Blog

 

What’s the best church management system for a Baptist church?

If you’re a Baptist church looking at church management systems, you start with an advantage. Through our partnership with Baptists Together (the Baptist Union of Great Britain), Hubb is half price for two years on every plan, with the website, app and church management included. That’s a real saving, but price only matters if the system fits how a Baptist church works. So here is how we’d think it through, and where Hubb fits.
Best-Church-Management-System-



What is different about a Baptist church

Every Baptist church is independent, governed by its church meeting, and run largely by its members. That shapes what you need from software in three ways.

Members and contacts are different things. Your members vote at the church meeting, serve on rotas and give regularly. Your contacts might be the 200 families who come to toddlers, the food bank volunteers and the people on the carol service list. A good system knows the difference. In Hubb, members can log in to the website and app, see their groups and rotas, and update their own details. Contacts stay in the database for communication, without a login. You pay a little for each, and the two are priced differently.

Nobody buys for you. There’s no diocese choosing a system on your behalf. The deacons, or the trustees, or the whole church meeting, have to be persuaded, and then someone has to run it. One system with one invoice and one support number is a much easier decision to take to a church meeting than five. Our Why Us page is written for exactly that conversation. Our Trustee Pack answers the questions deacons and trustees ask about data protection, safeguarding, and what happens if you leave.

Outreach is often bigger than membership. A church of 80 members with a busy building can easily have 1,500 people in its database. Pricing that forces you up a plan every time you add a few contacts punishes exactly the churches doing the most in their community.



The Baptist Union partnership, in plain terms

We have worked with the Baptist Union of Great Britain for years. We built and run the annual return system that churches complete each year, which reached its highest ever completion rate. We built the Baptist Union website. We exhibit at the Baptist Assembly every year, and a good many of our Baptist churches first met us there. Ian Bunce of the Baptist Union describes the experience as being ‘in safe hands’.

The partnership gives Baptist affiliated churches 50% off for two years on every plan, as new customers. These are the monthly prices for the first two years, including VAT:

Plan Standard price Baptist Union price
Website only £19 £9.50
Website and app £29 £14.50
Church management Starter (includes website and app) £35 £17.50
Church management Plan 1 £45 £22.50
Church management Plan 2 £65 £32.50
Church management Plan 3 £85 £42.50

A few things worth knowing:

  • The church management prices include the website and the app. There’s no separate website fee on top.
  • Each plan comes with an allowance of members and contacts, and if you go over it you pay a few pence per extra person rather than jumping a plan. A church on Plan 1 that goes from 150 to 151 contacts pays £45.15 at full price, not £65. Growth isn’t penalised.
  • There’s nothing to pay up front, and the contract is rolling monthly. Your trial site is created automatically, every template is free, and we style the fonts and colours to match your church at no extra cost.
  • If you take online giving or event payments, a Hubb.Processing account is £3 a month on top, with 2.2% plus 20p per transaction.
  • Churches in their first two years, counted from when they first started meeting, get 50% off the main monthly fee for two years whatever their denomination, so a new Baptist plant qualifies whichever way it comes to us.
  • A small church with a very large community database (say 100 members and 2,000 contacts) should talk to us for a custom quote, so it isn’t paying over the odds.

Full details are at hubb.church/baptists.



What to look for in the system itself

  • A proper members and contacts model, so your membership roll and your community database live in the same place without being confused.
  • Rotas that run themselves. Baptist churches are volunteer churches. Welcome, worship, sound, kids’ work, coffee, communion: each rota sends its own reminders and each person sees their own dates in the app.
  • Giving with Gift Aid and funds. One-off and regular giving online, offline giving recorded alongside it, gifts assigned to the general fund, the building fund or mission, and Gift Aid claimed through Hubb’s HMRC integration as often as the treasurer likes.
  • Room bookings. Many Baptist churches let their halls to the community. Hubb handles availability, stops double bookings, takes enquiries from the website and can collect payment.
  • A website and app volunteers can update. New sermon, new event, new notice: add it once and it’s on the website and in the app.
  • Safeguarding built in. Permissions that let the youth team see the youth group and nothing else. And Safe Messaging, built into the app: a leader can message a young person only once a parent has approved it, every message is logged, and the safeguarding lead can see everything.

For the fuller picture of what a church management system does, our plain guide covers it. And this post explains why having the website, app and admin in one system matters so much.



What Baptist churches tell us

Pastor Nana at Braemar Avenue Baptist Church wanted somewhere to upload sermons and make small updates without a technical person in the church. The Baptist Union discount was part of the decision too: ‘we would highly recommend Hubb based on ease of use, excellent customer service and affordability’. Simon Shaw started as trainee lay pastor at Upper Edge Baptist Church with a tired website to fix. He found the pricing clear enough to pick the right package, set up online giving ‘with great ease’, and rarely waits more than a few hours for an answer. Peter Timothy leads Park Baptist Church in Great Yarmouth. He wasn’t sure a small church on a tight budget would interest us, and found the team ‘relished the opportunity’ to give them a fresh logo and a modern website. Ann Chesworth at Harrogate Baptist Church chose Hubb for the range of templates and the monthly running costs, and stayed for the creativity the team brought to their photos and information. We also ran website training with the team at Princes Risborough Baptist Church last year and wrote about it on the blog.



How to start

The 30-day free trial needs no payment details, and as many of your leaders as you like can explore it together. Mention that you’re a Baptist Union church when you sign up and we’ll apply the partnership pricing. If you’d prefer to be shown round first, book a live demo. To see a finished church website and app, have a look at The Town Church. If you need something to take to the church meeting, our brochure covers the platform in a few pages.



Frequently asked questions

Does the Baptist Union discount apply to every plan?

Yes. Website only, website and app, and all four church management plans are half price for the first two years.

What happens after two years?

You move to the standard monthly price for your plan. It’s a rolling monthly contract, so you’re never locked in. Current prices are always on our pricing page.

Which Baptist churches qualify?

The offer is for Baptist affiliated churches, through our partnership with Baptists Together (the Baptist Union of Great Britain), and applies to new customers. If you aren’t sure whether your church qualifies, ask us and we’ll tell you straight away.

Is there a setup fee?

No. Your site is created automatically when you start the trial, and the templates and styling are included.

Ready to take a look?

Start a free trial with no payment details and tell us you are a Baptist church, or book a live demo. Full offer details are at hubb.church/baptists.

Adam Johannes

Adam Johannes
CEO, Hubb, and more than 20 years in church software. Church member, children’s ministry volunteer, and Chair of Trustees of a Christian charity.