Every helper reads this before it drafts anything. Fill in what you can and the squad stops sounding like generic AI and starts sounding like your church — your words, your tone, your tradition. You can change it any time.
This is about the church, not about people. Don't put anyone's personal, medical, or pastoral-care details here — those stay with Hannah, and confidential requests never leave her desk.
Who you are
Everything is optional. Even two or three of these makes a noticeable difference.
Your team
Invite staff so they can help run the operational desks. They'll set their own password from an emailed link.
What staff can see: Lydia, Hannah, Martha, Nehemiah and Tychicus. What they can't: confidential prayer requests, Jethro's briefing, sermon prep, and editing this page. Those stay with you.
Your connect card
Lantern hosts a connect card for your church. When someone fills it in, Lydia drafts the welcome and — if they asked for prayer — Hannah gets a separate care item. You get an email; the drafts wait for you in the inbox.
The card asks, so Lantern doesn't have to guess. People choose separately what they want to know about and what they want prayer for, and can mark a request private. Anything marked private is yours alone — it never reaches a shared list, and never rides along on the welcome note.
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Your team
Everyone who serves. A sign-in, a connect-card link and a spot on the Sunday roster are all optional — add someone once and switch on whichever they need.
Articles you send
When someone ticks a topic, Lantern can email them your article about it straight away — but only for the things they wanted to know about, and only if they said email was OK.
Prayer topics do not send on their own, on purpose. Someone carrying marriage trouble, a painful past or money worry needs a person, not an automatic PDF — and anyone who ticked "keep this private" is never emailed automatically at all. Those articles wait here for you to send with a note of your own. You can switch any of them on, but do it knowingly.
Cards from your own form
Already using another form tool? Forward its new-lead notification to the address below and Lantern will read it and brief the squad the same way. Works with whatever you already have.
Your guest journey
The moments a first-time guest is met, in order — from the car park to the moment they drive away. Yours might be five of these, or two. Write your own.
What this is for. Your team ticks these off for each guest, so Lydia writes the welcome knowing what actually happened — and never thanks anyone for something that did not. Nehemiah uses them to build the Sunday roster.
The first-time guest gift
Many churches hand a first-time guest a small thank-you. Switch this on and Lantern will queue one for every new guest, ready for you to approve.
Nothing is ever sent on its own. A gift waits in your Ministry Inbox until you approve it. Your connect card is a public page, and an automatic gift would turn it into a way to print gift cards — your approval is what stops that. Nobody is ever gifted twice.
What the guest is told
When you approve a gift, Lantern emails the guest to say it is coming — signed by you, with replies coming back to you. The card itself arrives separately.
You can use {first} or {name} for the guest, {church}, {brand} and {pastor}. They are filled in when it sends.
Recent gifts
Sending for you
By default Lantern drafts and you send. If you switch this on, an approved message goes out on its own — after a pause long enough for you to change your mind.
What will never send itself: anything confidential, anyone who asked to be texted rather than emailed, and anything you have not approved. Confidential care stays yours to write and send, always.
Recently sent
Did the email actually arrive?
Accepting an email and delivering it are not the same thing. This asks the mail service what really happened to the last few.
Your account
Change your password. Everything else about your church is above.
What the squad reads
This is exactly what gets handed to every helper before it drafts. Nothing else about your church is added.