What Do iBuildApp And A Famous Youth Bible Quizzing Mobile App Have In Common?
The Youth Bible Quiz 19 app utilized the iBuildApp platform to create a unique and exciting ministry for youth. The app combines Bible study, mentoring, competition, fellowship, discipleship, and mission into a program for teenagers.With over 3,500 Nazarene-style Bible Quiz questions covering Hebrew and 1 & 2 Peter, the app has helped in building up a community of young disciples and servants, steadily adding to a vast pool of leadership and continually strengthening the church and its ministries.
Mobile Apps: Transforming Churches Far and Wide
Jesus instructs us in the book of Mark 16:15, “go into all the world and preach the gospel”But is it really easy to carry out these instructions especially for churches in today’s digital world?
Enter mobile apps.
Research shows the number of people who own a smartphone has increased significantly with close to 80 percent of adults in the U.S. now owning a phone. Mobile apps can be a game-changer when it comes to spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ. That’s why we believe churches regardless of size need a reliable and up-to-date solution to facilitate the teaching and sharing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They need a robust mobile app that illustrates their mission and how they are serving the community.
Read on to understand how the iBuildApp platform has helped a number of churches including Bethel Baptist Church, Searcy Church of the Nazarene, among others create robust mobile apps that suit their particular use cases.
• Data Organization
A mobile app presents your staff and your congregation with up-to-date information right on their mobile devices. By leveraging the iBuildApp content management feature, you can create a complete view of your attendees’ interactions with your church within the church directory.
You can integrate your congregant information in one record, including:
- 1. Relationships
- 2. Contact information (think addresses, phone numbers and email addresses)
- 3. Giving, volunteering and attendance details
- 4. Past communications.
You can utilize the Google Form feature to develop data fields unique to you and members of the church and integrate it within your app.
The email feature, on the other hand, means you can create email lists by area, thus simplify the process of sending notifications to attendees about nearby opportunities. In addition, you can generate lists and send emails on the go using templates and drag-and-drop capabilities to grab text or add personalized information.
• Online Giving
According to the book of 1 Timothy 6:17-19,“Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. In this way, they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.”
Spreading the Gospel is the sole mission; however, your church needs funds to support this undertaking. You need a better way to nurture people’s generosity and fund your church’s mission.
The iBuildApp platform through the “Donate” button makes it easy for churches to collect tithes, offerings and donations. Congregants don’t have to carry cash with them all the time.
The platform comes with custom forms and also seamlessly integrates with Google forms which means you can create unique donation forms or event registration for users (think your givers, volunteers, other ministries, non-profits, charitable partners in your community).
You can also easily set them up for one-time or recurring giving. Members can review card information and carry out transactions easily and securely with Visa Checkout, Master card, PayPal, among other options.
• Expanded Reach and Deeper Engagement
They say human beings have a shorter attention span than a goldfish and that’s true. Depending on paper-based scriptures and teachings no longer appeals to most modern-day congregants who are digital natives.On a similar note, as a preacher you are involved in many activities ranging from sharing the word of God, growing and expanding the church, attending meetings, to-do-lists, to administrative tasks. This can be down-right daunting especially with studies showing close to 20 percent of pastors abandon ministry due to burnout.
However, with a mobile app, you will be in a position to carry out all these tasks and better engage your congregants. iBuildApp enables you to integrate various social media channels within your app (think Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.) and this means you can easily share Sunday lessons, Scriptures and Sermons through social media with family, friends and those you teach.
Interesting to also note is a social media reach will enable you to acquire new followers. After you study the needs of your community, you will be able, for instance, to reach out to seniors who are lonely with no one to help with basic chores.
The Bible feature means you can provide your congregation with a searchable, annotated copy of the Bible while the Push notification feature allows you to seamlessly send a daily motivational verse to members or keep them up-to-date with the latest announcements.
You can use the Google calendar feature to better manage your schedule and the Trello Feature to manage church projects. The blog section, the news section are great features for sharing Scriptures and church content while the Events feature or the Instagram Stories feature can come in handy when highlighting some of the activities the church is involved in, for example, helping Hurricane victims, saving children in drought or war-prone areas, visiting the sick in hospitals, your missionary activities, etc.
And if you look closely, thanks to the Fan Wall feature, the task of sharing the Gospel will not belong entirely to one individual but other church members can easily join the cause and engage their communities right on the app.
• Create a Gospel Media Library
The advanced iBuildApp features mean you will be able to create a Gospel media library that has a wide selection of easy-to-find church videos, images and worship music. Users can organize, download and present offline for daily reference and sharing at church, at home, or on the go.Additionally, you can present your Gospel media library in different languages for a better reach.
How to Develop the Perfect App for your Church
Creating a church app using the iBuildApp platform is easy and fast. You don’t need complex IT skills and the best part is it’s cost-effective compared to building a custom app from ground which can cost you between $100,000 to nearly $300,000.
To start the process, simply go to the Church template area where you will have access to a full Church templates category that comes with a number of options. Select the most appropriate Church template and remember you can change around factors such as branding, color among other user interface (UI) features.
Select the Layout tab in the design module which delivers options for deciding on which buttons and tabs you would like to show up on your Church mobile app.
You can also click on the Design tab to modify some of the default template items. Feel free to upload your logo, select a background that fits your Church and change the splash screen.
Fill in the Information
On the Layout tab, you can designate the features that all of the buttons link to on the homepage.
Some of the tabs you can integrate include an About page, the Sermons section, the Bible section, the Donate button, the Community section, the Prayer Requests section, the Contact information section, among others. Ensure you provide enough details in the Contact information section such as Sermon/Sunday school times, upcoming activities, directions, etc.; you can integrate the Google Maps feature to provide users with the exact location of your Church.
iBuildApp allows you to develop a mobile app directly from where your data exists and this includes your church management software, Google Sheets, Google Forms, Google Docs, Excel Sheets among others.
And in case of any questions/challenges the iBuildApp Support Team will be there with you every step of the way.
Looking Ahead
Churches need a holistic approach to enhance their digital journey, including their mission and prioritized initiatives. And for the Gospel to really take root in people’s lives beyond the Sunday service, churches need to meet people where they are most of their week: with a smartphone in their pockets.
the good news is thanks to no-code solutions such as iBuildApp creating a mobile app for your church has been made easy and cost-effective.
Feel free to utilize the iBuildApp church templates and create your perfect app. Also please let us know about what other features you think are important.
