Groups, Resources & Rotas
How to set up groups and ministry teams, add resource links for volunteers, and get the most out of automated rota reminders.
Creating groups and ministry teams
What counts as a group?
Anything from a midweek Bible study to the sound desk team. ChurchLinker supports 16 group types including Small Group, Ministry, Team, Choir, Department, Course, Youth Group, Kids Group and more. Every group type works the same way: members, meeting details, communications and resources all in one place.
Who can create a group?
Only pastors and admins. This is deliberate: keeping the canonical list of groups in the hands of leadership stops volunteers inventing duplicates ('Women's Group' vs 'Womens Group' vs 'Women's ministry'). Leaders and staff can still attach a person to any existing group from the person's profile. They just can't add new groups themselves. If a leader needs a group that isn't on the list, they ask the pastor or admin to add it.
How to create a group
From your dashboard, go to Groups and click Create group. Give it a name, choose the type, and optionally add a meeting day and time, location, online link and capacity. Set it as Public (visible to all members in the app) or Private (only visible to members you've added). Click Save. The button only appears for pastors and admins.
Adding members to a group
Two routes, both pick from the existing group list rather than typing a name. Route A: open the person's profile, switch to the Groups tab, pick a group from the dropdown, pick a role, tap Add. Route B: open the group from /dashboard/groups, go to its Members tab, search the directory, pick a person and a role. Removing a member records a left date rather than deleting them so the 'previously in' history survives.
Can a person be in more than one group?
Yes, as many as you like. There's no cap. The system enforces one row per (person, group) pair so the same person can't accidentally be added to the same group twice, but they can simultaneously be in Bible Study, the Worship Team, the Welcome Team and the Men's Group with their own role on each.
Showing groups in the member app
Each group has a Show on app toggle. When this is on, the group appears in the Groups section of the ChurchLinker member app. Members who belong to a private group can see it; public groups are visible to all members. Turn the toggle off if you want to manage an internal team without showing it to the congregation.
Adding resource links for volunteers
What are resource links?
Each group has a Resources tab where you can add links to any external content: a YouTube how-to video, a Google Drive document, a Dropbox PDF, a Notion page or any URL. Members tap the link in the app and it opens directly. There's no file storage on ChurchLinker's side, so there's no storage cost or limit.
A typical example: the sound desk team
Create a Team called Sound Desk. Add your sound volunteers as members. In the Resources tab, add a YouTube link titled 'How to set up the sound desk' with the description 'Watch this before your first Sunday slot.' Add a second link to your Google Drive mixing desk cheat sheet. Volunteers open the app, tap Sound Desk and find both links waiting for them.
How to add a resource link
Open a group from your dashboard and click the Resources tab. Click Add link and fill in the title, the URL and an optional short description that tells members what the link is for. Click Save link. The resource appears immediately in the app for all group members.
What types of links work?
Any URL works. Common choices include YouTube (how-to videos, training recordings), Google Drive or Dropbox (PDFs, cheat sheets, rota templates), Google Docs or Notion (living documents your team can update), and your church website (policies, safeguarding documents). The app shows a context icon for YouTube, Google Drive and Google Docs so members can tell at a glance what kind of content to expect.
Editing and removing links
Links can be removed from the Resources tab in the dashboard at any time. To update a link (for instance, if a video moves to a new URL) remove the old one and add the new one. Members see the updated list immediately.
Building rotas and scheduling reminders
How rotas work in ChurchLinker
A rota is built around a service or recurring event. You add roles (for example, Sound Desk, Welcome Team, Worship Leader, Children's Worker) and assign people from your member database to each role for each date. ChurchLinker checks for conflicts automatically so you don't accidentally schedule someone twice.
Automated volunteer reminders
ChurchLinker sends automatic reminders to volunteers before their slot. You set how far in advance: for instance, a reminder four days before and again on the morning of the service. Volunteers receive the reminder by push notification (if they use the app) or email. No more chasing people individually on Saturday evening.
Confirmation tracking
Volunteers can confirm or decline from the notification itself. Coordinators see a live confirmation status on the rota: green for confirmed, amber for no response, red for declined. If someone declines, you can reassign that slot from the dashboard. All of this is visible in one view without sending a single chase message.
Shift swaps
Volunteers can request a swap with another team member from the app. The coordinator approves or rejects the swap. This keeps the rota accurate without the coordinator having to manage every change manually.
Combining rotas with resource links
The most effective setup is to use both together. A volunteer sees their rota reminder on Thursday. They open the app, tap their team and find the training video and checklist in the Resources tab. By Sunday morning, they know what to do and where everything is. Coordinators spend less time on onboarding and reminders.
What members see in the app
Finding groups
Members tap Groups in the bottom navigation of the ChurchLinker app. Their own groups appear first under My groups. Public groups they haven't joined appear below under Other groups. Each card shows the group name, type, member count, meeting details and a count of available resources.
Viewing resources
Tapping a group opens the detail page, which shows the meeting schedule and location followed by the Resources section. Each resource shows a title and optional description, with an icon indicating the type of link. Tapping a resource opens it in the member's browser. Members who aren't in a private group can't access it, even if they know the URL.
What members cannot do
Members can view and tap resources but cannot add, edit or remove them. Only dashboard users with Leader role or above can manage the resource library for a group.
Ready to set up your groups?
Log in to your ChurchLinker dashboard and go to Groups to get started. It takes about two minutes to create your first team and add a resource link.