Setting Up Your Church Profile
Your church profile is the foundation of your portal. Your name, logo, and contact details appear in outgoing emails, donor receipts, and your team's dashboard. Set this up on day one.
- Log in to app.growcongregations.com and go to Settings → Church Profile.
- Enter your official church name — use the name as it appears on your 501(c)3 designation. This is what donors see on tax receipts.
- Add your address, city, state, and ZIP code.
- Set your timezone. This controls when scheduled emails send and when event times display — get it right before creating any events or emails.
- Upload your church logo (PNG with transparent background recommended, minimum 300×300px). This appears in emails and on your portal sidebar.
- Enter your website domain (e.g., firstcommunitytx.com). This is display-only here — see the Custom Domain guide for connecting your site.
- Click Save Profile.
💡 Tip: Upload a square logo (1:1 ratio). Rectangular logos get cropped in email headers and the portal sidebar. If you only have a horizontal logo, create a square version with your icon or cross mark centered on a white or transparent background.
Inviting Your Team Members
You can add unlimited team members to your portal. Use roles to control what each person can access.
- Go to Settings → Team Members.
- Click + Invite Member.
- Enter their email address.
- Select their role:
- Admin — full access including billing, settings, and giving reports
- Staff — can manage People, Events, Email, and Courses — cannot view giving data or portal settings
- Click Send Invite. They'll receive an email with a link to set their password.
- Once they accept, their status changes from Pending to Active in your team list.
💡 Tip: Assign the Staff role to worship leaders, ministry directors, or volunteers who need to manage events or follow up with people — they won't accidentally see giving data or change account settings.
⚠️ Note: Invite links expire after 7 days. If a team member says they never received it, check your team list — if they show as Pending, click Resend Invite.
Understanding Your Dashboard
The Overview panel is your home base — it loads every time you log in and gives you a real-time snapshot of your ministry's digital activity.
The Stat Strip
The purple banner across the top shows four key numbers:
- Visitors (30d) — unique visitors to your church website in the last 30 days
- New Leads — people who submitted a form or connection card on your site
- Emails Scheduled — campaigns queued to send
- Course Enrollments — students enrolled in active courses
Quick Actions
The four buttons in the top-right of the stat strip are one-click shortcuts to the most common tasks: New Email, Add Contact, Go Live, and Edit Site. Use these during a busy Sunday morning when you need to get somewhere fast.
Recent Leads
Shows the last 5 form submissions from your church site — connection cards, prayer requests, volunteer signups. Click any name to open their contact record and start a follow-up.
Upcoming
Your next 3 scheduled items: streams, emails, and events. This is your "what's next" at a glance.
Setup Checklist
Visible on new accounts. Tracks your onboarding progress across 5 milestones. Once all 5 are complete, dismiss it to clean up your dashboard.
💡 Tip: Click ↻ Refresh in the top bar to pull the latest stats immediately. Otherwise the dashboard refreshes automatically each time you navigate away and return.
Your First Week: Setup Checklist
Follow this order. Each step builds on the previous one — don't skip ahead to streaming if your profile isn't set yet.
- Day 1 — Profile & Team: Complete your church profile (name, logo, timezone). Invite your key team members.
- Day 2 — Email Domain: Set up your sending domain (see article below). This is the #1 reason emails go to spam — do it early so DNS has time to propagate.
- Day 3 — People & Forms: Add your first batch of existing contacts (import via CSV or manual entry). Test a connection form on your site by submitting a fake entry and confirming it appears in your People tab.
- Day 4 — Giving: Connect your Stripe account. Create your giving funds (General, plus any specific funds). Test a $1 donation in test mode.
- Day 5 — Stream Test: Open the Producer Window and do a test stream — connect to Facebook/YouTube, click Go Live, immediately click End Stream. Confirm the recording appears in Courses.
- Day 6 — Events: Create your next upcoming event with RSVP enabled. Confirm it appears on your site.
- Day 7 — Welcome Sequence: Build your automated welcome email series (3 emails over 7 days). This alone can double your visitor retention.
💡 Tip: The setup checklist inside your Overview panel tracks items 3, 5, 6, and 7 above. Use it as your progress tracker during your first week.
Setting Up Your Email Sending Domain
By default, the system sends emails from a shared Grow Congregations domain. Setting up your own domain (e.g., firstcommunitytx.com) dramatically improves deliverability and trust — emails appear to come directly from your church.
- Go to Settings → Email → Sending Domain.
- Enter the domain you want to send from (e.g., firstcommunitytx.com). You can use your main domain or a subdomain like mail.firstcommunitytx.com.
- The portal displays 3 DNS records to add: one TXT record and two CNAME records. Copy all three.
- Log in to your domain registrar (GoDaddy, Namecheap, Cloudflare, Squarespace, etc.).
- Go to your domain's DNS settings and add all three records exactly as shown.
- Return to the portal and click Verify. DNS propagation can take 15 minutes to 24 hours — check back if it doesn't verify immediately.
- Once verified, set your default From Name (e.g., "First Community Church") and From Email (e.g., hello@firstcommunitytx.com).
- Click Save. All future emails now send from your church's domain.
⚠️ Important: Until your domain is verified, emails send from a shared address that often lands in spam. This is the most common reason churches report low open rates in their first month. Prioritize this setup on Day 2.
💡 Tip: If you use Cloudflare, make sure "Proxy" (the orange cloud) is turned off for the CNAME records — they need to be DNS-only (grey cloud). Proxied records fail verification.