Community

Choose which community features your members see in their portal, and how their home is laid out.

Your members reach the portal — on the web and in the mobile app — by signing in and opening your church. It is where they give, RSVP to events, see their serving schedule, and (as you turn the features on) connect with the rest of the congregation. The Community settings page is where you decide what that portal contains.

How do I open the Community settings?

Open Community from the admin sidebar. The page has two parts: the community modules you can turn on or off, and the member home emphasis.

What are community modules?

Each module is a feature area of the member portal. Every module is on by default — a brand-new church starts with all of them available. Turn one off and it disappears completely for your members: its navigation entry and all of its pages are removed from the portal, on both web and mobile.

The six modules are:

• Groups — members browse and join groups and ministries, with in-group discussion.
• Prayer — a shared prayer board, plus private prayer requests routed to pastoral staff. See Prayer.
• Directory — an opt-in member directory and profile pages.
• Event check-in — members check in to events with a QR code, which records attendance.
• Forms & sign-ups — you publish forms (registrations, surveys) that members fill in inside the portal. See Forms.
• Inbox — the member's private messaging surface: two-way pastoral threads with your care team and the Broadcasts feed, in one place.

Turning a module off does not delete anything — turn it back on and the feature returns. Always-available areas of the portal (Home, Events, Giving, Serving, the notifications feed, and account settings) are not modules and cannot be turned off.

Announcements are not a module. They're your outward-facing church-to-everyone posts that appear on the public website and the member feed (members react; nobody replies). They stay available regardless of the module toggles — see Announcements, and the Broadcasts section below for the internal companion that rides on the Inbox module.

How do I turn a module on or off?

On the Community page, use the checkbox next to each module, then select Save settings. The change applies to every member the next time their portal loads. Each change is recorded in your church's audit log.

What is the member home emphasis?

The member home emphasis is a layout preset for the member portal's home screen. It does not hide or add anything — every feature stays reachable — it just changes what is brought to the top:

• Standard — a balanced member home.
• Giving forward — brings giving to the top of the member home.
• Community focused — brings groups and prayer to the top.

Pick the emphasis from the dropdown and select Save settings.

Who can change these settings?

Only church admins and owners can open the Community page and change these settings. Members see the result — the modules you enabled — but cannot change the configuration themselves.

Prayer board and pastoral care

Members reach out two ways, kept deliberately separate:

• Prayer board (the Prayer module) — a shared feed of requests and praises. A member posts a request visible to members, posts it anonymously (the author is masked from other members), or marks it pastoral only (off the board, routed privately to staff). Members tap "I prayed" and leave short encouragements.
• Pastoral care — a private channel through the member Inbox. A member starts a new message to the care team, which opens a confidential pastoral thread (member ↔ admin). It never appears on the prayer board or to other members.

The prayer board follows the Prayer module toggle; the Inbox follows the Inbox module toggle.

On the admin side, you review prayer requests under Community → Prayer (filter by status, visibility, kind, or flags; make pastoral-only, make anonymous, mark answered, reach out to the author, or remove with a reason the author is notified of). Pastoral threads land in Community → Inbox for your team to reply. See Prayer for the full review + moderation flow.

What is a household?

A household is how a parent records the children they check in — for example "The Smith family". It exists to make children's check-in safe: every child a parent checks in is a household member, with allergies, medical notes, and authorized pickup attached.

Because of that, household is demand-driven: it only appears when your church runs kids check-in (the Check-in module). Turn check-in on and a member can add their children from the member portal (under Account & privacy, and from the You tab on mobile); leave check-in off and there's no household homework to do — the surface stays hidden. There's nothing to "build out" otherwise.

How is children's data protected?

When a household member is marked as a minor, three extra fields become available: allergies, medical notes and authorized pickup (the adults allowed to collect that child).

This information is a stricter privacy class. It is visible only to:

• the adults of that child's own household, and
• church admins.

It is never shown to other members and never appears in the church directory.

How does the member directory opt-in work?

Every member is unlisted by default — they do not appear in the church directory until they choose to. From Account & privacy, a member turns on "List me in the church directory" and then picks, field by field, what other members can see: their email, their phone number, and (where the church runs check-in) their household.

Because the directory is opt-in, the people listed there are only those who chose to be found. Admins can see member records through the admin People area regardless; the directory opt-in governs the member-to-member view.

Broadcasts

Broadcasts are internal-only outflow — church-wide messages OR messages scoped to a specific serving team (Sound, Kids, Worship, Welcome, etc., defined under Scheduling → Teams). Members see broadcasts in their Community → Broadcasts feed; they never appear on the public website.

Use broadcasts for internal coordination: "Sound team rehearsal moved to 7pm", "Deacons confirm Sunday slots", "All members — Wednesday workday update." Members react to a broadcast with 🙏 / ❤️ / 🎉 but cannot reply.

Compose them from Community → Broadcasts in the admin sidebar. The form has a Scope picker: Whole church (every member) or A team (pick from your serving_teams). Recipients are materialized at send time from church_memberships or team_members accordingly.

Also notify by push and email

By default a broadcast lands only in the in-app Broadcasts feed. The composer adds two opt-in switches — Send a push notification and Send an email — both off by default, so nothing leaves the app unless you choose it. Tick either (or both) for time-sensitive messages like a cancelled service.

• Push goes to recipients' mobile devices.
• Email is a branded message from your church (your name and brand colour) with the broadcast text and a link back into the app. Every broadcast email carries a one-click unsubscribe link.

Both channels respect each member's notification preferences: a member who turned the Broadcasts push or email channel off won't get it that way (they still see the broadcast in the app). Whole-church broadcasts can reach a large audience — write the message carefully before sending, as a sent broadcast can't be unsent.

Replies to a broadcast email go to your church's Contact email (set under Settings → Identity); if you haven't set one, replies go to whoever sent the broadcast.

After a broadcast sends, its card shows a delivery summary — how many members were emailed, how many contacts were emailed, how many were pushed, and how many had opted out — with members and contacts counted separately.

Schedule for later

Instead of sending now, pick Schedule and choose a date and time. The broadcast is held and sent automatically within about 15 minutes of that time. Scheduled broadcasts appear in a Scheduled list at the top of the Broadcasts page, where you can edit or cancel them before they go.

Also email non-member contacts

Broadcasts reach church members (people with an app account). To also reach people without an account — visitors, connect-card leads, an imported list — tick Also email non-member contacts (shown once the email channel is on). Those people receive the email only — never a push or an in-app message.

The composer always shows the audience as two separate numbers — e.g. "148 members · 36 contacts (email only)" — so it's always clear who is an app user and who is an email-only contact. Manage the contact list under Community → Contacts (capture leads, add one by hand, or import a CSV). Every contact email carries the same one-click unsubscribe; an unsubscribed contact is never emailed again.

For outward-facing posts that should also appear on your church's public site, use Announcements instead. Announcements are pull-only: they never push or email.

Contacts (non-member email list)

Community → Contacts is your list of people without an app account. Add them three ways:

• Capture leads — people who used your contact form or asked to join (without making an account) appear under "Leads to add"; one click adds them.
• Add a contact — enter a name and email by hand.
• Import CSV — upload a spreadsheet with name and email columns. Existing addresses are skipped and unsubscribed people stay unsubscribed.

Adding contacts asks you to confirm you have permission to email them. Every contact is clearly marked "Email only · not an app user" so they're never confused with members. Contacts are reached only when an admin ticks "Also email contacts" on a broadcast.

Where can members reply, react, or post?

Psalmly's Community is built for focused outflow with the few interactive surfaces that matter — never the comment-everywhere, follow-everyone shape of a social platform. The interaction model is locked, and stays that way:

• Prayer threads — members can reply to a prayer request on the prayer board (a flat thread; no nested replies) and tap "I prayed" or "Follow" to subscribe to updates.
• Group post comments — inside a group, members can comment on a post (also flat) and heart-react.
• Pastoral inbox threads — a member ↔ admin care/contact conversation. Members send; admins reply.

Everywhere else in the portal, interaction is reactions only (no threads):

• Announcements — members can react (heart / pray / amen) but cannot reply. Announcements are church-to-member outflow, not a discussion.
• Broadcasts (internal church-wide or team-scoped admin messages, in the Inbox) — reactions only, no replies.
• Directory profiles — contact buttons (message · call · email), not comment threads.

There are no app-wide direct messages between any two members, no public activity feed of "what everyone's doing", no follower graph. Those are deliberately not features — they're the shape that turns a community tool into a social media app, and Psalmly's job is the opposite.

How do members report content?

Anywhere members can post or share content — prayer requests, group posts, and directory profiles — there is a Report action, on web and mobile. A member opens it, writes a short reason, and the report goes to church admins for review. Reports are private to the reporter and admins. Admins handle reports in the Community → Moderation queue, where they can hide content pending review. See Moderation.

How do members get notifications?

Every member has a notifications feed (the Activity view) in the portal — an in-app list of every notification the church has sent them (you're scheduled to serve, a broadcast from the church, a reply on a prayer you follow, and so on). It shows an unread count, and members can mark items read or mark everything read at once. Notifications also arrive as a push to the mobile app, and as an email for messages addressed to one person and for broadcasts the admin chose to email. (This is distinct from the Inbox messaging surface, which is for two-way pastoral threads and the broadcasts feed.)

Each member controls how the church reaches them. From the notifications feed, a member sets notification preferences per category, choosing whether each one sends a push and/or an email. Members see seven categories — Prayer, Groups, Serving, Broadcasts, Pastoral messages, Announcements, and Membership — and admins additionally see two admin-only categories, Approvals and General. These are the member's settings: the church sends the notification, but a member who turned a channel off for a category simply won't receive it that way. Admins cannot override a member's preferences. (Turning the Broadcasts email channel off — or using the unsubscribe link in a broadcast email — stops broadcast emails; broadcasts still appear in the app.)