What we’re building next
The marks of ministry.
Six things a pastor is ordained to. Our tools have clustered around one of them — here is where we’re headed next.
The church has its own word for what a pastor is for. Elders are ordained to Word, Sacrament, Order, and Service; deacons to Word, Service, Compassion, and Justice. Taken together, six marks of ministry.
Most of what we’ve built so far serves Order — the administering and ordering of a church’s common life, because that is where the busywork piles up. But a calling is wider than its paperwork. The next two tools round out two more marks: Sacrament and Justice.
Worship, font & table
Sacrament
Mainline churches plan worship around the lectionary, the hymnal, and the Book of Worship — and treat the sacraments as covenant, not just liturgy. Almost no software is built for that. We are.
Lectionary worship planner
In design
Pick a Sunday and see the Revised Common Lectionary readings, the season's color, a collect, and hymns suggested by text and theme — composed into a printable, projectable order of worship. The software built for contemporary bands serves the lectionary church badly; this is the other way around.
Means of Grace
In design
A register for the sacramental life of a parish. Every baptism recorded, and the congregation's vow to nurture made operational — baptismal-anniversary nudges to families, confirmation cohorts, and a homebound-communion roster. The sacraments as pastoral promises kept, not just services held.
Witness, equity & the neighborhood
Justice
Justice tooling usually runs aground on partisanship. Our approach is descriptive: name what is true in a parish, pair it with what the church has already, formally, said it believes — the Social Principles — and leave the rest to the congregation. Two tools, one looking outward and one looking in.
Parish Justice Profile
In design
A read of the justice realities in a church's own parish — housing and eviction, food access, school equity, environmental burden — drawn from public data and paired with the relevant Social Principle, plus who is already at work on it. Descriptive, not editorial.
Congregational Justice Audit
In design
The inward turn: does the church's own life embody what it preaches? A private, descriptive look at how leadership reflects the congregation and community, where the money goes, pay equity, and access — grounded in the church's own adopted commitments. A mirror, never a grade.
A lighter companion, Connectional Advocacy, is also in the sketchbook — search a concern and get the denomination’s adopted language and citations a church can stand on.
While these take shape
Is one of these what your church needs?
These are in design, not yet released. If one of them is exactly what your ministry has been missing — or close — we’d want to hear that while it’s still taking shape. Write to wilson@wrootlabs.com, or see what’s already live.