The Church & Community Playbook
Run services, programs, and special events with free registration, QR attendance, member groups, and a weekly email - all in one place.
The Church & Community Playbook
The announcements go out on three WhatsApp groups, the conference registrations live in a paper notebook, and nobody is quite sure how many people came last month. This playbook puts your congregation or community on one system: registration, attendance, member lists, and the weekly email.
Who this is for: churches, fellowships, campus ministries, community associations, clubs - any organization that gathers people on a rhythm.
The Setup
1. One page for the whole organization
My Page → Page Design: your name, your photo or logo, and a bio that says when and where you meet. Put Events first in the Sections tab. Share trankets.com/u/your-handle everywhere - one link that always shows what is coming up.
2. Free events, free forever
Create your gatherings as events with free tickets - Sunday services, midweek programs, the annual conference. Free events carry no platform fee on any plan, and registrants get a QR confirmation automatically.
Why register people for a free gathering? Three reasons:
- Capacity and planning. You know who is coming before you set out chairs.
- Attendance without a clipboard. QR check-in at the door gives you real numbers - and any usher with a phone can run it.
- Every registrant is reachable. Which is the whole point of the next step.
For the paid conference or retreat, the same event takes paid tickets - early bird tiers, per-person limits, capacity caps.
3. Groups for every ministry
In Contacts → Groups, create the groups that mirror your structure: "Members", "Choir", "Youth", "First-timers", "Conference 2026". Fill them three ways:
- Import from Event after each gathering - first-timers especially.
- CSV import of your existing member list - the importer takes a spreadsheet from anywhere and maps the columns.
- A waitlist for program signups - volunteer drives, classes, small groups. Signups file themselves into the right group.
4. The weekly email
Send the bulletin from Newsletters to the groups it concerns. Personalize with first names, send yourself a test first, and schedule it for the same morning every week. (Sending newsletters is a paid-plan feature - for an organization emailing hundreds of members weekly, it is the plan feature that matters most.)
5. Reminders that fill the room
On any event, set reminders relative to start time - "1 day before" and "2 hours before". If the program moves, the reminders move with it. Target a category ("Volunteers") when only some people need the message.
The Rhythm
Weekly: event exists → reminder fires → QR check-in at the door → first-timers imported into their group → bulletin goes to everyone. Each gathering grows the list; the list fills the next gathering.
Extras That Fit
- Sell media and materials - sermon series, books, study guides - as digital products, linked to a contact group.
- Hybrid services: virtual events give remote members a private join link that always points to your current stream (Pro plans and up).
- Attendance history: any member's contact page shows every event they have attended.
When to Upgrade
The free plan covers a small fellowship. A growing congregation usually outgrows the contact ceiling first - and newsletter sending, more active events, and bigger email allowances all come with paid tiers. The current limits for every plan are on the pricing page - and remember free gatherings never carry a fee on any plan.