For pastors
Someone near you is looking for a church tonight.
They're asking ChatGPT, or Siri, or Gemini, and getting a short list of three or four churches back. Most churches never make that list. We get yours onto it, correct what the assistants have wrong about you, and tell you every month what changed.
Saturday, 9:40 PMAn AI assistant, four miles from your building
“What churches near me have a good program for kids?”
Here are a few in your area with well established children's ministries:
- 1Trinity Fellowshipabout 6 miles away
- 2Redeemer Community Churchabout 7 miles away
- 3Northside Bible Churchabout 9 miles away
Your church wasn't mentioned, and it's closer than all three.
What changed
Search gave you ten results and a second page. An assistant gives three names.
For twenty years the job was search rankings, and being seventh still got you found because people scrolled. That is what every church paying somebody for its website has been buying.
Now somebody asks where to take their family on Sunday and gets three or four names. Siri does it, Gemini does it, ChatGPT does it, and Google does it too, above its own results. Nobody scrolls past a list that short, and there is no second page to be found on, so you are either on it or you are not in the conversation.
And there is nothing to buy. No assistant sells a place on that list, so the only way onto it is to be a source the assistant can find, read and check. That is the whole of what we do.
Two things are going wrong right now, and neither one tells you it's happening.
Nobody calls the church office to say ChatGPT gave them the wrong address. The whole problem is silent, which is why almost every pastor we talk to has never checked.
You're not in the answer at all
Somebody asks for churches nearby, or churches with a good kids program, or somewhere their family would be welcome. A list comes back. Your church isn't on it, even when you're the closest one and the best fit.
You're in it, but it's wrong
When your church does come up, the details often come from an old page somebody wrote years ago, or a directory nobody has touched since. What we typically find:
- Service times that changed two or three years ago
- An address from before the building move
- A phone number that rings somewhere nobody answers
- Kids and youth ministry listed for the wrong ages, or not at all
- Ministries you stopped running, and ones you started that nobody knows about
You can check in the next fifteen seconds. Open ChatGPT, or hold the button on your phone and ask Siri:
“What churches near [your town] have a good kids program?”
Whatever comes back is what somebody in your area is being told tonight.
One church, last month
This is a real first report, not a worst case.
A church in western Pennsylvania, running this for the first time. One building, a website that looks fine, nothing obviously wrong with any of it. Here is what came back.
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Asked about them by name, whether they stream and where to watch, an assistant answered with a different church's service times and a different church's website.
Same name, different church. Nothing in the answer was about them.
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Asked what they run during the week, it gave two of their real ministries and two belonging to somebody else, including a Wednesday night youth gathering they have never held.
A parent reading that drives over on a Wednesday and finds a dark building.
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Asked which churches nearby are non-denominational, it gave their address to another church, by name.
Their building, somebody else's sign on it.
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Asked simply what churches are near me, from a phone in their own town, they came back eighth of thirteen, and eleventh of twelve the second time.
Named, and far enough down that nobody reaches them.
Not one of these would have reached the church office. Nobody calls to say an assistant sent them to the wrong building, and nobody calls to say they were never shown you at all. The church had no way of knowing any of it until somebody asked.
Findings like these arrive once a month, with every answer printed underneath in full and the specific changes to make. Read a sample report end to end to see the whole thing.
The same question, with you in it.
We cannot make an assistant recommend your church, and anybody who tells you otherwise is selling something. What we can do is make sure that when it looks, it finds you, and that what it finds is true. For most churches that is the whole battle, because right now it cannot find them at all.
Once you're publishedThe same assistant, the same question
“What churches near me have a good program for kids?”
Here are a few in your area with well established children's ministries:
- 1Your churchabout 2 miles awayKids from birth through fifth grade at 9:00 and 11:00
- 2Trinity Fellowshipabout 6 miles away
- 3Redeemer Community Churchabout 7 miles away
In the answer, closest first, with ages and times that match what you actually run. Every word of it came from you.
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We ask what your neighbors ask
Every month we run the questions your neighbors actually ask through each assistant, asked as if from your town, and save every answer exactly as it came back. That includes the ones you're not in, and where you placed in the ones you are.
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We publish you where they read
Your times, location, contact details, kids and youth, and the ministries you run, published on your own page on ChurchSurface and written the way these systems read best. We work to get it in front of the assistants and keep it current from your record for as long as you subscribe, so it does not go stale the week something changes.
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We show you how to move up
Every report ends with a run book: the specific steps that will move you up, in the order that matters most. Most of them are small, and if you would rather not do them alone, we will work through them with you for a one-time $399.
What it costs
Seventy-nine dollars a month, and the first report is free.
One price, published here, the same for everybody. We do not sell placement and no church can pay to rank above another, so there is nothing to negotiate and no call to sit through.
Everything, every month
$79per month
Plus $20 a month for each campus after the first. A church that meets in one building pays $79.
Run your free reportNo card for the first one. About five minutes to set up, and a few minutes a month after that. If you never come back, you keep the report.
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A report every month, and two more whenever you want them.
One runs on its own at the start of each month. The other two are there for the day you change something and want to know whether it worked, rather than waiting three weeks to find out.
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Your own page on ChurchSurface, kept accurate for as long as you subscribe.
We publish your times, your address, your contact details and what you run, in both the words people read and the structured data machines read. We work to get it in front of the assistants, and we keep it current from your record for the life of your subscription. Most churches have nothing in that form anywhere.
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How to become more visible.
Every report ends with a run book: the specific steps that will move you up, in the order that matters most. Most of them are small, and if you would rather not do them alone, we will work through them with you for a one-time $399.
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Cancel from your own account, any time.
One button, no email to write and nobody to telephone. You keep what you have paid for to the end of the month and nothing is taken again.
Start here
Find out where you actually stand.
Your first report asks the assistants around twenty ways somebody might look for a church like yours, asked as if from your own town, and saves every answer exactly as it came back. Then it tells you what to do about it.
You give us your website and an email address. No card, no call, and about five minutes to set up. Questions go to [email protected].