Set up your custom church domain

What this gives you

• Your URL, not ours. Members see crm.yourchurch.org in the address bar, not yourchurch.churchlinker.com.
• Both URLs keep working. Old bookmarks and existing email links still resolve. Setting a custom domain doesn't break anything.
• SSL handled automatically. The HTTPS certificate is provisioned and renewed for you — no certbot, no annual renewals.

Before you start — what you'll need

• A domain your church owns (e.g. yourchurch.org).
• Access to your domain's DNS settings. This is usually the website where you bought the domain — GoDaddy, Cloudflare, Namecheap, Google Domains, 123-reg, etc. The person who set up your church website probably has the login.
• About 15-20 minutes for the DNS to propagate after you save records. Sometimes faster (Cloudflare is near- instant), sometimes slower (legacy registrars).

Step 1 — Decide your URL

We strongly recommend a subdomain like crm.yourchurch.org or members.yourchurch.org rather than your bare domain.

• Subdomain ✅ — crm.prefix only affects ChurchLinker traffic. Your main website at yourchurch.org keeps working exactly as before.
• Bare domain ⚠️ — if you use yourchurch.org itself, your existing website has to move somewhere else. Only do this if ChurchLinker is going to BE your church website end-to-end.

Step 2 — Add your domain in ChurchLinker

1. Sign in as an admin and open Settings → Custom domain.
2. Type the URL you picked in step 1 — e.g. crm.yourchurch.org — and click Save.
3. The page will now show you two DNS records to add. Keep this page open — you'll need to copy from it in a moment.

Step 3 — Add the DNS records

Open a new tab and sign in to your DNS provider. You're looking for a section called DNS, DNS records, Zone editor, Manage DNS or similar. Add these two records:

Step 4 — Verify

Back on the ChurchLinker custom-domain settings page, click Verify. We'll look up the TXT record on your domain and check it matches.

• Green tick ✅ — you're live. Visit https://crm.yourchurch.org to confirm everything loads.
• Amber “Not verified yet” — DNS probably hasn't propagated. Wait 5-15 minutes and click Verify again. Most issues are timing, not a wrong record.
• Red error — the value of the TXT record doesn't match. Double-check you pasted the right string (no extra spaces, no quotes around it unless your provider auto-adds them).

What about HTTPS / SSL?

Handled for you. Once verified, our hosting provider (Vercel) automatically provisions a free Let's Encrypt SSL certificate for your domain, usually within 5-10 minutes. The certificate auto-renews every 90 days forever — you never have to think about it again.

If you visit your custom URL and see a “not secure” warning, wait 10 minutes for the cert to provision. If it's still showing after an hour, contact support — we'll finish it manually.

Troubleshooting

• “No TXT record found” error. DNS hasn't propagated yet. Wait 15 minutes and try again. Open a terminal and run nslookup -type=TXT _churchlinker.crm.yourchurch.org — if no records come back, the change hasn't reached the public DNS yet.
• “Found N TXT records but none match” — usually a copy-paste issue. Some DNS providers wrap the value in quotes; if yours did, remove them. Re-save the domain in ChurchLinker settings to mint a fresh token, then re-add the TXT.
• The page loads but says “Domain not configured” — the CNAME isn't pointing to cname.vercel-dns.com. Recheck the value of your CNAME record.
• HTTPS warning that won't clear — SSL provisioning needs an extra nudge from a staff member. Email support and we'll sort it within one working day.
• I want to remove the custom domain — click “Remove” on the settings page. Your members go back to using the churchlinker.com subdomain immediately; old custom-domain links stop working.