Build a native mobile app for your church with App My Site

Now that you have delivered your sermon for the day, the gathering is moving out of the church doors. At the time of the sermon, the benches were full. But, what about tomorrow or next week? Also, how will you ensure that your audience, from the youngest member to the oldest, is actively engaged?

While youngsters are spending most of their time on smartphones, you can keep them engaged via an app 24/7. A mobile app can be of great help, as it is the perfect medium to engage with your community. If you create a digital centre for churchgoers, you can bring the church and all its amenities right into their pockets.

Engaging worshippers is one of the most important factors required to expand an active congregation. With a mobile app, worshippers will have access to sermons, event calendars, donations and more. Therefore, building a mobile app for your church can be fruitful for you and your congregation.

Create a simple and easy-to-use church app for your audience, using a mobile app builder for WordPress, like App My Site. In this post, we’ll walk you through the app-building process.

Branding your app

Start with your mobile app’s appearance. The way your mobile app looks, should be in sync with the way your audience knows your church.

You can build a signature theme for your church for easy recognition. The app icon, pictures etc., should capture the serene emotion and match the colour theme of your church walls. The designs should be a reflection of what you want worshippers to feel when they listen to sermons in your app. By doing so, you can brand your church’s mobile app amongst a significant number of worshippers.

Plugins

Plugins play the most important role in your church app that is inclusive of all the content of the app. There are dozens to choose from, like ‘folder’ plug-in, ‘places’ plug-in, ‘WebView’ plug-in, ‘social wall’ plug-in, ‘media centre RSS feed’ plug-in, ‘about us’ plug-in, ‘social media’ plug-in and more.

Let’s understand them in detail with an insight into your church app’s sections-

This week: A ‘folder’ plug-in that is used to collect information on what’s new for this week, such as new sermons, events, membership orientation information and more.

Sermons: Again, a ‘folder’ plug-in that contains multiple types of plug-ins to keep an archive of past sermons for the reference of the audience. These plug-ins are — Text WYSIWYG to display text, links, and images, Media Centre Manual to act as a folder for multiple media types including video and audio versions of sermons, Vimeo to aggregate Vimeo videos specifically for video-based sermons.

Donate: The ‘donate’ plug-in (a folder plug-in) can direct users to your donation page. This plug-in helps you accept donations from members of your congregation. In that case, building a WordPress native mobile app for your church could be a great help.

Home groups: A ‘places’ plug-in that helps you collect different location information for your church events, groups, and regulars. This plug-in also allows you to have images at the top and text or links on the app page.

Bible: A ‘WebView’ plug-in that links the bible with the mobile app selection by default. Simply put, user can read the bible just by clicking on the link as it is embedded directly from www.bible.com in your church’s mobile app.

Prayer Wall: A ‘social wall’ plug-in that allows communication amongst your audience through your church’s mobile app. With this plug-in, you can create a space for feedback and discussion in a disciplined environment.

Devotionals: A ‘devotional’ plug-in uses ‘media centre RSS feed’ plug-in. It uses information from a blog feed or RSS feed and makes that information available in the mobile app.

Events: A ‘folder’ plug-in that is used to include updates. These updates are related to events that your church is holding throughout the year. With this plug-in, a user gets access to specific information relating to the event, like parking details, contact details and so on.

About us: The ‘about us’ plug-in aims to pacify the curious nature of people. This plug-in helps worshippers know about the church’s origin and its story. Using this plug-in is a great way to make them aware of the church’s location and its contact information as well.

Social Media: The ‘social media’ plug-in helps your users to log-in to their account in the app through their social profiles, like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social networks.

Other Media: Another ‘folder’ plug-in to place any audio files, videos, articles, or any other form of media that you would like to share with your app users. With this option, you can engage your congregation through church events’ images and videos.

Analytics

Adding an ‘analytic section’ in the app enables you to boost your mobile app downloads and registered users. Therefore, apps built through WordPress mobile app builder help you track essential metrics — app downloads and registered users.

Integration with a platform called ‘segment’ helps you connect multiple analytics tools like Google Analytics, Marketo, Intercom and more. With these tools, you can track more advanced metrics like commonly used plug-ins and the behavioural patterns of your congregation members in your church’s mobile app.

Notifications

The ‘notification section’ is ultimately the most important section in the app. Using this section, you can send push notifications to your congregation members to notify them about the daily events, sermons and more. In this way, you will be in touch with your app members 24/7.

Creating groups can help you segment your audience. It can help you target the right audience, at the right time with related events every week.

The final note

Your church’s mobile app helps to keep you connected with your congregation members. If pews are vacant in the church, use your app to connect with people. You can give an update in the app about tomorrow’s event, sermon and more. You can even catch up on the discussions on your social wall and know their thoughts about the recent event held in the church.

If you want to build a native mobile app for your church, get in touch with us to know more about having a mobile app.