21 Reasons Your Church or Ministry Needs a Mobile App

iOS | Software
November 10, 2010

At SYM we are in the midst of app development, so I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately.  Why are there so many apps out there?  Do we really need another one?  The answer to these questions for me is: 1) Apps make people’s life easy, that’s why there are so many, and 2) Yes, see answer 1.

There’s a great post over at YouthMinistry.com from Matt McKee about mobile apps and why your church or ministry may need one.  The article points out that these mobile devices are not just for the geek anymore, but they are part of everyone’s life from age 2 to 90.

Here’s his list of why you may need one:

  1. It gives you another access point that your local community can access.
  2. It allows you to be location sensitive. You can send messages to a certain zip code if you want.
  3. It can integrate social media so that people can help spread your message across the Internet.
  4. It helps you get past a Sunday or Wednesday only mentality, and let’s people interact with content on a daily basis.
  5. It makes your message 1 or 2 clicks away.
  6. It makes your content more convenient, and the more convenient the more it is used.
  7. It makes your message more broad-reaching than just your local community.
  8. It can help drive people to your church building for special events or weekend services.
  9. It can make special announcements such as community wide prayer requests.
  10. It can stream your message in audio or video format.
  11. It makes reaching a new demographic even easier.
  12. It will differentiate your vision and values from others.
  13. It will create different engagement than your Web site.
  14. It drives loyalty.
  15. It puts your branding in front of potential guests before they walk in the door.
  16. It provides a new way to collect feedback.
  17. It can be a new place for people to contribute to your church or ministry.
  18. It encourages people to share your message with the people around them.
  19. It can reduce the cost of mailings and the frequency of mailings.
  20. It can highlight new books or resources that go along with current teaching series.
  21. It creates a buzz that you message is relevant in today’s culture.

Read the entire post here: 21 Reasons Your Church or Ministry Needs a Mobile App | YouthMinistry.com.

Do you think your ministry needs an app?

4 Comments

  1. Matthew McNutt

    I wish there was a way to get an app for under a thousand bucks. If it was in the several hundred range, it would be a lot more feasible. Have you guys thought about creating a basic template and features, and then an ongoing update fee or something like that and marketing simple apps for youth groups? I have no idea if something like that is even feasible in that price range. I would just want to be able to use it to give updates, upcoming events and link to our podcast feed.

    Reply
  2. Chris

    Matt you could look at http://www.r04r.com, they are close to a grand but they give you an amazing feature set for that including iPhone and Android support, streaming media, plus a ton more. I’ve also worked with them on SYM apps and they are great to work with.

    There are other places like http://www.appmakr.com that are cheaper and lack the features but get you in the game. Like most things though, you get what you pay for.

    Reply
  3. The Church App

    Hey Chris and Matt,

    Chris here with The Church App. We also do a lot of church mobile apps. Check out the Saddleback App, Mars HIll Church App, or the Harvest App as a sample.

    We also have packages under $1000. You can check us out at http://www.thechurchapp.org and we’d love to help out.

    Chris

    Reply
  4. Mobile Ministry Mag

    Interesting list there; but all of that can be done without a dedicated application. Most of it is a product of the communication systems churches/ministries already have in place. SMS is a faster and better use of engagement tech; and MMS could be even greater still. With an app, you also have the issue of which mobile platforms to support, making the web the best case there.

    I’ve put in a more detailed comment over at the original post and will have something to this linked on my site in the coming days; definitely something worth chatting about and making sure that we aren’t spinning our wheels doing a lot of work with little reward into the King’s bosom.

    Reply

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