Up in an afternoon.
Ordinary church hosting, a file upload, one setup page, one folder to delete. This is the whole free path, step by step, and honest about the two places people get stuck.
What you actually need.
Three things, and only two of them are required.
Ordinary PHP hosting
PHP 8 or newer — the plain kind cPanel- or Bluehost-class hosts sell. Your church may already pay for it. No database server to create; FaithKit keeps your content in plain files you own.
A way to upload files
Your host's File Manager, or FTP/SFTP with the login they gave you. If you have ever uploaded a photo to your church's old site, you can do this.
ffmpeg + Python 3 on the host
Only the automatic service slicer needs these. If your host doesn't have them, run the slicer on a laptop and upload the finished clips. The homepage player works either way.
Six steps. One of them is just deleting a folder.
These are the real steps from the package's install notes, not a brochure version. Times are honest guesses for a first-timer.
Download and unzip.
Grab the free package and unzip it on your computer. Inside is one folder, church-app. Everything is in there — no plugins to hunt down, nothing else to install.
Upload it to your web root.
Open your host's File Manager (or FTP) and upload the contents of church-app into the web root — usually a folder called public_html. Upload the contents, not the folder itself, so index.php sits at the top.
Let the server write.
Setup needs to save your settings and your uploaded photos, so the web server must be allowed to write to the config/ folder and the site root. On most cPanel hosts this already works. If setup complains it can't save, this is why.
Run the setup page.
In a browser, go to yourdomain.org/setup/. It asks for your church name, your domain, your colors, and two passwords — one for Admin (the full portal) and one shared Members password for the members-only area. It writes your site, then locks itself.
Delete the setup folder.
When setup says it's done, go back to File Manager and delete the setup/ folder from your server. That's it. Now nobody can run setup again — not a visitor, not a bot, not you by accident.
Log in and make it yours.
Go to yourdomain.org/admin, sign in with the Admin password, and start filling it in: service times, a welcome, this month's events, your first sermon recording. Words, not code. Whoever does the bulletin can do this.
Six steps, one afternoon. Then it's simply yours.
A church that can upload a photo can put this up. It runs on the hosting you already pay for, keeps its content in files you can open, and owes nothing to anyone when it's done.
Where people get stuck.
Four things, all fixable. If you hit a fifth, email and we'll add it here.
"Setup says it can't save."
Permissions. The web server can't write to config/ or the root. In File Manager, set folders to 755 and try again. If your host runs PHP as your own user (most cPanel hosts do), that's enough.
"I see a list of files, not a website."
You uploaded the church-app folder itself instead of its contents. Move everything up one level so index.php is directly inside public_html.
"The site is up but the radio is silent."
Either no recording has been uploaded yet, or the host has no ffmpeg. Run the slicer on a laptop (the package includes it) and upload the finished clips through the admin. The player doesn't care where the clips were made.
"My host is on an old PHP."
FaithKit needs PHP 8+. Most hosts let you switch the PHP version in cPanel under "Select PHP Version" or "MultiPHP Manager." Pick 8.2 or newer and reload.
You can stop at any step and hand it to Matt.
Same package, same result — just done for you. Domain, hosting, setup, your content loaded, the radio tuned. You go back to managing your church. Whatever you already did yourself, you keep.
- $300 an hour, flat, for every kind of work — no surprise line items.
- Hosting passed through at cost + 30%. No markup games.
- Leave any time for $0 — it's your site, your files, your domain.
Do I need to know how to code?
No. You need to be comfortable uploading files to a web host and following a setup page. There is no code to write. Everything after setup is done in a plain admin screen — service times, sermons, events, prayer, members.
Is the free version really the whole product?
Yes. Same code, same features, licensed AGPL v3. The paid path is MattCreates doing the work, not a bigger version of the software. Nothing is locked behind a plan.
Does it phone home, check a license, or send anything to you?
No. There is no telemetry, no license check, no third-party scripts. Your directory, prayer list and media live in plain files on your server. Back them up like any other files.
How long does it really take?
For someone who has uploaded files to a host before: an hour or two to a working site, plus however long you spend adding content. For a first-timer: an afternoon. The upload is the slow part; nothing else is.
What if I get stuck halfway?
Email hello@faithkit.org. And you can hand the rest to MattCreates at any point — see above.
“Let all things be done decently and in order.”1 Corinthians 14:40 · KJV
Download it, or look at a finished one first.
The sample church runs the exact package you'd install. Poke around the admin with the password cornerstone.