Start with the Get Started guide — it walks you through the whole setup in about fifteen minutes. Come back here when you want the detail.
Everything from first login to Sunday morning. If you're setting up a new church, work through sections 1–5 in order — each one builds on the last. If you're a volunteer who just wants to know how to accept a request, jump to section 9.
Every person in Ministry Order has one of three roles. This decides what they see when they open the app, so it's worth getting right before you invite anyone.
| Can they… | Admin | Leader | Volunteer |
|---|---|---|---|
| See their own schedule and respond to requests | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Create and edit events and service orders | Yes | Yes | No |
| Assign people to teams on an event | Yes any team | Yes only teams they lead | No |
| Open the Manage tab | Yes | Yes | No |
| See email addresses and phone numbers | Yes | No | No |
| Add, remove, or change someone's role | Yes | No | No |
| Create teams, positions, segments; set the time zone | Yes | No | No |
Leaders see names and roles but not contact details — that's deliberate, so you can give a worship leader scheduling access without handing over the whole church directory.
There's a second, narrower kind of leadership. Star someone on a team's roster and they become a team leader for that team — they can assign people, set the call time, and send requests, on that team only. Star your worship leader on Worship and he can staff the band without being able to touch Production.
A Leader who isn't starred on any team can build service orders and add teams to an event, but cannot assign a single person to anything. If you're making someone a Leader, star them on the team or teams they actually run.
The star only controls scheduling. It does not let someone add or remove people, change roles, or create teams, positions and segments — those stay with admins no matter how many teams a person leads.
Whoever created the church account is the owner. The owner has full admin rights and cannot be deleted by anyone, including other admins. Billing is tied to the owner's email address.
Do these five things in order. Skipping ahead usually means backtracking — you can't assign someone to a position that doesn't exist yet.
Manage Data → Time Zone
Do this before creating anything. Every service time you type is stored in this zone and shown in this zone to everyone, wherever they are. If you set a 7:00 PM service, a volunteer travelling overseas still sees 7:00 PM — the app never shifts times to their local clock.
Manage Data → Teams → + Add Team
A team is a department: Worship, Production, Ushers, Kids. Start with the ones you schedule every week.
Manage Data → tap a team → Manage Positions
Positions are the jobs within that team — Drummer, Camera Operator, Greeter. See section 4 for how many to create.
Manage Data → People (mobile) or People (web)
Manage Data → tap a team → Manage Roster
Tick everyone who serves on that team. This is what makes them appear as options when scheduling, and what lets them claim open spots.
While you're in Manage Data, create your segments too — Prayer, Worship, Announcements, Sermon, Offering. These are the labels down the left of your service order, and you'll want them before you build your first plan.
Go to Manage Data → People → Add Person and enter their name. The email address is optional but important:
Once you've added someone with an email, they download the app and sign up using that same email address. The app recognises them and links them to your church automatically. If they sign up with a different address, they'll land in an empty account — delete the person record and re-add it with the address they actually used.
Your plan covers up to 200 people. The app checks this before adding anyone, and you'll see your current usage in the sidebar on the web dashboard. If you're near the limit, remove people who no longer serve rather than upgrading straight away.
Tap a person in the People list and change their role to Admin, Leader, or Volunteer. Only admins can do this. Give Leader to worship leaders and department heads who build their own schedules; leave everyone else as Volunteer.
A team is a department. A position is a job inside it. Positions belong to the team that owns them, so Production can have a Photographer and Marketing can have a Photographer, and they stay completely separate — different positions that happen to share a name.
Open Manage Data → tap a team → Manage Positions, type a name, and press Add. That's the whole flow — there's no separate list to maintain elsewhere.
Each position has a spots count. This is how many people you need in that job:
If your camera operators are interchangeable, create one Camera Operator position with 5 spots. If Camera 1 is the wide shot and Camera 3 is the balcony — specific, different jobs — create Camera Operator 1 through 5 as separate positions. Both are correct; pick whichever matches how you actually brief people.
Tap a position to rename it. Renaming is safe — people already scheduled keep that position, because assignments point at the position itself rather than its name. Deleting a position doesn't remove anyone already scheduled into it; it just stops it being offered in future.
Under Manage Roster you tick who belongs to the team, and star anyone who should be a team leader. A starred person can staff that team — assign people, set the call time, send requests — without being able to touch any other team.
The star only takes effect if their app role is Leader. Starring a Volunteer does nothing; set their role in People first. See section 1.
Events live in folders — Sunday Services, Youth Nights, Christmas. When you create an event you choose which folder it belongs to, or create a new one. Folders keep a busy calendar readable; they don't change how anything works.
From Events, tap + and fill in the name, folder, date, and start time. Then decide what to copy from your most recent event:
| Copy teams | Copy order | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| On | On | Last week's roster and running order. Everyone assigned is asked to confirm the new date. |
| On | Off | The same team, an empty running order. Good for a service with a different shape. |
| Off | On | The same running order, nobody assigned. Good for a regular format with a fresh rota. |
| Off | Off | A completely blank event. |
When you copy teams, everyone comes across as pending, not accepted. They each have to confirm the new date. This is intentional — last week's yes isn't this week's yes.
Events fade in the Events list at midnight on the day after the service, and drop off everyone's schedule at the same moment. Nothing is deleted — you can still open, export, or duplicate an old event at any time.
Open an event and use the Order section. Each row is one item in the run sheet, and start times are calculated automatically from your service start time and each item's duration — change one duration and everything below it shifts.
Tap Add Item, then set:
Set an item's segment to your worship segment and a setlist section appears. Add each song with a title, a key, and a length. Keys come from a fixed list (C, Cm, C#, Db…) so charts and stage displays stay consistent.
The item's total duration is calculated from the songs, so you don't have to add them up. Songs also appear individually in the exported PDF and in Live mode, each with its own start time.
Use Edit (or Edit Order on the web) and drag items into place. All start times recalculate as you go.
In the event's Teams section, tap + and pick a team. It appears as a card with its own call time.
Tap the team card, then edit Call Time. This is when that team needs to arrive, not when the service starts — production might be 8:30am for a 10:00am service. Call time is what shows on the volunteer's schedule and on any calendar entry they save.
Inside the team card, tap a person's row to choose who fills it, and tap the position underneath their name to set what they're doing. Anyone on the team's roster appears first; you can also pick from everyone in the church.
The name menu changes who is serving — swap them out, or remove them and leave the spot open. The position menu underneath changes what they're doing. Choosing "Not Assigned" from the position menu clears the job but keeps the person on the team.
You don't have to fill every position yourself. Leave a spot empty and it shows as Needed — any volunteer on that team's roster will see it in their app as an open opportunity and can claim it themselves.
Here's the part people miss. Nobody is notified when you assign them. New assignments sit in draft so you can build the whole schedule without firing off a dozen notifications as you change your mind.
When you're ready, open the team card and tap Send N Pending Requests at the top. That's when volunteers get their push notification and the request appears on their schedule.
It only appears when there are unnotified people on that team. If everyone has already been sent a request, there's nothing to send and the button is hidden.
You'll also see a small envelope icon next to anyone who hasn't been notified yet, so you can tell at a glance who's still in draft.
Each person shows a colour as they respond:
Above the team cards there's a control with three options. It changes how every team on the event is displayed, and your choice is remembered on that device.
Person first, position underneath. This answers "who's serving?" and it's the view most volunteers want. Sorted accepted, then pending, then open, then declined.
Position first, person underneath. Every position on the team appears — including ones nobody has been put in yet. This answers "is the team complete?"
Note that anyone assigned without a position doesn't appear here, because this is a list of jobs. They're still visible under People.
Only the gaps. Everything filled disappears, across every team at once. The tab carries an orange badge with the total number of unfilled positions on the event, so you can see there's a problem without switching views. A fully staffed team shows a green tick rather than an empty card.
Switch to Needed, work down the list, tap any gap to jump straight to assigning it. When every card says "Fully staffed", you're done.
At the bottom of each card you'll see the counts: how many positions are filled, how many are open, and how many people have declined. Declines are counted separately because they need chasing differently — an empty spot needs someone found, a declined one needs someone re-asked.
This is the short version to send to your team.
Open My Schedule. Anything waiting on you shows Accept and Decline buttons. Tap one. You can change your answer later from the same screen — tap Decline on something you accepted, or the other way round.
If your team needs someone and you're on that team's roster, it appears under Open Opportunities with the position that's needed. Tap Accept to take it. You're scheduled immediately — no one has to approve it.
Go to your Profile and open Blackout Dates to add dates you're away. Add a start date, an end date, and optionally a reason.
Blackout dates don't block anything automatically — they warn whoever is scheduling. If a leader tries to put you on a date you've blacked out, they get a warning with your reason and have to deliberately override it.
Open an assignment and use the calendar option to save it to your phone's calendar. It saves at your call time, not the service start time, with your position and team in the notes.
Volunteers can see the full service plan for events they're on, but can't change anything, and don't see the Manage tab. That's normal — not a problem with your account.
Open the event and tap Live. You get a full-screen running order with a clock, showing what's happening now, what's finished, and what's next. Before the service starts it counts down to your first item; during the service it shows the current time.
It's built for a confidence monitor or a stage display — run it on a tablet or a laptop connected to a screen. The web dashboard has the same view under Go Live.
Tap Share on the event and choose what to export as a PDF:
The PDF includes an end-of-service time and a total run time, so you can see at a glance whether the plan actually fits.
Edits sync immediately to everyone with the event open. If you cut a song mid-service, everyone's times update.
Ministry Order is $20 per month for up to 200 people, with everything included — all platforms, unlimited events and teams, no per-module charges. Current usage shows in the sidebar of the web dashboard.
Admins can open the billing portal from within the app to update a card, download invoices, or cancel. Billing is handled by Stripe; Ministry Order never stores your card details.
If a payment fails or the subscription is cancelled, the app locks for everyone in the church. Admins see a button to update billing; volunteers are told to contact their administrator. Nothing is deleted — access returns as soon as billing is current.
When a release changes how data is stored, the app will ask everyone to update before continuing. Please install it promptly — a church running mixed versions can see inconsistent schedules.
Check whether you tapped Send Pending Requests on that team — assignments stay in draft until you do. Then check the person has an email address on their record and has actually signed in at least once. Push notifications only reach people who have logged in and allowed them.
That's correct. Manage is for admins and leaders. If they should have access, change their role in People.
Check Manage Data → Time Zone is set to your church's zone. Everyone sees times in that zone regardless of where they are, so if it's set wrong it's wrong for everybody equally.
Positions belong to a single team. Check you added it to the team you're actually scheduling — a position on Production won't show when you're filling the Worship card.
A declined person still occupies their position — that's deliberate, so you keep the record of who said no. Remove them from the row and the position reopens as Needed.
Add it back from the + button in the Teams section. The team itself and its roster are untouched — only the event's copy was removed — but you'll need to reassign people for that event.
Yes. Assign both to the same position, or give the position more than one spot. Either works; spots are cleaner when you genuinely need a set number.
Either. The web dashboard does everything the apps do — planning, scheduling, Live mode, exports. Most leaders plan on the web and check things on their phone; most volunteers only ever use the app.
Email support@node78.com and tell us what you were doing when it went wrong. If something looks broken in the app, use Report a Bug from your profile — it sends us the details we need automatically.