A 310-attendance church in a Pacific Northwest tech suburb

A 310-attendance non-denominational church in a Pacific Northwest tech suburb runs Planning Center People, Services, Check-Ins, and Giving, plus Mailchimp, Clearstream, and Zoom. Staff: 3 full-time, 2 part-time. Software is about $100/mo plus giving fees.

By Caleb Brooks · Published September 2026· Editorial standards · Conflict of interest

Field guide page: steps and costs from hands-on church-tech work, written under a pen name. Church names stay private. See how we write and verify.

What kind of church is this?

A 310-attendance non-denominational church in a Pacific Northwest tech suburb. Three full-time and two part-time staff. Two Sunday services. Many households travel for work. Giving often hits on payday by ACH rather than by cash in the lobby.

Why does this mix exist?

They wanted one Sunday system, so Planning Center covers people, services, check-in, and giving. Mailchimp and Clearstream handle weekly communication without inventing a custom stack. Zoom stays limited to elders and one hybrid class so “online church” does not silently replace showing up.

How the week actually runs

Services blockouts include company crunch weeks when parents warn the coordinator. Check-Ins runs at classroom doors, not only the lobby coffee line. Monday, finance reviews Giving batches and failed ACH. Clearstream reminders go from a shared inbox. The remote-once-a-month tag keeps care lists honest without pretending travelers never miss. Monday guest notes distinguish relocating tech workers from long-term locals so follow-up tone stays sane.

What breaks if you copy this blindly

Turning every meeting into Zoom until hospitality dies. Buying five Planning Center modules you will not staff. Letting engineers on the volunteer team become unpaid IT without an admin owner. Letting Slack replace a phone call for pastoral care.

What they would change next

A clearer travel-week care note for small group leaders. One printed give FAQ for new members who only know employer stock-sale seasons. Quarterly export permission review.

How should you use this page?

If your suburb runs on tech paycycles and travel, tag irregular attendance early and keep livestream ambitions smaller than your follow-up capacity.

Field note after a crunch month

November travel weeks emptied small groups while livestream views looked healthy. Leaders stopped calling because the dashboard said people were “engaged.” They added a travel tag and a two-question Monday note for group leaders. Engagement metrics did not shrink. Care conversations returned.

Field note after stock-sale season

December ACH spiked when RSUs vested, then January looked like a giving crisis. Finance started tagging “employer stock window” gifts in the Monday batch notes so elders would not treat a one-month spike as the new normal. Tech-suburb giving needs a calendar note, not only a dashboard.

Field note after Slack pastoral care

A small-group leader posted a hospital update in Slack “so the care team would see it.” The update left the church workspace in a screenshot. They moved crisis notes back to Planning Center pastoral fields and banned Slack for counseling details. Fast tools are not private tools.

Who owns admin

On a team sized like 3 full-time, 2 part-time, one named staff lead should hold master admin for the people database and any tool that can export households or send church-wide texts. Ministry directors get limited views for their rosters. Greeters and foyer volunteers should search and check in, not download the full list.

Write a backup admin before vacation weeks. Role changes get a five-minute access checklist the same week: remove logins, remove export rights, confirm the backup still works. Leftover volunteer IT access is how old Sheets and pastoral notes leak into personal inboxes.

If engineers or “techy” members help, they still need a staff owner. Unpaid IT without an owner becomes a single point of failure when that member moves.

What this stack costs

Software lines from this page (confirm the week you brief elders):

• Planning Center People: $35/mo
• Planning Center Services: $0 (included)
• Planning Center Check-Ins: $0 (included)
• Planning Center Giving: Processing fees
• Mailchimp: $20/mo
• Clearstream: $29/mo
• Zoom: $16/mo

Add card processing fees beside any giving tool. December volume can dwarf the SaaS stickers. Put weekly admin hours beside each line on the board packet. A cheap tool with unpaid heroics is not cheap.

Attendance bracket on this page: 150-400. Staff shape: 3 full-time, 2 part-time. Region context: US Pacific Northwest. Copy the ownership pattern before you copy every logo.

Copy this if

Copy this mix when your church is near 150-400 attendance (Non-denominational), you can staff the Monday jobs these tools assume, and you will name owners for guest follow-up, scheduling, and giving reconcile. Steal the weekly rhythm and the permission habits first. Steal the logo list second.

Good signs you are ready: cards leave the building with a named enterer, texts leave a church-owned number or watched inbox, and one person can explain each tool in one sentence.

What breaks first

What usually breaks first when churches copy A 310-attendance church in a Pacific Northwest tech suburb without the staffing: guest cards sit until Wednesday, personal phones become the cancel channel again, dual databases appear “for transition,” or export rights stay with former volunteers. The tools (Planning Center People, Planning Center Services, Planning Center Check-Ins, Planning Center Giving, Mailchimp, Clearstream…) only work when the Monday owners are real.

Refuse a second people list. Refuse automations nobody watches. Refuse measuring success by open rates while replies sit unread. If your staff hours are thinner than 3 full-time, 2 part-time, shrink the stack before you expand it.

Board packet checklist

1. Name master admin and backup for the ChMS (church management system).
2. List monthly software fees and estimated processing fees on one page.
3. Write the weekly job each tool serves in one sentence.
4. Schedule a ninety-day pre-renewal review with actual hours beside each fee.
5. Confirm vendor quotes the same week elders vote.

Keep churchRef and slug stable when you link workflows to this stack. This page is a field pattern, not a mandate to buy everything at once.