How to Embed Planning Center Groups & Events Directly Into Your Website
Disclosure: Some links in this post are affiliate links. If you click through and pay for a product, I’ll be compensated at no cost to you.
We all know that Planning Center is an incredible tool for churches. One particularly powerful tool is how in Planning Center Groups, you can create interactive Small Groups. All the groups you create in Planning Center show up on “Church Center,” which is the web app and mobile app where your people can access both their groups and upcoming events through their own account.
Unfortunately, when it comes time to get all this great Planning Center content on your website, you are forced to either also recreate these items on your web builder and link to Church Center OR you can simply link directly to Church Center as your groups and events page. The first option is a lot of extra work and the other can be a confusing user experience.
This is why The Church Co created their Planning Center Integration. The Church Co is a web builder and hosting company that created a powerful and modern website platform for churches and in the process, created some amazing integrations.
Among their numerous integrations you can take advantage of when you use their builder is the Planning Center Groups and Registrations/Events integration. When you use their builder, set-up is pretty easy and their awesome team will help you make it happen.
However, if you’re like most churches and you don’t want to switch over to a whole new website platform just for an integration, have no fear!
The folks at The Church Co have made their integration available to embed directly into your native web builder. So whether you use Squarespace, Wordpress, or really any other platform that uses javascript and allows embedding, odds are they’ll be able to help you get the integration working. Click one of the links for an example of this integration on a Squarespace website with Groups.
Once it’s up and running, all you have to do is update Planning Center and all your groups will update automatically! It will cost you a little bit of money for the integration-only subscription, but it’s well worth it in the time and energy it will save you updating just one system instead of two!
Here’s how you do it:
Step 1: Subscribe to the Church Co embedding subscription
The first thing you need to do is subscribe to the Church Co Embeds plan. It costs $19 dollars per month and also includes embedding numerous other features including Planning Center Registration, a prayer wall, and more.
Step 2: Connect Church Co with Planning Center Groups and Embed onto your website
Next you’ll need to connect your new Church Co Embeds account with your existing Planning Center account and embedded onto your website. This takes a few more advanced steps, but have no fear, I’ve created a short tutorial video to talk you through it!
Here’s the javascript from the end of the video. Copy and paste the following into the footer of your website: <script src="https://thechurchco.com/embeds/js/latest"></script>
Step 3: Enjoy an automatic updating Groups page!
That’s it! You’re done! Now wherever you add a new group, or change an existing group in Planning Center Groups, your church’s groups page will automatically update on your website. People will be able to click on groups, interact with them on Church Center and you won’t have to do anything more to make it happen.
Need some help setting up your Church Co integration? We’d love to help! Just get in touch and we’ll set-up a call!
Next Steps
I hope you found this blog helpful and given you the direction you need to take those first steps toward creating and maintaining thriving communications in your church.
Every year, Clearpath partners with churches just like yours to help them create thriving communications. Here’s a few action steps you can take when you’re ready:
Action Steps:
Learn more about Clearpath: https://clearpath.church/
Download the Church Communications Blueprint: https://clearpath.church/blueprint
Start an Assessment: https://clearpath.church/assessments
Start a conversation: https://clearpath.church/contact
