# Scheduling Software for Churches > Let members book a pastoral visit, a counselling session or a meeting with the office from one page on your church website, with the pastor approving each request and volunteers sharing the appointments in turn. Vonza Scheduling runs ministry appointments in the same account as your church community, courses and giving. ## A church office’s week in bookings An example week for a church with one pastor, an office manager and a team of volunteers, on a Vonza booking page. The figures are illustrative. - **Monday**: Two pastoral appointment requests arrive from the website; the pastor approves one and asks the other to pick a later week, with a reason. A counselling session confirmed last week; the booking shows the three questions the member answered. - **Tuesday**: Four welcome meetings for newcomers, shared round robin across three volunteers so nobody gets them all. The office manager reassigns a meeting to a second volunteer when the first is unwell. - **Wednesday**: Midweek: the pastor’s own hours are closed for sermon preparation, so the page offers no pastoral times today. - **Thursday**: A baptism preparation class with 8 of 12 seats taken. A couple books a pre-marriage conversation with the pastor and the counselling lead together, at a time both are free. - **Friday**: Reminders go out the day before every weekend appointment, by email and, if your plan has an SMS allowance, by text. Christmas week is already blocked as time off for the whole team from the public-holidays list. Every member who books is a contact in your Vonza CRM, tagged by the ministry they came through, and can be added to the right list or community space automatically. ## From website visit to pastoral care The ministry workflow, as it runs on Vonza: offer, approve, share across volunteers, remember. 1. **Put the appointment on your website**: Publish the pastoral appointment, counselling and office meetings, then embed the page inline on your church site or as a floating button, print the QR code for the notice board, and pick a colour pair that matches your branding. 2. **Approve each pastoral request**: Switch on Approve each booking and requests wait for the pastor. The time is held until it is approved or declined within the window you set, with Approve all and Decline all and an optional reason the member reads. 3. **Share welcome meetings across volunteers**: Add your volunteers as hosts, each with their own hours and calendar. A round robin meeting gives each booking to the host with the fewest bookings or the lightest day, and a collective meeting books two leaders together. 4. **Keep every member in one record**: Every booker becomes a contact. Tag them with the ministry they came through, add them to a list, post new bookings to your team’s Slack, Discord or Teams channel, and keep private notes on the booking that only staff see. [Team scheduling](https://vonza.net/team-scheduling) [Appointment reminders](https://vonza.net/appointment-reminders) [The Vonza CRM](https://vonza.net/crm) ## Built for a team of staff and volunteers Six things a church office needs from appointment booking, as the new Vonza Scheduling does them. - **Approval before confirmation**: Pastoral requests are held until the pastor approves or declines within 1 to 168 hours, and are declined automatically if nobody decides. - **Volunteers as hosts**: Up to 20 hosts on a meeting, each with their own hours and calendar. Round robin shares bookings evenly or to the lightest day. - **Two leaders, one booking**: A collective meeting shows only the times every host is free, and all of them attend with the same joining link. - **Holidays for the whole team**: Block Christmas, Easter or a retreat as time off, up to 366 days at a time, with a bundled public-holidays list. - **In person, by phone or online**: Meet at the church office with the page locked to your time zone, by phone either way, or on Vonza Stream, Zoom, Google Meet or Microsoft Teams. - **Classes with seats**: Baptism preparation, membership and marriage classes with a seat count and the seats left on the page. ## Ministry templates to start from 137 ready-made booking pages in 15 categories, each a finished page with its lengths, hours, questions and photo. Everything stays editable. - **Community (9 templates)**: Welcome meetings, one-to-one conversations and volunteer appointments for groups that run on relationships. - **Classes & events (8 templates)**: Preparation classes, workshops and group sessions with a seat count and the spots left shown. Or describe the appointment in one line and let Vonza AI draft the page; nothing is public until you publish. Vonza AI uses AI credits. [Browse the scheduling templates](https://vonza.net/scheduling-templates) [Everything Vonza Scheduling does](https://vonza.net/appointment-scheduling) ## Works with the tools your team already uses Each staff member or volunteer connects their own calendar and meeting app; the platform owner connects the payment gateways once. ### Calendars - **Google Calendar**: Busy times are never offered; new bookings are added to your calendar. - **Outlook and Microsoft 365**: Check for conflicts and Add bookings, per calendar. - **Apple iCloud Calendar**: Busy times from your iCloud calendars, read only. ### Where you meet - **Zoom**: A Zoom meeting per booking, moved or deleted with it. - **Google Meet and Microsoft Teams**: Every booking gets its own joining link. - **Vonza Stream, phone or in person**: A Vonza Stream room, a phone call, an address, or let the invitee choose. ### Payments - **Stripe**: Card, Apple Pay, Google Pay and Klarna on a priced length. - **PayPal**: For a price paid once at booking. - **Paystack**: For platforms that charge in Nigerian naira. ## Appointments, community and courses in one account A booking tool on its own stops at the diary. On Vonza the pastoral appointment sits next to your online community, your discipleship courses, your forms and your giving, with one login for every member. - Add a newcomer to your church community space or a small-group list the moment they book a welcome meeting. - Collect a prayer request, a membership form or a volunteer application with Vonza Forms, and send people to the booking page from the form. - Enrol members in a discipleship or membership course from the booking with one automation step. - Run a meeting poll when a committee needs to agree a date, with up to 20 times to vote on. - Put the appointment button on your Link in bio page for the church’s social accounts, and sell event tickets or retreat places as priced lengths. [Community platform for churches](https://vonza.net/community-platform-for-churches) [Vonza Forms](https://vonza.net/forms) [Online courses](https://vonza.net/free-online-courses-platform) [Meeting polls](https://vonza.net/meeting-polls) [Link in bio](https://vonza.net/link-in-bio) [Paid appointments](https://vonza.net/paid-appointments) [Recurring appointments](https://vonza.net/recurring-appointments) [Pricing](https://vonza.net/pricing) The new Scheduling is opt-in: open the Scheduling row marked New in your admin sidebar, then switch on New booking pages in Booking settings so your /book links show the new pages. Scheduling is included in every Vonza plan, with a 14-day free trial. ## Questions churches ask about appointment booking ### Can the pastor approve each appointment before it is confirmed? Yes. Switch on Approve each booking and every request is held until it is approved or declined, within a window you set from 1 to 168 hours; if nobody decides it is declined automatically. The Requests tab has Approve all and Decline all, with an optional reason the member reads. ### Can volunteers share the appointments between them? Yes. Add volunteers as hosts, each with their own hours and calendar, and make the meeting round robin. The Evenly policy gives the next booking to the host with the fewest bookings; Keep times open gives it to the host with the lightest day. You can set a priority per host and reassign any booking later. ### Can two leaders take a meeting together? Yes, with a collective meeting. Members see only the times when every host is free, and all the hosts attend; each gets the joining link and can start the Vonza Stream room. A meeting can have up to 20 hosts. ### How do we block out Christmas, Easter and retreats? Add time off with a first and last day, up to 366 days at a time, or pick the dates from the bundled public-holidays list. Nobody can book while the team is away. Each host also has their own hours, so a pastor’s preparation day stays closed every week. ### Do members need an account to book? No. Members book from the page with their name and email and manage the booking from the links in their confirmation email, which has add-to-calendar buttons for Google, Outlook, Office 365 and Exchange plus an .ics file. Members who already have a Vonza login for your community see their bookings in the portal. ### Is scheduling included in a church’s Vonza plan? Scheduling is included in every Vonza plan, with a 14-day free trial. The new Scheduling is opt-in: open the Scheduling row marked New in your admin sidebar and switch on New booking pages in Booking settings. The number of staff seats, and text reminders, depend on your plan; see the pricing page.