"Gotta love technology that serves larger purposes. Thanks for a job well done. Great success. 600 downloads in first week and the first week of giving was 3 times the monthly expense. I will tell the world"
-Bob Seymore, One Life Church
One Life Church in Henderson, Kentucky, was started in late 2010 after months of prayer and preparation. In just 3 short years they have grown to 2,000 in attendance most Sundays. Not only that, but they are currently establishing their third campus and don't have any plans of slowing down!
When we began working with One Life Church in 2011 they were still a relatively new church with 1000 members. The One Life Church App launched right before Christmas in 2011, and the results were incredible. At the time of their launch, Bob Seymore, CFO at One Life Church, had this to say; "Just a quick report of our Subsplash App. We launched on 12/23/11 (2 days before Christmas) and even with the holidays we have seen 1008 downloads in the first month with almost $2000 in giving through the app."
We decided to do a follow up with Bob to see how they'd been able to maximize their app over the past 18 months.
Q: What was the purpose or focus of creating the app?
A: "I was searching for a year for an app that integrated with our current systems - that was the selling point for me. There is a very young demographic at our church and mobile is huge, so we wanted to be able to reach them. Our big objective was that we wanted to be sure that our app was not just a go to once situation but that is was part of the life of our church."
Q: What has been the greatest use of the app?
A: "The interaction with community with the daily bible reading has been really important to us. Also, giving has been crazy. We've seen over $100,000 given through the app alone in the last 18 months. The costs are absolutely worth it. For us, the bottom line (from a giving standpoint) is the young market doesn’t carry cash. Being able to connect with them through the app has been really valuable."
Q: Have there been any extra benefits?
A: "I don’t understand why churches wouldn't (get an app). It’s been a great integration of our resources. We've gone down to one page, once a month for our bulletin and seen a lot of savings through that."
Q: How many downloads?
A: Almost 6,500 downloads in less than two years. The response has been crazy."
Q: Have you heard of any stories through the app?
A: "The coolest stories are like the one where I caught a pastor in our office after he had helped a brand new believer come to Christ and he immediately asked her to get her phone out, download the app and showed her how to read our explorers resources and daily Bible readings to help her start her journey. Gotta love technology that serves larger purposes."
Q: What has been the commitment for maintaining the app?
A: "I love that we don’t need developers in house to maintain the app. If your receptionist can answer the phone, they can update the app."
Q: Any closing remarks?
A: “I think the interesting piece is that Subsplash has an infrastructure that facilitates some of the best and brightest in the country. You work with the best minds and top 10 churches in the country. With the framework we can plug and play and customize to make it ‘us’. You guys are pretty seamless in it all. It's awesome that we can customize what Saddleback does and make it One Life."
Download the One Life Church App here.