Top 10 Effective Church Communication Software - Tips & Tools

Your church has a great deal to communicate—ministry updates, upcoming events, volunteer opportunities, and community announcements. All of these things and more must be communicated both externally and internally. 

The challenge is reaching the right people with the right message on the right channel. Thankfully, technology gives church leaders plenty of options for tools to choose from. Here’s an overview of the types of tools you’ll need and some tricks for maximizing their effectiveness.

Regardless of the size of your church’s team, your staff needs an internal suite of tools to do their work. At a minimum, this includes an email inbox, a calendar, and collaborative documents. 

This is a few of the most basic applications bundled together into a single environment. Many of these suites will have tools that cover some of the other categories below, including video, chat, files, and note-taking.

Office Suite Tool Options

• Google Workspace
• Microsoft 365
• Proton Mail

Sometimes you need to get a quick answer from someone. Or you don’t want to bother them with an email or text message. That’s why chat tools like Slack are so helpful—they cut down on cluttered inboxes and speed up collaborations.

The key here is to distinguish between messages that should be shared in a chat vs. an email vs. a meeting. Don’t let your people get confused about which channel to use. Chat is better for quick check-ins and email is often preferable for longer communications that need to be documented.

Chat Tool options

• Slack
• Flock
• Twist

No matter what kind of projects you’re working on at your church, you need a place to save and share files across your team. That could be everything from text documents, images, videos, and beyond. This requires a multi-user file-sharing system.

Be sure to share one single system across your entire team including volunteers. Then work hard to keep your files updated, clearly labeled, and organized into folders. This cuts down on time trying to find the right file, or losing a file and having to start over again.

File Tool options

• Google Drive
• Dropbox
• Box.com

Running a church requires many moving parts and countless tasks that need to be accomplished. This doesn’t happen by accident, and won’t be efficient without a clear system. That’s where a project/task management tool comes in.

The beauty of any project management tool is begin able to assign projects to people and set deadlines. This keeps people accountable and every project moving forward on time. Just ensure that everyone is bought into the tool and checks in on their tasks regularly.

Project Tool options

• Asana
• ClickUp
• Monday.com

More church teams embraced remote work since the pandemic. Many church functions still require a physical presence. However, offering a virtual option makes things accessible to more people. So you need to have a video chat tool.

Most of these tools are similar to one another, and many come standard in office suites. There will always be technical difficulties with cameras and dropped calls. But having a universal tool that works with your calendar function is essential to scheduling online meetings.

Video Tool options

• Zoom
• Google Meet
• Microsoft Teams

Unique to churches compared to other organizations is the need to plan for Sunday morning worship. This includes everything from planning worship songs, selecting Scripture verses, managing sermon series, and handling church announcements.

There’s a smaller range of tool options because they’re all specifically designed for churches. However, this can also be an advantage because it means each has the features you’ll need. The trick is finding a tool that integrates with your existing systems and has a good user interface.

Worship Planning options

• Planning Center
• Worship Tools
• Church Trac

The church is not a building, nor is it the church’s staff. A church is made up of people—those members of your community who come to worship, volunteer, and donate. Having a record of these people and their interactions with your congregation is virtual to effective ministry.

Like worship planning software, these databases are usually created specifically for churches. In the business world, these are known as Customer Relationship Managers (CRMs)—a single database with contact information and tracking different engagements over time. The most challenging part of this is keeping the records updated, which is why this is sometimes a full-time dedicated position within the church.

Database Tool options

• Breeze
• Tithely
• Elvanto

If you hope to communicate with an external audience, social media is an obvious place to start. This can include a wide range of channels—including Facebook, Instagram, and beyond. But rather than managing each of these networks separately, you can find a tool that streamlines your efforts.

Using a social media management tool allows you to schedule posts on multiple channels, manage user engagements, see analytics, and communicate internally with your team.  If you’re serious about using social media at your church, having a management tool is a major boost.

Social Media Tool options

• Tithely Media
• Buffer
• Hootsuite

Email marketing is different from individual email communications. But both are equally as important. Individual emails are sent specifically to a few people. Email marketing refers to wider emails sent to a list of people using a mass email tool. Don’t try to email the entire church from your personal Outlook or Gmail account.

Choosing the right email marketing platform requires a connection with your people database. These two systems must communicate with each other to make sure your email list is updated. You need to send the right emails to the right people.

Email Tool options

• Breeze Messaging
• Tithely Messaging
• Brevo

Not everyone communicates frequently using email or social media. However, text messages are a reliable and consistent way to reach people directly in their pockets. Like email marketing, this shouldn’t come from your personal cell phone, but rather an official management tool.

Be careful about overdoing it with text messages. People are more willing to give up their email than they are their cell phone number. Sending too many texts from the church can cause them to unsubscribe and miss out on future messages.

Text Tool options

• Breeze Messaging
• Clearstream
• Tithely Messaging

Which digital communication tools do you need?

That’s a lot of different church communication tools serving a wide range of functions. But don’t be overwhelmed. You’re likely using a few of these tools already—either personally, professionally, or both. So these shouldn’t be unfamiliar to you or your congregation.

It can take a while to find the right tools and build up your communication stack. Start one tool at a time and grow from there. Get input from your staff on what they prefer and collaborate on the decision. Onboarding a new tool takes time but saves you time in the long run.

Keep in mind that many of these tools have significant nonprofit discounts that apply to churches like yours. Even if the cost of the tool seems too much, you may be able to save just by being a ministry. It never hurts to check.