One Week Later: Churchome
This group brings church services into the comfort of your own space — no Sunday attire required.
Who are the brains behind your organization?
Judah and Chelsea Smith [below left] are the Lead Pastors of Churchome. Both are gifted visionaries and communicators. Known for their honest, humorous messages and strong faith, the Smiths are passionate about demystifying the Bible and sharing the Good News of Jesus with people around the world.
David Kroll [below right] is the CEO. He began his career within investment banking, wealth management, and technology, and he served in a variety of pastoral positions within Churchome before stepping into the CEO role. He leads the dedicated staff of Churchome and loves to laugh and care for people as they work together to pioneer a new model for church — one where people everywhere can experience the love of Jesus and community in their everyday spaces.
Where are you located?
Churchome has offices in Kirkland, Washington, and Los Angeles, but we consider homes across the globe our locations. We truly believe church can be like a home and in your home, and we currently have Church@Home locations in 17 states and 23 countries.
What’s your mission?
Our mission is to share the story of Jesus with the world, and we want to help people have real, genuine relationships with God and each other. The location-based and multisite model for churches limits our ability to go anywhere and makes it easy for people to miss out on building relationships. We want to leverage technology to help us reach the world and build community. Church@Home makes church available for anyone, anywhere, and emphasizes the importance and power of face-to-face connection.
Tell us your origin story.
Pastors Wendell and Gini Smith (Judah’s parents) felt called to start a church in the Seattle area in 1992. They founded The City Church on a deep love of Jesus and the conviction that every person — every age, every race — has a home where they belong in God. Our name changed to Churchome in 2017 to reflect our dream of becoming a multicultural, multiethnic church that loves like family and meets in homes across the globe.
Three words to describe your team?
Jesus-loving, people-focused pioneers.
Workplace/workspace/office essentials?
Gratitude, humor, a laptop and Bible apps.
Best source of creative inspiration?
The Bible. The Bible isn’t about rules — it’s a true storybook about our champion and savior, Jesus! Written thousands of years ago by 40 different authors who were all inspired by God himself, the Bible recounts the world’s greatest love story. It’s full of daring adventures, poetry and miraculous true events, all of which point to Jesus and his incredible love for all of us. Grace is a free gift, available to all who simply receive it. And we find this radical love quite inspiring indeed.
What would people be surprised to know about your organization?
People might be surprised to know how welcoming we are. While many people have had experiences with churches that felt exclusionary or judgemental or elitist, we want everyone to know that they belong. God’s arms are open wide to welcome people home to him. No matter where people come from or where they are on their faith journey, they can find belonging and true community at Churchome.
Why did you opt for the WOTW Plus site?
We chose the WOTW Plus package because it was the right fit for the platform migration and site refresh we were aiming to do for our website. Before we began working with WOTW, Churchome.org was a functioning site, but it suffered from too many pages and unclear navigation. We wanted to improve our UX and gain increased flexibility and ease of in-house updating (without any expert coders!) while maintaining a professional-looking site. Our branding, logos and verbiage didn’t need an overhaul, but we wanted to reimagine how the site worked to provide the best experience to our community. We already had 30+ pages, so this was a big project!
What are your favorite features of your WOTW site?
We absolutely love our new navigation features! From the hover menus to the special mobile menu to our carefully laid out footer, the ease in which users can now intuitively navigate our site is amazing.
We’re also really excited about the translation features that WOTW helped us integrate through Weglot, making it possible for our site to have quality, A.I.-generated translations of our English pages into Spanish, Hindi and simplified Chinese.
What was your favorite part of working with the WOTW team?
From the get-go, we were impressed by WOTW’s portfolio and cost transparency — and they were incredible partners throughout the whole process. The WOTW team are experts in the additional tools available to integrate into Squarespace sites, so whether we wanted translations, giving options or fancy menus, all we had to do was let them know our end goals upfront, and they shared options and recommendations with us. During the actual build weeks, the team was organized, responsive and kind, and it was all around a fabulous experience building a massive web refresh in three short weeks. Can we say our favorite part was all of it?
Where can people find you/your products/donate?
More information, messages, live Pastor Chat and Guided Prayers are available on our website, Churchome.org, or on our free mobile app.
Our weekly church services and other encouraging content can also be found on our YouTube channel, and we’d love to connect on Instagram or Facebook.
What are you hoping for 2021?
We’re hoping to see more people encounter the love of Jesus for the very first time as Church@Home communities continue to grow in new homes, cafes, parks, or other everyday spaces all over the world.
