Study The Word - Church Communication Platform

Overview

Study The Word is a communication platform for Christian churches and ministries. It gives a church one place to reach its members by text message and email, organized the way churches already work: the church, its ministries, and the groups inside each ministry. Members do not need to install anything. They join a group by text, get reminders by text or email, and reply YES, NO, or MAYBE to RSVP.

The platform was designed and built by KG ProDesign, from the product design and brand to the Django back end, the React front end, carrier registration for texting, and the Azure deployment. It is live at studytheword.app.

Watch the 5-minute intro

Watch on YouTube or open the intro page on studytheword.app.

The Challenge

Most church communication still happens out loud. An announcement from the pulpit or a line in the bulletin only reaches the people who were in the room that Sunday. Everyone who missed that week also misses the schedule change, the volunteer request, and the new Bible study.

Ministry leaders fill the gap on their own. They keep group texts on their personal phones, track rosters in spreadsheets, and copy the same message into several places. When a leader steps down, the contact list often leaves with them.

The obvious fix, a church app, runs into a wall: members will not download another app or remember another password. Any solution had to work on the phone people already use, with the texting they already do, while still meeting carrier rules for business texting.

The Solution

KG ProDesign built Study The Word around text messaging as the main channel, with email included at no extra cost. Members can take part fully without an account. Leaders and staff get a web dashboard for everything else.

Texting that fits how churches are organized

• Broadcasts to the whole church, a single ministry, a group (sent by its leader), or a hand-picked subset of people
• Scheduled messages, plus quiet hours from 9 PM to 8 AM in the church's local time
• Short links with click tracking, bulk contact import, and leader invites sent by text

Emergency texts

Emergency messages are limited to church admins. They send even when the church has no text credits left, members cannot pause them, and they go out during quiet hours.

Two-way replies and text-to-join

Members reply YES, NO, or MAYBE to RSVP. STOP, START, and HELP are handled on every message for carrier compliance. PAUSE and RESUME let a member take a break, and GROUPS, STATUS, and MENU tell them where they stand. New people join a group by text and never need an app or password.

Each member chooses how they hear from the church

For each type of notification, members choose email, text, both, or none. They can pause texts from one group without leaving it. Text-only contacts get their own preference page, reached from a link, so they never have to create a login.

Events and reminders

• Automatic event reminders by email (unlimited) and 72-hour reminders by text
• A weekly digest, recurring events, and cancellation notices
• Attendance tracking (present, absent, excused, late) with reports, and member self check-in during live events

Church, ministry, and group structure

Every church is organized into ministries, and every ministry into groups. Groups have rosters, join requests, and QR codes. Each ministry gets a profile page with its vision, mission, officers, and cover art, kept current by its own leaders.

Public ministry directory

On paid plans, a church gets a public ministry directory at its own address on studytheword.app. It can also be embedded on the church's own website with one snippet. A guided showcase tour walks visitors through the directory.

Teaching, study materials, and giving

• Study materials (PDF, Word, images, and rich-text notes) with share links, and members are notified when something new is posted
• Teacher assignments, availability, and substitutions
• One-time giving through the church's own Stripe or PayPal account, with no platform fee

Directory, roles, and trust

• A member directory with privacy defaults, so phone numbers are visible to admins only
• Roles for church admins, ministry leaders, teachers, and members, plus an audit log
• Church verification before billing starts

Designed for the phone in every pocket

Most members will meet Study The Word on a phone, from a link in a text message. Every public page was designed mobile-first.

Technical Implementation

• Back end: Django 4.2 and Django REST Framework, with Celery and Redis running scheduled sends, reminders, digests, and retries
• Database: PostgreSQL 15
• Front end: React 19, Vite 7, TypeScript, and Tailwind CSS 4
• Texting: Telnyx on a carrier-registered 10DLC campaign as the primary provider, with Twilio as a fallback. Inbound replies are parsed for RSVP, opt-out, pause, and menu keywords.
• Payments: Stripe for platform billing, and each church's own Stripe or PayPal account for giving
• Operations: Sentry for error monitoring, and Docker containers deployed on Azure

Pricing model

Study The Word charges by text volume only. Every plan includes unlimited members and groups, and email has no monthly limit. Failed texts and STOP/HELP replies are never charged. Prices at the time of writing:

• Seed: free forever, 200 texts a month
• Grow: $25 a month, 600 texts a month
• Flourish: $60 a month, 3,000 texts a month
• Custom: text volume set by agreement for larger churches

See current prices on the Study The Word pricing page.

Results

Study The Word is live in production with a free-forever plan, and its texting runs on a carrier-registered 10DLC campaign with STOP/HELP handling on every message. The platform has no customer churches to report on yet, so the outcomes listed below are delivery outcomes: what was built, shipped, and verified in production.

Try it

• Take the demo church tour
• Watch the intro
• Compare plans
• Start your church free
• Visit studytheword.app

Related reading

• Top 5 Church Communication Software Platforms in 2026
• Church Emergency Response Plan: How to Alert Your Whole Congregation Fast