Messaging

Most of what your church needs to communicate ends up being a message — Sunday service reminders, prayer requests, birthday greetings, meeting changes. The Messaging module handles all three of the channels your members actually check.

The channels

Channel	Best for	Cost	Reach
WhatsApp	day-to-day pastoral comms	tiny per-message	nearly universal in many regions
SMS	urgent updates, low-friction reach	mid per-message	universal
Email	longer-form, formatted content	near-zero	universal but lower open-rates

If your congregation already uses WhatsApp, lead with that. We see open rates above 95 percent versus around 25 percent for email.

Single vs bulk send

Two distinct flows:

• Single send — to one or two members. Open the member's profile and use the send-message action.
• Bulk send — to a list (everyone in a unit, everyone tagged with a specific custom field value, etc.). From Messaging → Send.

Both write to the same communication_log table so delivery results land in one place.

Bulk pacing

For large sends WhatsApp specifically enforces tight rate limits. We auto-pace bulk sends:

• For WACRM-backed channels (one of our WhatsApp providers), messages spread across UTC days rather than burst — the bulk endpoint returns estimated_completion + spans_days so you can plan around it.
• For SMS providers, we throttle per the gateway's documented limits.
• For email, we use SendGrid or Resend's per-second envelope.

TIP

A 5,000-recipient WhatsApp bulk send won't finish in five minutes — and that's by design. If you need everyone to receive a message at exactly 9 AM Sunday, send to a smaller priority list first and a larger one later.

Templates and merge tokens

The compose window supports merge tokens — {{member.first_names}}, {{member.unit.name}}, etc. The token picker shows every field available based on whether you're sending to members or other recipients.

Templates live in Messaging → Templates and are reusable. Workflows can reference templates by ID so you don't need to copy text around.

Conversations

WhatsApp and SMS are two-way. When a member replies, the inbound shows in Conversations — see Conversations. Staff can respond from the same view without leaving the app.

Email is one-way for now (your church's reply-to inbox handles responses externally).

Channels and providers

Each channel is backed by a provider. You configure providers per channel in Settings → Channels.

Channel	Built-in providers
WhatsApp	WAHA-backed (WACRM), WhatsApp Official, smsmobileapi
SMS	Twilio, smsmobileapi
Email	Resend, SMTP, SendGrid

See Channels & unsubscribe for configuration details and rate limits per provider.

Unsubscribe handling

Compliance matters. Every message footer (where the channel allows it) includes an unsubscribe link. When a member unsubscribes:

• They're added to the unsubscribe list for that channel.
• Future bulk sends skip them automatically.
• Single sends to them surface a warning before send.

You can review and manage the unsubscribe list from Messaging → Unsubscribe.

Delivery status

Every message gets a delivery status:

• Queued — handed to the provider, not yet processed.
• Sent — provider accepted.
• Delivered — confirmed by the recipient's device.
• Read (WhatsApp only) — confirmed by the recipient opening it.
• Failed — provider couldn't deliver. The reason is shown.

Delivery statuses update via webhooks from the provider. WhatsApp gives the richest data; email and SMS often top out at Sent.

Permissions

Action	Admin	Shepherd	Member
Send single message	yes	scoped	no
Send bulk	yes	scoped	no
Configure channels	yes	no	no
View conversations	yes	scoped	own only
View unsubscribe list	yes	no	no

Next steps

1. WhatsApp — the channel most churches lead with.
2. Channels & unsubscribe — set up at least one provider.
3. Conversations — handle the replies.
4. Connect messaging to Workflows for automated follow-ups.