Ask any church administrator what their most persistent website headache is, and the answer is almost always the same: keeping it current.
Events get added to Planning Center but don’t make it onto the website. The small groups page still lists a group that wrapped up two terms ago. The sermon from three weeks ago still hasn’t been posted. The person responsible for updating the website is a volunteer who also runs the children’s ministry, organises the rosters, and answers the phones.
Sound familiar?
This isn’t a people problem. It’s a systems problem. And the good news is it has a straightforward solution — one that doesn’t require a web developer, a technical volunteer, or anyone to log into your website ever again.
Why church websites go stale
Church websites don’t go out of date because nobody cares. They go out of date because the people who care are already stretched thin, and updating the website is always the lowest-urgency item on a very long list.
The deeper problem is structural: most church websites are completely disconnected from the systems the church actually uses to run itself. Your events live in Planning Center. Your groups live in Planning Center. Your sermons live in Planning Center Publishing. But your website has no idea any of this exists — it’s a separate system that has to be updated manually every time something changes.
That disconnection is the root cause of every stale church website. Fix the disconnection, and the staleness problem solves itself.
The three things church websites most commonly fall behind on
1. Events
Events are the highest-frequency update on any church website. New events get added, dates change, locations shift, events get cancelled. A church running a busy program might need to update its events page multiple times a week.
When that update requires someone to log into the website, find the events page, add a new entry, format it correctly, upload an image, and publish — it simply doesn’t happen consistently. The result is an events page that’s always a little behind, sometimes a lot behind, and occasionally showing events that have already passed.
2. Groups
Small groups change more slowly than events, but they change constantly across the year. Groups start and finish with the ministry calendar. Leaders change. Locations move. Groups fill up and close. A new group for young adults launches mid-term.
A static groups page — even one that was accurate when it was published — drifts out of date within months. Visitors trying to find a group to join end up filling out interest forms for groups that don’t exist anymore, or calling the office to ask which groups are actually open.
3. Sermons
The sermon archive is often the most-visited section of a church website after the homepage. It’s where visitors go to understand who you are before they decide to come in person. It’s where members catch up on messages they missed.
And it’s usually maintained by hand — someone copies the YouTube link, writes a description, uploads it to the website after each service. When that person is sick, or busy, or on holidays, the archive falls behind. Within a few months, a church that preaches every week might have a sermon page showing content from two months ago.
Why manual updates always fail eventually
There’s a tempting solution to all of this: better processes. A checklist. A reminder in the team calendar. Assigning website updates as someone’s official responsibility.
These approaches work for a while. Then someone goes on parental leave, or a busy season hits, or the volunteer who owned the website task moves to another church. The process breaks, and it takes weeks before anyone notices.
Manual synchronisation between two systems is fragile by design. The only reliable fix is to eliminate the need for manual synchronisation altogether — to connect your website directly to the system where your information already lives.
The solution: connect your website to Planning Center
If your church uses Planning Center Online, you already have accurate, up-to-date information about your events, groups, and sermons in one place. The question is just how to get that information onto your website automatically.
PCO Embed is a tool built specifically for this purpose. It connects your church website directly to your Planning Center account and displays your live data — events, groups, and sermons — as native content on your own site.
The technical setup is a single line of code pasted into any page on your website:
html
<script src="https://pcoembed.com/go/js/embed.js" data-type="events" data-id="YOUR-UNIQUE-ID"></script>Once it’s in place, your website and Planning Center stay in sync automatically. Here’s what that means for each of the three problem areas:
Events — solved
Your events page pulls live from Planning Center. The moment your events coordinator adds a new event in PCO, it appears on your website. When an event finishes, it’s gone. No one has to touch the website. You choose from three display styles — a visual gallery, a monthly calendar grid, or a clean chronological list — depending on where on your site the embed sits.
Groups — solved
Your groups page becomes a live, searchable groups finder pulling directly from Planning Center Groups. Every active group appears automatically, with filtering by group type, open/closed status, and an interactive Google Map showing where groups meet across your city. When a group closes, it disappears. When a new one opens, it appears. The page maintains itself.
Sermons — solved
Your sermon page connects directly to Planning Center Publishing. The moment you publish a new sermon in PCO, it appears on your website with video playback, audio playback, and series navigation. No copy-pasting YouTube links. No manual uploads. No falling behind.
How long does setup take?
For most churches, all three embeds are up and running in under 30 minutes:
- Sign up at pcoembed.com and connect your Planning Center account — one click via secure OAuth2 login
- Create an embed for each content type (events, groups, sermons) in your PCO Embed dashboard
- Copy the script tag for each one and paste it into the relevant page on your website
- Done
No developer. No plugin configuration. No API keys to manage. If you can edit a page on your website, you can install PCO Embed.
Does it work with my website platform?
PCO Embed works with any website platform that allows custom HTML — which covers almost every church website builder:
- WordPress — paste into a Custom HTML block or any page builder’s HTML element
- Wix — use the Embed Code element
- Squarespace — use the Code block
- Webflow, Ghost, custom sites — paste directly into your page HTML
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need a web developer to set this up? No. The setup is a single line of code pasted into your website. If you can edit a page, you can do this.
What if I use WordPress? Add the script tag using the Custom HTML block in the Gutenberg editor, or any page builder’s HTML element. Elementor, Divi, and Beaver Builder all work.
Does it update automatically? Yes. Every time someone loads the page, it pulls live data from Planning Center. Changes in PCO appear on your website immediately — no cache to clear, no manual refresh needed.
What if we don’t use Planning Center for everything? You can use PCO Embed for just the content types you manage in Planning Center. If you use PCO for events but not groups, you can embed just the events calendar. Each embed type is independent.
Will it clash with our website’s design? No. PCO Embed renders inside an isolated container that doesn’t interact with your site’s existing CSS, fonts, or styling. It won’t break your website design.
How much does it cost? PCO Embed costs $9.99 USD per month with a 30-day free trial included. No credit card required to start.
What if we cancel? You can cancel at any time. There are no lock-in contracts.
The bottom line
A church website that’s always current isn’t a luxury — it’s a basic expectation for anyone who visits your site before deciding whether to visit your church. And it’s entirely achievable without a developer, without a technical volunteer, and without anyone having to remember to update anything.
If your church uses Planning Center, you already have all the content you need. PCO Embed just gets it onto your website — and keeps it there, automatically, from that point on.
Start your free 30-day trial at pcoembed.com →
PCO Embed is an independent product and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Planning Center Online.