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Use Messages to send a targeted update to selected church members by email, push notification, SMS, or WhatsApp. You can send it now or schedule it for later. The History tab shows what was queued and the delivery status recorded for each channel and recipient.

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Before you start

You need permission to send messages. Your church must also have the channel you want to use set up. Email is available by default; push, SMS, and WhatsApp are selectable only when the corresponding service is configured. If a channel is unavailable, contact your church administrator or see Integrations. Members who opted out are excluded. WhatsApp reaches members with WhatsApp consent; SMS requires an active SMS connection and an eligible phone number. The audience check shows how many people can be reached through the selected channels before you send.

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Compose and send a message

  1. Open Messages and select New message or the Compose tab.
  2. Under Audience, search for and add All active members, a department, a role, or individual people. You can also open a department and select specific people in that department. Add more than one target when needed; a person is counted once even if they match multiple targets.
  3. Review the reach count. Change the audience or channels if the count is lower than expected.
  4. Under Channels, choose one or more available channels. The audience reach updates for the selected channels.
  5. Under Message, enter a Subject (used as the message title when email is not selected) and write the content for each selected channel.
  6. Review the preview and readiness checks. For an email, you can select Send test to me to check it before sending.
  7. In the send panel, choose Send now or Schedule, then select a future date and time if scheduling.
  8. Select Send message or Schedule message.
The channel versions have different formats:
  • Email supports styled content, including formatting and images.
  • Push is a short notification shown through the Faithloft mobile app.
  • WhatsApp sends plain text to members with consent. Rich formatting, images, and buttons are included only in email.
  • SMS is a short text message. Faithloft adds “Reply STOP to opt out.” Keep the message within the displayed segment limit; SMS merge fields support {{firstName}} and {{churchName}}.
When you select Send message, Faithloft queues the message for delivery. A success message confirms the queue request, not delivery to every recipient. Open History to follow processing and recipient status.

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Reuse a message template

To start from saved content, select Start from template while composing, or open the Templates tab and select Use template. You can search templates or filter them by channel. Review and update the message before sending; choose an audience and send time for each message. To save content you have written, select Save as template, enter a template name, and select Save. Email must be selected and a subject entered to save a template. From Templates, you can Edit, Duplicate, or Archive a template. Archiving removes it from the reusable list; messages already created from it are unchanged.

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Schedule or cancel a message

Choose Schedule in the send panel and select a date and time in the future, then select Schedule message. The scheduled message appears in History with a scheduled status and time. To cancel it, open History, select the scheduled message, and choose Cancel send. Only messages that are still scheduled can be cancelled. Once sending has begun, check the recipient delivery details for the current status.

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Check history and delivery

Open the History tab to see recent messages, their audience, channels, send time, delivery percentage, and overall status. Select a message to see the status counts for each channel and the recipient delivery list. Each recipient row shows a name, channel, status, and—when available—a reason it was skipped. Statuses can include scheduled, queued, sending, sent, failed, cancelled, delivered, or skipped. A queued or scheduled message has not necessarily been delivered. If recipients were skipped, check the reason and review channel setup, contact details, or member consent and opt-out preferences with your administrator. For a map of the other staff portal areas, see Web portal modules.