Run Pear Orchard's communications from one simple hub.
Simple Church Hub is the communications software I built from a decade of running church comms. Requests, events, projects, volunteers and your weekly staff meeting live in one place your whole team can see. Try the demo to see if it would help your team, and if Pear Orchard also rebuilds its website with me, the hub can publish events and more straight to the site.
Help shape Simple Church Hub, and use it free for six months.
I'm inviting a few churches to beta test the hub and tell me what works and what doesn't. As a beta church, Pear Orchard gets:
Not sure yet? Click around the live demo for two minutes and see if the hub would help your team.
Plan it once. It shows up on the website.
On its own, the hub runs your communications planning. If Pear Orchard also chooses the Squarespace rebuild, I connect the hub to the new site and unlock website publishing, so what you approve in your planning tool goes straight to pearorchard.org.
- Approved events publish to the website calendar automatically
- Your biggest pushes, like Christmas Eve or VBS, feature on the homepage
- Events show up on the right ministry page, like Wednesday Nights or Sonbeams
- Announcements and sign-up links stay current without retyping anything
The hub is included in the rebuild (Option 1) at no extra cost.
Does your comms week feel like this?
Take a tour of the hub
Same menu as the real hub. Tap a section to jump to it.
These are real screens from the live demo, a sample church called Simple Church. Pear Orchard's hub would use your own ministries, events and people.
Everyone knows what's theirs this week.
Each person sees their own to-dos from every project, sorted by what's due, and checks them off as they go.
- Today, next week and later, in order
- Overdue items flagged so nothing slips
Every request and event lands in one place.
Ministry leaders use one simple request form, and new events flow in from Pear Orchard's church calendar on their own. You decide how big a push each one gets, then approve, dismiss or reply in a click.
- Reads your calendar but never changes it
- Repeating events, like Wednesday Night Supper, roll up into one card
- Each event gets a suggested tier: T1 for the biggest pushes like Christmas Eve, T3 for a simple mention
See what's promoted where, six Sundays out.
The next six Sundays across the top, your channels down the side. Every square shows what's going out and whether it's ready, so Operation Christmas Child and Advent never collide on the same Sunday.
- Color-coded status: To do, In progress, In review, Ready
- Key dates for each week right at the top
- Quarter and full-calendar views for longer planning
Your channels, named the way Pear Orchard uses them.
Start with the basics and add your own: stage announcements, worship slides, the bulletin, the Weekly Updates email, social media, the website, community calendars. Rename any channel and set its due day.
- Suggested channels you can turn on with a tap
- Turning a channel off never deletes anything
Big events get their own home.
Christmas Eve, VBS, Operation Christmas Child or a new sermon series each get a project with a lead, a stage and a to-do list built from a template.
- Tabs for channels, copy & notes, to-dos, files, budget, tickets and people
- Team chat: tag someone with @ and they get an email and a notification
- Ready-made checklists for common church events
Your creative team, finally organized.
Add staff and volunteers with their comms roles, like photographer, slides and lyrics, livestream, social media and website updates, then fill in who's covering each Sunday.
- Volunteers don't need a login
- Each person gets a private link to accept or decline from their phone
- Declines show up right away, so you can find someone else
Your staff meeting, half-done before it starts.
The weekly communications update drafts itself from your map and projects. Take notes, log decisions and turn action items into to-dos.
- Open items from last week carry over automatically
- Every past meeting is searchable
- Email the notes to your team in one click
How I'd set it up for Pear Orchard
We walk through how requests and events move at Pear Orchard now: who asks, which channels matter, and what has to be ready by when.
Your church name, staff, volunteers, channels, events and request form, connected to your calendar and running at its own secure address, like pearorchard.simplechurchhub.com.
I walk your staff through it, then keep it running and updated. Hosting, updates and support are on me. When you have a question, you call me.
Your ministries, your names
Categories and request forms are named for Wednesday Nights, Sonbeams, Christ Covenant School, Missions and every ministry that sends you requests.
Works with what you use
Your church calendar feeds the inbox, and with the website rebuild your events publish to the new site. Custom connections to tools like ShelbyNext, eSpace, YouTube and Mailchimp are available on request.
You stay in control
Nothing goes on the website without your OK, and Pear Orchard's information stays yours. No one on staff needs to be technical.
The demo takes about two minutes. Step into Simple Church as its communications director, with no setup or credit card.