A large church using Huddle to bring lay leaders into a counseling-heavy caseload
The church
About 13,400 people, with Planning Center connected. Three months on CareNote.
What they set out to do
Carry counseling and trauma cases as long-running case files, and bring lay leaders into the conversation at the level of access they actually need.
How it works now
Staff open a case by hand and mark it ongoing, which is what lets a counseling relationship stay open across months instead of being closed and reopened every time something changes. Counseling leads their categories, followed by trauma, visitation and marriage. Planning Center keeps the people list current, so the person is already on file when the case opens.
Around each case sits a Huddle: a small circle of elders and lay counselors who see the case they are helping with and nothing else. Eight Huddles are running with eighteen members between them. Needs can also go out to a group by email, where the first person free claims the case with one click. Visits, reports and updates build the file as the case moves, including calls at home and in hospital.
What it takes
Twenty-one paid seats, eleven of them Huddle Users for lay leaders, and eight Huddles.
By the numbers
- 45
- cases opened in three months
- 26
- care requests last month
- 8
- Huddles running, with eighteen members
- 133
- pastoral touchpoints recorded
Is this your church?
If care in your church means counseling and trauma work rather than errands, the value is the long case file plus a way to include lay leaders in the discussion without handing them the run of the system.
See it set up the way you would run it
Start a free trial and build this yourself, or book a demo and we will walk through the write-up closest to how your care ministry already works.
More churches like this
Other write-ups in shape 2, Whole-staff care desk.