Small groups are one of the most important next steps you can offer someone who walks through your church doors. But if finding a group requires a phone call to the office, a PDF download, or wading through a list of suburb names that may or may not be current — many people simply won’t do it.
The single most effective thing your church website can do to grow small group participation is make finding a group effortless. That means a live, searchable, filterable groups finder — one that’s always accurate, always current, and requires no manual maintenance. This article walks you through exactly how to build one.
Why most church group pages fall short
Walk through the most common approaches churches take to listing their small groups online, and you’ll find the same problems repeating:
The static page — A staff member or volunteer creates a page listing each group with its name, meeting day, suburb, and a contact email. This is fine the day it’s published. By the following term it’s out of date: two groups have closed, one has moved suburbs, and a new group in the northern suburbs that started last month isn’t on the list at all.
The PDF download — Same problem as the static page, with the added frustration of asking visitors to download and open a file just to find a group. PDFs are invisible to search engines and impossible to browse on a phone.
The Google Form — A form that asks people to express interest and then wait to hear back. This removes friction from the submission process, but it doesn’t actually help someone find a group that fits their life.
The Church Center link — Sending visitors to your Church Center URL (e.g. yourchurch.churchcenter.com/groups) is better than a static page since the data stays current. But it takes people away from your website, presents a generic Church Center interface instead of your church’s own branding, and gives you no control over the experience.
The real problem with all of these approaches is the same: they separate your groups data from your website. Your team maintains Planning Center Groups as the source of truth for your small groups program — but your website doesn’t know about it, so you’re always playing catch-up.
What a good groups finder actually does
A well-built small groups finder on your church website does four things:
- Shows all your active groups — pulled live from Planning Center so the list is always current without any manual updating
- Lets visitors search and filter — by group name, meeting schedule, group type (life groups, connect groups, youth, young adults, mixed, women’s, men’s, online, etc.), and whether the group is open for new members
- Shows where groups meet — an interactive map so visitors can immediately see which groups are near them without reading through a list of suburb names
- Connects visitors to the right group — with a clear path to express interest or contact the group leader directly through Planning Center
That combination — live data, search, filter, map, and a clear call to action — is what turns a groups page from a brochure into a tool that actually moves people into community.
How PCO Embed’s groups finder works
PCO Embed connects directly to your Planning Center Groups account and builds a fully-featured groups finder on your website automatically. Everything pulls live from PCO — so when your groups coordinator adds a new group, closes a full one, or changes a meeting location in Planning Center, your website reflects it immediately. No website login required.
Here’s what the PCO Embed groups finder includes:
Live group listings
Every active group in your Planning Center account appears on your website with its name, group type, meeting schedule, and current enrollment status. Groups that are full or closed can be hidden from the list automatically, so visitors only see groups they can actually join.
Search and filter
Visitors can search groups by name or schedule keyword, and filter by group type using the categories you’ve already set up in Planning Center. If your church categorises groups into life groups, connect groups, young adults, women’s, men’s, and online — those filters appear automatically, reflecting exactly your Planning Center setup.
Interactive Google Map
Every group with a location entered in Planning Center appears as a pin on a live Google Map. Visitors can zoom into their suburb, immediately see which groups meet near them, and click a pin to see the group’s details. For a city like Perth — where distances between suburbs are significant — this visual tool alone meaningfully lowers the barrier to joining a group.
Groups whose leaders prefer not to share their exact address can set their location preference in Planning Center to show an approximate location rather than their street address. PCO Embed respects this setting automatically.
Open/closed filtering
A simple toggle lets visitors choose to see only open groups, filtering out any that are currently full. This means no one fills out an interest form for a group that can’t take new members — and no awkward follow-up email explaining the group is full.
Click-through to Planning Center
When a visitor clicks on a group they’re interested in, they’re taken through to that group’s Planning Center page to express interest or contact the leader. The handoff is seamless — your website handles the discovery, Planning Center handles the connection.
A real example: Subi Church
Subi Church in Subiaco, Western Australia runs small groups across Perth and online. Their groups page at subichurch.com/small-groups is powered entirely by PCO Embed.
Visitors can browse all available groups, filter by type, search by name or schedule, see which groups are open for new members, and view group locations on an interactive map — all without leaving the Subi Church website and all pulling live from Planning Center Groups.
For a church whose mission is to bring in and build up disciples in increasing number, making it effortless to find and join a small group is mission-critical. PCO Embed makes that a seamless experience — and because it’s live from Planning Center, the groups page maintains itself.
Setting it up on your website
Installing the PCO Embed groups finder takes about five minutes:
- Sign up at pcoembed.com and connect your Planning Center account via secure OAuth2 — one click, no developer required
- Create a new embed in your PCO Embed dashboard and select Groups as the content type
- Copy your embed code — it looks like this:
<script src="https://pcoembed.com/go/js/embed.js" data-type="groups" data-id="YOUR-UNIQUE-ID"></script>html
Paste it into your groups page — on WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, or any other platform that allows custom HTML
From that point on, your groups finder maintains itself. Your groups coordinator works in Planning Center the same way they always have — and your website keeps up automatically.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I add a groups finder to my WordPress site? Add the PCO Embed script tag using the Custom HTML block in the Gutenberg editor, or drop it into any page builder’s HTML element (Elementor, Divi, Beaver Builder all work). Place it on your Small Groups or Connect page and publish.
Can visitors filter groups by location or suburb? The groups finder includes an interactive Google Map so visitors can see where groups meet geographically. Filtering by specific suburb isn’t a separate dropdown — the map is more effective for location-based discovery since it’s visual rather than requiring visitors to know suburb names in advance.
Does the groups finder update automatically? Yes. It pulls live from Planning Center Groups every time the page loads. When your team adds, closes, or updates a group in PCO, the change appears on your website automatically — no website login required.
What if a group doesn’t have a location entered in Planning Center? Groups without a location won’t appear as a pin on the map, but they’ll still appear in the list view. This is a good prompt to audit your Planning Center groups and make sure each active group has a location entered — even a general suburb is enough for the map to work.
Can I show only open groups and hide full ones? Yes. Visitors can toggle to show only open groups. Groups marked as closed or full in Planning Center can be filtered out so visitors only see groups they can actually join.
Does it work if we have groups of different types (life groups, young adults, online, etc.)? Yes. The group type filters in the finder reflect exactly the group type categories you’ve set up in Planning Center. No additional configuration needed — it reads your existing PCO setup.
What does PCO Embed cost? PCO Embed costs $9.99 USD per month, with a 30-day free trial included. No credit card required to start.
The bottom line
A small groups finder that’s always current, searchable, filterable, and mapped is one of the most valuable pages your church website can have. And if your church already uses Planning Center Groups, you have all the data you need — it just needs a way to get onto your website.
PCO Embed is that way. One line of code, five minutes of setup, and your groups page maintains itself from that point forward.
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.