreams.

Want to take your livestream to the next level?

Use Church Online Platform to optimize your livestream church services.

Viewers can virtually say yes to Jesus, and there’s a built-in chat room for them to connect with others while watching the services!

3. Maximize your church app features

Here it is, a shameless plug:

Tithe.ly’s church app offers many different ways to engage your congregation.

You can …

… encourage church members to support each other through our Prayer Wall feature …

… and use our App Pages feature to create a custom weekly bulletin to name a few.

There are so many other features that you can use during this season.

Over to you

Scanning this post?

No sweat.

Here’s the key takeaway:

Make sure you use at least use one of these features above to build community.

These are different ways you can increase engagement with your church app.

We know many people are struggling with isolation due to social distancing. There’s no better time to leverage technology to remind people that they are a part of your local church.