Did you know you can add your church into the YouVersion Bible app giving your church the ability to share announcements, links and more?
This is a great option if a dedicated church app is not in your budget. It has made a great substitute at our church for a paper bulletin. Another plus is that most people already have or at least know about the Bible App so you won’t need to do a lot of onboarding with your church family…just a few simple instructions.
How it works
YouVersion allows your church to create a profile within the app. This makes you discoverable to your church family. You can add your location, logo, service dates and times to your profile.
After you set up a profile you’ll create a “Live Event” for your service (more on this in the step-by-step guide below). There you will be able to add a header image. We use our current sermon graphic for this space.
Once you have a profile set up, members will be able to tap “Set As My Church and connect to you in YouVersion?
Underneath the header space you’ll add your images, links, notes and scriptures. Great uses for this space are links to your website, weekly announcements and a link for your online giving.
You will need to set up a new “live event” each week. The Event will be viewable 5 days before your start time. A red “live” label will appear next to your church service at the actual start time.
The event will still be viewable after church if attenders tap “Save Event” when your event was discoverable.
How people can find you within the app
In order to find your church, members will tap the more icon on the bottom right of the screen and then choose events.
A map will automatically appear along with a list of churches in the vicinity just below it. Tapping on your church name will bring them to the live Event you created.
Now let’s take a look at how to set this up. Here’s the video version if you’d prefer to watch!
Setup: step-by-step guide
Create a profile
- Go to youversion.church and sign in or create a new account (top right). Use an email address you have access to as you will need to confirm your account.
- Add your logo, address, service times, time zone and website.
- Set your primary language
- Confirm you are a nonprofit organization
The YouVersion team states that it may take up to 72 hours to verify your account, but I have not known it to take that long.
Tip: Below your profile page you’ll see a link and a QR code.
These are really handy as they will both take users directly to your church profile where they can tap “Set as my church.”
Create a live event
- Go to events.bible.com and sign in with the email you used to create the initial profile in the steps above.
- Click Create New Event
- Add the event name, Image, church name, description and click next on the bottom right.
- Choose a location (You can have multiple locations the profile you set up earlier) and click next.
- Here is where you can add text, Bible references, Bible plans, images, external links and more.
- Now you can preview and publish the event.
Tip: The image size for the header images should be 1140 x 810px.
Images inserted in the body of the Event need to be 640 x 640 px.
More about Events
+ Events are viewable 5 days before your earliest start time.
+ Events will appear with a red “live” label at the actual start time.
+ Events are viewable after church if attenders tap “Save Event” when your Event was discoverable.
