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The most common question new Church Admin users ask is: what is the difference between Ministries, Small Groups, Classes, and Units? All four involve groups of people, but they serve different purposes and connect to different parts of the plugin. This page explains each one so you can decide how to use them for your church.
Churches around the world also use different terminology — what one church calls a home group another calls a life group or cell group; what one calls Sunday school another calls a mid-week class. The feature names in Church Admin are a framework you can adapt to your own language and context.
Ministries
A Ministry is a serving team — a group of people who do a particular job in the church. Worship band, welcome team, sound desk, children’s workers, refreshments, flowers, prayer team — each of these is a Ministry in Church Admin.
After the People directory, Ministries are the backbone of the plugin. They connect to almost everything else:
- Schedule / Rota — when you set up schedule jobs, you assign a Ministry to each job. Church Admin draws from that Ministry’s members to fill the rota slots. See Rota / Schedule.
- Ministry Chat — each Ministry automatically gets its own private chat room, visible only to its members. See Ministry Chat.
- Communications — you can filter the People directory by Ministry membership and send bulk email or SMS to everyone in a specific team.
- Volunteers — the Volunteers screen gives an overview of who is serving in which Ministry across your whole church.
- Small group oversight — Ministries support unlimited hierarchical levels, so you can model structures where group leaders belong to a ministry, coaches oversee several leaders, and zone pastors oversee several coaches.
Go to Church Admin → Ministries to add and manage your ministry teams.
Small Groups
A Small Group is an ongoing weekly gathering — home Bible studies, cell groups, life groups, connect groups, or whatever your church calls them. Unlike Ministries (which are about serving) and Classes (which have a fixed end date), Small Groups are about ongoing community and discipleship.
Small Groups connect to several features:
- Small groups map — an interactive map showing where groups meet and when, so new members can find a group near them
- Oversight structure — small group leaders can be placed in a Ministry hierarchy to model your pastoral oversight structure. See Small group oversight structure.
- Attendance tracking — group leaders can record attendance, or you can use the Sessions module for more detailed session-by-session tracking. See Sessions.
- Follow Up Funnels — new contacts can be assigned to a small group funnel as part of their journey into the church. See Follow up funnels.
- App — logged-in app users can view their small group details and meeting information.
Go to Church Admin → Small Groups to add and manage your groups. See Small groups for the full setup guide.
Classes
A Class is a group with a defined beginning and end — Alpha, an exploring Christianity course, a new members class, a discipleship course, or confirmation preparation. The key difference from a Small Group is that a Class has a fixed duration rather than running indefinitely.
Classes work well for:
- Any course with a set number of weeks
- Seasonal groups that run for a term and then stop
- Sunday school — set for 52 weeks if it runs year-round
- Training programmes for volunteers or leaders
Class sessions appear on the calendar automatically. Class leaders can check in students each session, and the Sessions module provides more detailed per-session notes and records. People can register for classes on your website without needing an account. See Classes.
Go to Church Admin → Classes to add and manage your classes.
Units and Subunits
Units are a lightweight, flexible grouping tool for people who don’t fit neatly into Ministries, Small Groups, or Classes. Typical uses include prayer triplets, Bible study pairs, pastoral care clusters, elder zones, or any other informal grouping that needs its own membership list but doesn’t require a meeting schedule, map, or public registration form.
Each Unit can be divided into Subunits — the individual instances within the type. For example a Unit called Prayer Triplets might contain subunits for each individual triplet: Monday group, Tuesday group, and so on. People are assigned at the subunit level.
Go to Church Admin → Units to add and manage your units. See Units.
Quick comparison
| Ministries | Small Groups | Classes | Units | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Serving teams | Ongoing community | Time-limited courses | Flexible informal groups |
| Duration | Ongoing | Ongoing | Fixed start and end | Ongoing |
| Connects to rota | Yes | No | No | No |
| Has a map | No | Yes | No | No |
| Attendance tracking | No | Yes | Yes | No |
| Ministry Chat rooms | Yes | No | No | No |
| Public registration | No | No | Yes | No |
| Hierarchy / oversight | Yes | Via Ministries | No | Via Subunits |
| Calendar entries | No | No | Yes | No |