St. Reweis Coptic Orthodox Church
One place for announcements, the weekly schedule and forms — on a phone and on the web — instead of separate systems that disagree with each other. Live on the App Store, Google Play and the open web.
The problem
The church needed a single home for announcements, the weekly schedule and its forms, and it had to be one that both members and ministry leads would actually use.
That meant it had to work properly on a phone and on the web at once — without anybody maintaining two disconnected systems and reconciling them by hand.
The workflow
The workflow that matters most is an announcement getting from the person responsible for it to every member who should see it:
- A ministry lead with announcement permission writes it
- Chooses the audience — the congregation, or a group
- Publishes now or schedules it
- It appears on the website and in the app at once
- Members get a notification on their phone or browser
- It expires on its own when it is no longer relevant
What we built
- A website and a mobile app that match
Same visual design across the web, iOS and Android, so moving between them does not feel like moving between two products.
- One account, one shared database
The same sign-in works on the website and in the app. Announcements and schedule changes made on either side update both, in both directions.
- Permissions by task
A member can be granted admin over one area only — announcements, the schedule or forms — or full super admin across everything.
- Announcements and the weekly schedule
Posted or edited on either platform, scheduled ahead of time if needed, and delivered as notifications.
- Online forms
Including multiple-choice questions, filled in from either platform, with responses exportable for the people who run them.
Screenshots
What someone with announcement admin actually gets: a title, a message with basic styling, photo and document attachments, the name members will see it posted under, and one choice of audience — the whole congregation, or a group.
Nothing is preselected there on purpose. An announcement reaches phones as a notification the moment it is published, and it cannot be unsent, so the screen makes you pick rather than picking for you.
Technology & integrations
- Expo / React Native
- One codebase for the iOS and Android apps.
- Next.js
- The website and its admin screens.
- Supabase
- Authentication and the shared database behind web and mobile, with row-level security enforcing the role permissions.
- Push notifications
- Mobile notifications through Expo, and web push for browsers.
- Scheduled publishing
- Posts queued by admins are published and announced on time by a scheduled job.
- Exports
- Form responses exported to PDF and CSV for the people who collect them.
Outcome
The site and the app are in daily use. Some of the people who were against the idea at the start are now among the ones using it.
New features and bug fixes are still being released.
What this demonstrates
- One backend serving web and mobile, so nothing is entered twice.
- Permissions scoped to a task, enforced in the database rather than only in the screens.
- Notifications triggered by real events in the workflow.
- A product maintained after launch, not handed over.