When your account is created, a unique churchcenter.com URL is generated to host your groups, events, forms, online donations, and more. You can use the provided URL or choose your own in the Account settings and then share your Church Center web pages with your congregation and guests.
Notice
You also have the option to use Publishing to set up Church Center web and app. With Publishing, you have the option to customize your home page, add additional custom pages, host live sermon streams, and create a library of videos or audio from previous services.
For now, there are no theming controls for Church Center. We've intentionally kept the design of Church Center as neutral as possible (black text on a white page with blue links).
You can link to Church Center pages from your own church website or embed them, depending on the type of page.
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If you embed events, groups, the directory, or the main church calendar into your web pages, you might run into these issues:
Church Center uses an encrypted TLS connection which may differ from your church's website. Using different encryptions can cause security alerts when payments are being collected.
For instance, on event registrations that require payment, Church Center asks for credit card numbers and bank account information. When these payment forms are framed by another website, some browsers raise security alerts to visitors, even if your church website is also SSL encrypted.
While not an impossible technical hurdle, this setup can be more volatile as web browsers become increasingly proactive about protecting their users.
On mobile devices, where screen space is already limited, cramming the whole Groups or Registrations system into a smaller box with a fixed height makes it nearly unusable. As designed, Church Center is meant to work well on small-screen devices like phones and tablets.
To make matters worse, when operating in an iframe, the web browser's forward and back buttons usually don't work correctly. The "parent" website essentially hijacks the back button, which can be maddening if you're two steps into your event registration process.
When a website is boxed in by an iframe, the URL (link) to that page isn't accessible to the visitor – only the parent page's URL is visible. This isn't a problem for simpler "widget" type items, like a Pinterest pin or a Facebook page comment. These elements exist as properties of that page, and visitors don't need or care about the URL of those small pieces.
This isn't the case with items like a small group's group page or an event's registration page. People need those URLs to be able to share them, save them, or copy and paste them.
When adding links to your church website, you can link directly to specific Church Center pages. Add links to particular groups, events at a campus, a category of signups, or a specific donation fund to make it easier for people to find relevant information.
Note
Linking to https://yoursubdomain.churchcenter.com will always take people to your Home page in Church Center.
The following sections have some examples of specific Church Center pages that you can link to on other websites or share in email communication with your church.
Here are some examples of how those pages look on Church Center:
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Event Request Forms
Here are a few examples of ways that you can link to the unique Church Center pages for your church:
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On your church website, the Donate Now button can link to: https://yoursubdomain.churchcenter.com/giving
Tip
Check out our Funds article for instructions on linking to a specific Fund and setting a suggested donation amount.
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In your church calendar, you can link the Winter Camp event to: https://yoursubdomain.churchcenter.com/registrations/events/1345
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On your page about small groups, you can link your Find a Group button to https://yoursubdomain.churchcenter.com/groups/small-groups
Note
If an event or form is duplicated in Planning Center, the Church Center URL will change, and you'll need to update the links on your website.