PewHQ

The complete guide

Everything PewHQ does — how to get started, how to use each feature, and how to keep it running. Written for church staff and administrators.

01

Overview & core concepts

PewHQ is a church management platform: people, giving, groups, serving, attendance, events, check-in, and communications — plus a self-service member portal.

  • Your church is your workspace. Everything you create is isolated from every other church, enforced at the database level.
  • Two audiences, two doors. Staff run the church from /app; members use the portal at /m/<slug>.
  • People vs. accounts. A person is a directory record; they become a portal member only when they sign in with a matching email. Staff are separate, with a login and role.
  • AI never touches money or people. AI features only read or map data; staff and deterministic code make every change to funds or people.
02

Getting started

Sign in at /app. If you don’t have a church yet, create one (you become the Owner).

First-run checklist

  1. Church details — Settings → Church details (name, address, EIN). Appears on statements and as the reply-to on email.
  2. Invite your team — Settings → Staff & roles.
  3. Add people — import a CSV or add by hand.
  4. Connect Stripe — Giving → Connect Stripe.
  5. Add a sending domain (optional) — Settings → Email sending domain.
  6. Share your links — giving page and member portal URLs are on the Giving page.
03

Staff, roles & invitations

Settings → Staff & roles (Owners and Admins only). Roles: Owner (full control), Admin (everything but the last owner), Staff (day-to-day), Volunteer (limited; only their serving teams).

Invite a teammate by email + role; they get an accept link (expires in 14 days) and join when they sign in with that email. Change roles, remove staff, or revoke invites anytime.

04

People & households

Add people inline or import in bulk. Open a person to edit contact info, status, the child flag, allergies, home address, photo, and household. Each person gets an auto-assigned unique number.

Households (People → Households) group families with a head of household, and roll up family giving and last-attended. They’re also reconstructed automatically from address/family-ID columns on import.

05

Groups

Small groups, classes, and ministries. Add members, then take attendance on the group page (pick a date, check who’s present). Feeds the dashboard trend and each person’s history.

06

Serving teams & worship planning

Build teams (worship, nursery, greeters), add volunteers, and schedule them to a service or date with an instrument/role and a lead flag. Volunteers confirm or decline from their portal.

Worship set lists plan songs per service — pick from your song library or add new, with per-service keys. Access is team-scoped: owners/admins full, team leads edit, members view, others no access.

07

Services & attendance

Weekend services and gatherings. Record a quick headcount or mark exactly who attended. Services are what set lists and volunteer assignments attach to (9am vs 11am).

08

Events & calendar

A month calendar with create/edit and an upcoming list. Events carry time, location, capacity, and a “show in member portal” toggle. Members RSVP (Going / Maybe / Declined with guests); staff see the roster and headcount.

09

Child check-in

Add rooms, search a child, capture the guardian, and print a two-part label: the child’s label (with photo, number, and allergies) and a matching guardian pickup tag. Checkout requires the security code. Reports show weekly attendance and per-room headcounts.

10

Giving

Connect Stripe (money settles to your church) and create funds. Donors give one-time or recurring, split across funds, and can cover the fee. Staff get a dashboard, recurring givers, and printable year-end statements.

11

Communications

Messages — one-off email blasts to everyone, a group, or by status. Announcements — notices in every member’s portal (pin the important ones). Newsletters — branded issues with a web version and one-click unsubscribe. Add your own sending domain in Settings for deliverability.

12

Church Chat Groups

Create chat groups for your congregation (Communications → Church Chat Groups). Link one to a group to keep it to that group’s members, or leave it open to everyone. Members chat from their portal; staff can open and post from the room page.

13

Ask your data

Ask questions in plain English — “How many members joined this year?” — and PewHQ answers from your data. It only reads, never changes anything, and only your church’s data.

14

Importing your data

Export a CSV from Planning Center, Breeze, CCB, or any tool. Columns are auto-mapped (AI-assisted); review and import. Rows with no name/email are skipped and counted, households are reconstructed, and one-click Undo removes exactly what an import added.

15

The member portal

Your congregation’s self-service area at /m/<slug>; share /join/<slug> for new members. Members see announcements, events, newsletters, and chat; give and manage recurring gifts; view household and groups; confirm serving; and update their profile. Members can install the portal as their own home-screen app.

New self-serve members can require staff approval (Settings) before they get access — review requests under People → Member requests.
16

Continuous management

  • Member requests — approve/decline new self-serve members regularly.
  • Staff — remove people who leave; keep roles least-privilege.
  • Recurring gifts — statuses sync automatically; watch past-due on the dashboard.
  • Set lists & schedules — build a few weeks ahead so volunteers can confirm.
  • Data hygiene — mark people inactive rather than deleting; use households to keep families tidy.

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