Getting started with ChurchLinker
Follow these five phases to go from sign-up to a fully running church portal. Most churches are live in under an hour. You don't need any technical knowledge. If you get stuck, we're only an email away.
Create your account & church portal
Sign up at churchlinker.com
Click "Start for free". Enter your name, email address and a password. You can also sign in with Google if you prefer, with no extra setup needed.
Tell us about your church
Enter your church name, denomination (optional) and postcode. We'll suggest a portal address, for example "Kingsway Community Church" might become kcc.churchlinker.com, but you can change this to anything you like.
Choose your plan
If your church has fewer than 50 active contacts, the Seed plan is completely free. If you're larger, start a 14-day free trial of any paid plan, with no obligation, and you can switch any time.
You're in: explore your dashboard
Your church portal is now live. You'll land on your staff dashboard at app.churchlinker.com. The navigation on the left takes you to each section of the system. Take a moment to look around.
Bring your people in
Go to People → Import
If you have a spreadsheet, download the ChurchLinker import template from the help centre, paste your data into it (first name, last name, email, phone, address, whichever columns you have) and upload it. The system previews the import and flags anything to check before saving anything.
Review and resolve duplicates
After uploading, ChurchLinker highlights any potential duplicates (for example, someone appearing twice with a slightly different spelling). Review these quickly and choose which record to keep.
Add people manually if needed
If you have a small list or just want to get started, go to People → Add Person and enter someone's details directly. You can add more later. There's no rush to have everything perfect on day one.
Set up households
ChurchLinker groups family members together as households (e.g. "The Smith Family" at the same address). From a person's record, link them to existing household members. This keeps your contact list tidy and avoids duplicate communications to the same household.
Assign membership statuses
Each person has a status: Visitor, Regular Attendee, Member, Inactive or Transferred. Take a few minutes to review your imported list and update statuses where you know them; this helps you run reports and segment communications later.
Set up groups & events
Create your small groups (pastor / admin only)
Go to Groups → New Group. Only pastors and admins can do this. It keeps the canonical list of groups disciplined so the church never ends up with "Women's Group" and "Womens Group" coexisting. Give it a name (e.g. "Monday Evening Bible Study"), choose the type, add meeting day/time, save. Everyone else picks from this list when assigning members.
Add members to groups
From each group's page, click "Add Members" and search the directory. Or open a person's profile, switch to the Groups tab, pick a group from the dropdown, pick a role (Member / Leader / Co-leader / Administrator) and tap Add. No free-text typing; the dropdown is the canonical group list. Members can be in any number of groups at once.
Create your regular events
Go to Events → New Event. Add your Sunday service as a recurring event (set it to repeat weekly). Add upcoming events, including social evenings, conferences and courses. Events appear in the member app so your congregation can see what's coming up.
Set up your rotas
Each group runs its own rota now. Open a group via Dashboard → Groups, then go into the group's leader area and create the rota there. Add roles per rota (Worship Leader, Sound, Steward), create slots linked to your events and assign volunteers. They'll receive automatic email or push reminders. For the rare cross-team rota that doesn't belong to a single group (annual stewards, big events) use Sunday Ops → Cross-team rotas.
Set up giving & communications
Connect your church's Stripe account
Go to Settings → Giving & Stripe. Click "Connect Stripe" and follow Stripe's secure onboarding to link your existing Stripe account, or create one from scratch in about 5 to 10 minutes (you'll need your church's legal name, address, charity number if applicable and a UK bank account). Once connected, donations flow directly into your church's Stripe balance. ChurchLinker takes 0% of any gift, and Stripe pays out to your bank on its normal schedule. The giving link is generated automatically and appears in the member portal and app.
Create your giving funds
Go to Giving → Funds → New Fund. Create your main funds: General Fund, Building Fund, Missions or whatever applies to your church. Set one as the default for online donations.
Enable Gift Aid
Go to Settings → Giving → Gift Aid and switch it on. From this point, any donation marked as Gift Aid eligible will have the 25% uplift calculated automatically. You can generate a Gift Aid report any time from Giving → Reports.
Configure your communication channels
Go to Settings → Communications. Set your church's sending name and email address (e.g. hello@kcc.org.uk). SMS and WhatsApp are available on higher plans via Twilio; contact us if you need help getting set up.
Send your first message
Go to Communications → New Message. Choose your channel, pick your audience (everyone, a specific group or a custom filter), write your message and send or schedule it. You'll see delivery stats in real time.
Invite your team & go live
Invite your team
Go to Settings → Users → Invite User. Enter their email, name and role. That's it. They'll get a one-click sign-in email that opens this dashboard directly (no password setup, no acceptance step). The link is good for 24 hours; if it expires they use 'Forgot password?' on the sign-in page since their account is already created. Pick the role that matches their responsibilities (Member, Volunteer, Leader, Staff, Pastor or Admin) and tick any extra permission flags (Treasurer, People directory, Visitor follow-up, DBS coordinator, Charity register) for cross-role access. There's no per-user charge, so add everyone who needs to sign in.
Promote the member app to your congregation
Go to Settings → Member App → Invite Members. Download the ready-made poster (A4 or A5) with your church name and a QR code. Print it and display it at the back of church. Members scan it to download the ChurchLinker app with your church pre-selected.
Customise your portal branding
Go to Settings → Church Profile. Upload your church logo, set your brand colour and add your website address and social media links. These appear in the member app and in every email you send through ChurchLinker.
You're live: use it naturally
That's it. From here, we recommend spending a week or two just using ChurchLinker naturally, adding visitors as they come in, logging giving and managing rotas, and getting comfortable before exploring advanced features like AI sermon tools and pastoral insights.
You're ready. Well done!
Don't worry about getting everything perfect. The churches that get the most from ChurchLinker are the ones that start small and build from there. We're here every step of the way.