How Church Plants Can Find Success with an App

Tyler Gorsline is the co-founding Pastor of A Seattle Church, a growing community in the heart of the city that Subsplash also calls home. We got to chat with Tyler about the impact their app has had on helping their church community stay connected as well as alleviate some of the burden of the staff so that they aren't spread too thin when loving and serving a church that is still in the early stages of growth.

Subsplash: What goal is your app aiming to accomplish?

TG: We want to meet people where they are at. People are constantly on their phones nowadays, so we want to give people the opportunity to get information easily and provide as many inroads as possible to staying connected and committed to our community. Ultimately, though, we want to share the Gospel with people near and far and our app helps us do that.

Subsplash: How has your app added value to A Seattle Church? 

TG: I've been really delighted and surprised to find out how many people are discovering our app. I got some feedback from a guy I hadn't talked to in 12 years about how encouraged he was by one of my sermons. It's crazy that a childhood friend was able to hear the Gospel through the app. The app makes our content super accessible!

People can struggle to be physically present at church each week, but the app helps frequently remind people about what we are doing as a community. Features like push notifications have helped us engage people in the community.

Subsplash: As a church plant, specifically, what are the benefits of having app?

TG: One of the biggest challenges our team faces is moving towards long term sustainability. The use of technology can ease the the pressures of the pastoral team. Generally speaking, a small church staff can carry a lot of weight in the beginning, but having an app helps us to stay connected even if we don't have the bandwidth to meet with everyone one-on-one all the time. The unique challenge (and blessing) is we have a lot of people to serve and care for than we are sometimes able, but we try to encourage people to lean into the resources available in the app when it's appropriate.

Also, the fact that the app is so user friendly helps empower our congregation to serve. The intuitiveness of the platform makes it so that almost anyone can volunteer to help upload content, even if they aren't super tech-oriented. The usability of the platform empowers busy leaders to delegate tasks related to the app without too much direction.

Subsplash: Being a small church, how did you come to the decision to create an app even though you are just getting started and resources are tight at times?

TG: There was definitely a back and forth since taking on a new project means taking cost and time management into consideration, but ultimately we decided having the ability to connect with people in new and relevant ways was a huge value add for our church. With easy access to things like baptism signups, community group info, giving, and sharing prayer requests, our people are able to be connected as they'd like.

You can download their app here! We are really grateful for the community at A Seattle Church. We'd love to hear from you if you want to explore the benefits of an app for your church. 

Reach Church Encourages App Adoption from the Pulpit

Whether you're a congregation of 100 or 1,000, it can be challenging to help your audience see the benefit of your church's app. We think providing regular reminders about your app is an important part of increasing adoption, which is why we're excited to share this presentation from Reach Church. Sharing the value of your app with your congregation from the pulpit is a simple, yet powerful way to help your community see the benefits of your app.

By highlighting some helpful resources available in the app, people can see the value of the app right away. Not only on Sunday morning, but throughout the rest of the week too. And to make it even more actionable, they included the name of the app and how to find it in the app store on each slide.

Reach Church helped their community see the app as a tool to stay connected to the life of the church. By including visuals of each feature, people can easily see how user-friendly and compelling the content is in their app.  

The community-building nature of their app is really compelling and this slide helps show the different ways visitors and members alike can actively be involved in serving the church and other community members. 

The brevity and clarity in this presentation sets up the community at Reach Church to easily find and download their app for great resources, serving the church and others, and staying connected! Subsplash Giving is a new addition to our suite of engagement features. Learn more about it here! 

We love to see churches using mobile technology to share the Gospel and encourage their congregation! That's what we're passionate about and that's what we want to help you do too! Get in touch with us to learn more about the benefits of creating a mobile app for your church.

Download the Reach Church app for more inspiration! 

Reformed Theological Seminary Engages Students

Creating an app with Subsplash has allowed RTS to deliver their professor’s lectures to online students, house all of their chapel messages, and share audio content from lecturers all over the country. After exhausting several different ideas, Jason Garvey, the Instructional Designer at Reformed Theological Seminary, was excited to find the optimal solution for delivering content to their online students.

The Subsplash Platform stood out to Jason because of its multi-faceted ability to meet their organization’s needs. Not only were they excited to have all of their media hosted in one place, they could easily stream lectures and add blog content in the Subsplash Dashboard that could be instantly accessed by anyone, on any device! With over 75,000 downloads and 3.5 million impressions, the app continues to be widely adopted by the Reformed Theological Seminary community. 

Besides benefiting from the high-quality media experience, the team at RTS loves to take advantage of push notifications, especially when they’ve needed to send out school-wide urgent alerts. 

At first the team behind the RTS app had a "if we build it they will come" mentality, but after a while they realized the classroom was the perfect platform for students to be redirected to the app, and professors realized that pointing their students towards their own content was a great way to reinforce the learning process. Some professors have even promoted the app by putting app info on the bulletin boards in their classrooms.

"We've been able to deliver entire courses to online students. It's critical to us functioning in online education."

Students in the classroom benefit greatly from the app, but for remote students, the value is unprecedented. Having professor's lectures at their disposal, almost immediately after it is given, is a luxury that sets many remote students up for success.

Reformed Theological Seminary has leveraged mobile technology to enhance their online student's education experience, giving other educators and teaching institutions a great example of how to fuel their mission with a customized mobile app!

Download the app here!

See Your Message Go Further

We know that church members, and society at large, are trying to navigate a fast-paced culture and highly-connected society. For many churches and ministries, staying relevant and reaching their community where they are at requires them to deliver content and connect with church-goers in a quick and holistic way.

We had a chance to chat with Steven Records at James River Church about how they are reaching people with the message of the Gospel through their app, and it was exciting to learn about the unique ways their church is connecting with their congregation.

TCA: What goals are you aiming to accomplish with your app?

JRC: James River Church is using the app to get people connected to the church by being an agent of growth for our Life Groups and a tool for leaders to access discussion questions for their group.

Through the app, we wanted to reach more people than ever through our sermon content. With the messages feature and push notifications, we are able to get the message out there further and faster than ever.

TCA: How has your app added value to James River Church?

JRC: This app has helped James River Church expand the reach of our online messages. The Church App has also given the congregation access to other resources, such as weekly sermon notes and Life Group discussion questions.

The app improves our ability to communicate with our church by having a platform that allows information to be shared rapidly.

TCA: What results have you seen through the app? (Downloads, increased engagement, etc.)

JRC: We have had tens of thousands download the app, and we have seen nearly half a million impressions this year through the church app.

TCA: Any other comments on the app, Subsplash Platform, and how you’re using it to engage your audience?

JRC: The push notification feature the Church App provides has been one of our favorite features on the app. It allows us to quickly communicate with our users about the messages we post every week and can be useful for important updates about schedule changes or upcoming events. The Church App is making it easier than ever to grow our audience and to communicate with our church directly on the devices they use every day.

We love hearing how God is using The Church App to reach people for the Gospel. Download the James River Church App and let us know how we can help you get started on an app for your church!