- Starting price
- Free
- Free tier
- Yes
- Platforms
- Web · Mobile browser
- Developer
- iWitness Design / Mission Lab
- Launched
- 2015
- Updated
- Aug 16, 2026
The verdict
StudyChurch is a free web platform for extending small-group Bible study between meetings. Leaders build lessons and questions, members answer asynchronously and discuss one another’s responses, while group and church dashboards manage studies, administrators, leaders, assignments, to-dos, reminders, discussions, and scheduled lesson release. It was created from a real church need and remains publicly available without paid tiers. The central concern is governance rather than price: answers can contain prayer, doubt, health, marriage, addiction, child, financial, or pastoral information, while the public privacy policy is dated July 2019 and describes broad data including addresses, phone numbers and even card information despite a free product. Pilot only after verifying current ownership, support, security, visibility, export, deletion, moderation, and incident response.
Try StudyChurch ↗Opens study.church
StudyChurch calls itself an online study hall for small groups. A leader can turn existing curriculum into lessons, add questions, publish them to a group, and let members respond before the in-person meeting. Replies become threaded conversations rather than isolated homework documents.
The personal dashboard gathers groups, assignments, studies, and settings. Group hubs support announcements, discussions, tagged notifications, upcoming to-dos, leaders, and assigned studies. A church dashboard can organize multiple groups, appoint administrators, collaborate on studies, and schedule future lesson publication.
The service is advertised as completely free for churches of any size. It was built by Tanner Moushey after his church needed a better alternative to distributing studies as word-processing files, using WordPress and BuddyPress with a modern front end. Public case material describes materially higher course completion after moving online, but that remains a customer account rather than controlled evidence.
We reviewed the live site, features, documentation-linked surfaces, privacy policy, and faith.tools listing without creating a group or entering member data. We did not test current release cadence, authentication, permissions, backups, notifications, export, moderation, accessibility, incident response, or support response. The lack of a current detailed terms page increases the importance of direct confirmation.
✓ The good
- Completely free - no published size, feature, or premium tier blocks the core workflow
- Asynchronous preparation - members can think and respond before a limited weekly meeting
- Conversation around answers - threaded replies connect study material to group interaction
- Leader-built content - churches can use their own curriculum instead of buying a fixed library
- Multi-group administration - church dashboards, administrators, leaders, and scheduled lessons support coordination
- Assignments and reminders - to-dos help groups carry practice beyond reading and discussion
- Real ministry origin - the product arose from a concrete local-church discipleship problem
✗ Watch out
- Old privacy policy - the public notice was last updated in 2019 and may not reflect the current application
- Sensitive group content - answers and discussions can become informal pastoral or counseling records
- Unclear visibility - public pages do not fully explain who can see, export, search, or retain each response
- Free-service continuity - no fee also means no obvious contractual service level, data-return promise, or funded roadmap
- Moderation demands - leaders must handle conflict, misinformation, crisis disclosure, abuse, and confidentiality limits
- Digital participation gap - homework and notifications can burden members with limited devices, literacy, time, or privacy
- Sparse current legal detail - terms, processor list, breach practice, exact retention, and deletion need stronger publication
Best for
- Churches piloting asynchronous discussion with one adult group and low-sensitivity lesson prompts
- Leaders who already write curriculum and want members to prepare before gathering
- Organizations able to define administrator roles, moderation, confidentiality, exports, deletion, and fallback delivery
- Groups that offer a complete offline or paper alternative without penalizing nonparticipation online
Avoid if
- Members will be asked to disclose trauma, abuse, self-harm, health, counseling, discipline, child, or other confidential details
- The church cannot verify current security, support, privacy, backup, export, deletion, and vendor continuity
- Online response completion would become a measure of faith, attendance, membership, employment, or leadership eligibility
- Participants need native apps, offline-first access, enterprise SSO, contractual uptime, or formal accessibility conformance
What StudyChurch is
StudyChurch is an online lesson-and-discussion workspace. It is not a confidential counseling record, crisis service, mandated-reporting system, clinical platform, complete ChMS, attendance proof, learning-management accreditation, or guarantee that a participant’s answer is accurate or safe.
A small group can feel private without being legally or technically confidential. Leaders, administrators, platform staff under certain conditions, recipients, screenshots, exports, notifications, and legal processes can all affect information. Explain those limits before anyone writes.
Why discussion before the meeting can deepen—or distort—the room
Asynchronous questions give quieter members more processing time and let a leader see themes before gathering. The meeting can begin with lived questions rather than spend all its time introducing content.
Written answers lose tone and can reward people with more time, education, or confidence. Do not require public vulnerability, let members pass or respond privately, and bring conflict or sensitive matters into an appropriate human conversation instead of extending a thread.
Study Builder and scheduled lessons: structure without a content license
Leaders write lessons, add questions, collaborate with other authors, assign material, and control when future lessons become available. Churches can adapt their existing study rather than adopt a vendor curriculum.
Verify that the church owns or has permission to upload every text, image, video, quotation, and worksheet. Keep source files outside the platform, version important lessons, and export completed curriculum regularly.
Answers and threaded conversation: pastoral context in a database
Members answer questions on their own time and can reply to one another, creating a discussion that leaders carry into the live group. Tagged notifications can bring people back into a thread.
Use low-risk prompts, publish group rules, restrict screenshots, moderate harmful advice, and provide private care routes. Never promise absolute confidentiality or assume deletion removes notifications, exports, cached copies, or another member’s screenshot.
Church, group, and personal dashboards: useful roles need least privilege
Different dashboards organize church administrators, group leaders, members, studies, assignments, discussions, and to-dos. Multiple collaborators can help build and manage a shared discipleship program.
Document who can create admins, move members, inspect answers, export content, reset access, and delete groups. Review roles each term, remove departed leaders promptly, prohibit shared accounts, and retain only what serves a clear ministry purpose.
Pricing
Individual account
Free
Members can join assigned groups, complete lessons, discuss responses, and manage to-dos without a paid plan.
Group leaders
Free
Build studies, questions, discussions, assignments, reminders, and scheduled content.
Church dashboard
Free
Manage groups, leaders, administrators, studies, and collaborators across the church.
Local operation
Staff time
Curriculum, moderation, onboarding, accessibility, support, privacy review, and data governance remain church work.
StudyChurch advertises the full service as free for individuals, groups, and churches, including large organizations.
No public premium plan means there is no obvious invoice for storage, collaborators, reminders, dashboards, or study volume.
The operational cost remains real: leaders write content, moderate discussions, support access, review privacy, handle incidents, and maintain an alternative for people who cannot participate online.
Because the church is not buying a negotiated service, request written answers about continuity, exports, deletion, security, support, and notice if the free model changes.
Where StudyChurch falls behind
Replace the 2019 privacy policy with an application-specific notice covering answers, threads, to-dos, notifications, roles, processors, logs, retention, deletion, exports, backups, and breach response.
Publish current terms, acceptable use, content ownership, service continuity, suspension, data return, dispute, age, and organization-administrator obligations.
Provide a clear permission matrix and participant-visible explanation of who can access each answer, discussion, group, and history item.
Add safeguarding and moderation tools for reporting, blocking, crisis escalation, harmful counsel, private leader contact, audit logs, and administrator review.
Publish active maintenance, supported browser, accessibility, uptime, backup, restore, vulnerability, source-code, and support information with dates.
StudyChurch vs. Church Center Groups vs. a private chat
StudyChurch centers the lesson: questions, answers, threaded discussion, scheduled publication, and assignments. Church Center Groups centers group membership, events, resources, messaging, and integration with Planning Center. A private chat is familiar but weak for structured curriculum and retrieval.
Choose StudyChurch for a bounded free adult-study pilot when lesson preparation is the main need. Choose an established ChMS group module when identity, permissions, support, records, and the wider church database matter more. Use chat for lightweight coordination, not a permanent sensitive archive.
Whatever platform is chosen, keep disclosures optional, separate pastoral care from homework, offer offline participation, remove departed members, and write a retention and deletion schedule.
The bottom line
StudyChurch solves a real discipleship problem with a generous free workflow: help people prepare, respond, and continue conversation before the room meets. It deserves credit for supporting church-authored material instead of forcing a content marketplace. Its public trust layer has not kept pace with the sensitivity of the data a group can create. Confirm the service is actively maintained, obtain clear answers on access and exports, pilot with adults and low-risk prompts, and never turn online homework into required spiritual disclosure. Under those conditions, it can be a useful group companion.
Alternatives to StudyChurch
FlareA group communication option focused on community connection rather than structured lesson authoring.
LomeAd-free community coordination with calendars, forms, volunteers, signups, and group needs.Google ClassroomA mature assignment workflow, though not church-specific and subject to its own organization and privacy model.Printed guide and in-person groupLower data exposure and better inclusion for some groups, with less between-meeting conversation.Frequently asked questions
Is StudyChurch free?
Yes. The current official and directory materials describe it as completely free for individuals, groups, and churches without paid tiers.
Can leaders create their own Bible studies?
Yes. The Study Builder supports lessons, questions, collaborators, assignments, and scheduled publication.
Can members see each other’s answers?
The product is built around discussion of answers, but exact group and role visibility should be confirmed before sensitive responses are entered.
Does StudyChurch replace a church management system?
No. It manages study groups and related content, but it is not presented as a full people, giving, check-in, volunteer, accounting, or pastoral-record system.
Is StudyChurch confidential?
Do not promise that. Group members, leaders, admins, notifications, exports, screenshots, platform access, and legal requirements can affect privacy.
Is StudyChurch actively maintained?
The website remains live in 2026, but public release, security, and support evidence is limited. Ask the operator directly before institutional adoption.
Should churches use it with children?
Not without a child-specific legal, privacy, consent, moderation, visibility, communication, and safeguarding review. The public materials are not sufficient for an automatic yes.
Sources & further reading
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