A mother sits at her kitchen table at 9 PM on Saturday. She is thinking about visiting a church tomorrow and she has one question: does the kids room have check-in, or does anyone walk in?
She will not call the church. The office is closed. She will not wait until Monday either. If the website answers, she comes. If it does not, she picks a church that does.
A church chatbot answers that question only if someone loaded the answer first. Here is what to load.
The 12 questions
About Sunday
- What time are the services?
- Where do I park, and which door do I use?
- What should I wear?
- How long does the service last?
About the kids
- Is there a nursery, and what ages does it cover?
- How does check-in work for kids?
- What does my child do during the service?
About the church
- What does the church believe?
- Do I have to give money?
- What happens if I show up and know nobody?
About next steps
- Is there a small group or a newcomers lunch?
- Who do I talk to if I have a question after I visit?
Write each answer in two or three sentences, in the voice of a person at your welcome desk. Short and warm beats complete and stiff.
What the chatbot hands to your staff
Some messages are not questions. A guest who writes about a hard week, a loss or a need for prayer is asking for a person. Decide this in advance and write it down:
- Prayer requests go to a named staff member, with the message intact.
- Anything about a crisis or a safety concern goes to a pastor at once, and the chatbot says a person will respond.
- Counseling and benevolence questions go to your care team.
The assistant never plays pastor. It recognizes the moment and passes it along.
Keep it current
An answer that was true in September is wrong at Christmas. Put a review on the calendar each quarter and again before Easter and Christmas. Whoever owns the website owns the answers.
How Digital Pastor handles this
The AI assistant is trained on your own knowledge base: service times, ministries, beliefs, kids programs and location. It responds in under 60 seconds, captures the guest name and contact details, and routes sensitive pastoral needs to your staff. Starter includes a basic chatbot at $149 a month. Growth, at $349 a month, adds a custom-trained assistant with SMS. See the pricing page.
If you are still deciding whether your church needs one, start with Do Churches Need a Chatbot?. To make sure the answers have a home, review the Plan Your Visit page checklist.
Your first step this week
Answer the 12 questions in a shared document. Time yourself. If you finish in under an hour, you are ready to load them. If a question stumps your team, that is a gap on your website too.
Bring the document to a demo and we will load it into the assistant with you.
