Set up your first Sunday service

This recipe walks you from "no service in GCM" to "members checked in and got a thank-you message" in about 30 minutes. It's the most common first-week task for new churches.

Prerequisites

• You're signed in as an admin.
• At least 10 members in your church (so the attendance list isn't empty).
• A tablet, phone, or laptop you can use at the door on Sunday.

Step 1 — Create the meeting

A meeting in GCM is a recurring service (e.g. "Sunday Worship"). Members mark attendance against meetings, and reports group by meeting.

1. Go to Calendar → Meetings.
2. Click New meeting.
3. Fill in:
   • Name: Sunday Worship
   • Scope: choose Org-wide so every branch/cell can mark attendance to this meeting.
   • Recurrence: Weekly on Sunday.
4. Save.

You only have to do this once. From now on the meeting exists in your dashboard and reports.

Step 2 — Decide how you'll mark attendance

You have three options. Pick the one that fits your service:

Option	When to use	Setup time
Check-in station	Members tap their name on a tablet at the door	10 min
Bulk marking	One person marks the whole congregation from a list after the service	0 min
Manual entry	Recording attendance one member at a time	0 min

For your first service, bulk marking is fastest — you don't need any extra hardware.

Step 3 — Mark attendance after the service

1. Go to Attendance → Mark.
2. Select Sunday Worship as the meeting and today's date.
3. Tap each member who attended.
4. Click Save.

GCM stores one attendance row per member per meeting per date — re-running this won't create duplicates.

Step 4 — Send a thank-you message

1. Go to Workflows → Templates.
2. Pick the Sunday thank-you template.
3. Filter recipients to "Anyone who attended today's service."
4. Pick a channel: WhatsApp (recommended), SMS, or email.
5. Send.

You'll get a delivery report within a few minutes — green for delivered, amber for pending, red for failed.

Step 5 — Review the dashboard

Head back to your Dashboard. You should see the attendance trends chart updated with today's data point and the active members tile reflecting everyone who attended.

What's next

• Newcomer follow-up workflow — automatically reach out to first-time visitors.
• Recurring online donations — let people give weekly without re-entering their card.
• Reports v2 — track who's stopped attending so you can re-engage them before they go dormant.