Two weeks from sign-up to Sunday.
About 1 hr 20 min at a keyboard, spread over two weeks so Stripe has time to verify you and your team has time to log in. Here is exactly what happens, what you need on hand, and who does which part.
What to have on hand.
None of this is paperwork for us. Most of it is what your bank or Stripe will ask for anyway.
One person who owns it
Not a committee. One staff member or volunteer who will finish the checklist and be the person others ask. Churches that skip this stall in week one.
Your current people list
An export from Planning Center, Breeze, CCB, Tithely or Pushpay, or any spreadsheet. Planning Center can be pulled across directly with a token instead of a file.
Your church's legal name, EIN and bank account
Stripe asks for these to verify your church before it pays out gifts, plus identity details for one church officer. That is Stripe's legal requirement, not ours, and they are entered on Stripe's form.
Your IRS 501(c)(3) letter, if you have one
Only needed if you apply for Stripe's nonprofit discount. Many churches never applied for one; Stripe can also work from your EIN.
For kids check-in: a tablet and, ideally, a label printer
Any tablet or computer with a browser runs the kiosk. DYMO, Brother and Zebra label printers work, or you can print on plain labels from any printer.
The same checklist you will see inside.
Every step below is a step in the app's own Get started page. It ticks itself off from your real data, so nobody can mark the church ready when it is not.
Week one: the foundations
Get your people in, your team invited, and giving submitted to Stripe early so its checks are done by Sunday.
Name your church
5 minEverything people see — receipts, texts, your public page — is signed with this.
Bring your people in
15 minEvery other part of this only works once your people are in one place.
Invite your staff and leaders
5 minYou should not be the only person who can run this.
Turn on online giving
10 minMost churches see giving rise the month they make it possible from a phone.
Week two: your first Sunday
Plan one real service, send one real message, and put the public page in front of people.
Plan your first service
15 minOne Sunday planned here is the fastest way to know whether this fits how you work.
Connect email and texting
10 minAn announcement nobody receives is not an announcement.
Create a group people can find
5 minSunday gathers a crowd; groups are where people actually get known.
Set up kids check-in
10 minSecure pickup is the first thing a visiting parent judges you on.
Share your public page
5 minYour events, groups, sermons, giving and connect card already live at a real address.
The minutes are keyboard time for a first-timer. Importing is fifteen minutes with a clean spreadsheet and an afternoon with a messy one — the wizard shows you the problems before it writes anything.
Recurring gifts do not move by themselves.
Your people, households, groups, funds and giving history all come across. Active recurring gifts do not, because the card details belong to your old payment processor, and no processor hands those over to another company. Every church that switches systems faces this, whoever they switch to.
What works:
- Keep your old giving page running until the switch is done. Do not cancel it first.
- Pick a changeover Sunday. Announce it from the front, and email your recurring givers a direct link to your new giving page the same day.
- Follow up with anyone who has not moved after two weeks. Your old system's recurring list is your checklist.
- Switch at the start of a month, so each year-end statement has a clean edge.
Your part, our part, Stripe's part.
| Task | Who | What that means |
|---|---|---|
| Create the church, invite your team | You | Minutes. Roles decide who sees giving and who only sees their own group. |
| Move your people and giving history | You, with the import wizard | It maps columns and merges duplicates. On Pro and Enterprise we do it with you on a call. |
| Verify the church for online giving | Stripe | You fill in Stripe's form from inside Steeple. Usually minutes, sometimes a day or two. |
| Email and texting accounts | Us | You never open a Twilio or email-service account. Emails go out under your church's name with replies to the address you choose. |
| Plan Sunday and schedule volunteers | You | Volunteers accept or decline from a text or email. No login needed. |
| Background checks | Your screening company | Checks run on your church's own account (connect Checkr, or track any provider by hand) and they bill you directly. We track who is cleared and when it expires. |
| Bookkeeping and payroll | Your treasurer, in their own software | We export balanced journal entries for QuickBooks or Aplos. We are not your accounting system — see what we don't cover. |
Wondering what you will still need besides Steeple? Here is the honest list.
When you get stuck.
Email support is on every plan, including the free one, and it is answered by the people who build Steeple. Nobody reads you a script.
- Every plan: email us at [email protected]. The in-app checklist explains each step in plain English as you go.
- Pro and Enterprise: an onboarding call, and we move your data across with you.
- Try it without risk: load sample data from the checklist to click around a full church, then clear it in one step before you bring your own people in.
Start this week. Be running by the Sunday after next.
Create your church free. The checklist is waiting inside, and it remembers where you left off.