FROM SURVIVAL MODE TO SCALABLE MINISTRY
Six years ago, Reid Work and a colleague were called upon to plant a campus for an established church in the Chattanooga area. Clearly, they did a lot of things right from the start: just two years in, the vision for that church plant was reimagined entirely.
“ We began as a campus of that church and then quickly outgrew even our own expectations,” Work recalls.“ So, it became pretty evident that we needed to pursue what it looked like to be our own fully autonomous church.”
As someone who has“ been there since the beginning,” Work learned a lot about growing a church, successfully, during his time at what’ s now called Citizens of Heaven Church. But he also learned that rapid growth exposes operational weaknesses just as quickly.
With only two staff members at Citizens Church in the beginning, one of the first questions Reid Work and his co-founder asked was simple: who does what?“ Day-to-day operations were split up between the two of us,” he recalls.“ It was like we were wearing 50 different hats and obviously only had one head each.” That reality affected every part of the ministry— including Citizens of Heaven’ s“ digital front door.” Without a defined budget in place, the two men initially relied on volunteers to help establish an online presence for the church.“ A lot of people stepped up to the call and said,‘ Hey, I can help run some social media if you guys need it; just send me what you want posted,’” Work says. Other members volunteered to help manage website updates on a monthly basis.“ So, it was really an all-hands-on-deck mentality,”
Reid Work he explains. Even so, the church didn’ t have much to work with in terms of content, photos or even detailed information about Citizens of Heaven. At the time, survival— not optimization— was the priority.“ I can say a lot of different things about how our Web presence was lacking, but we just had to look at the quickest options available as we began to form,” Work admits.“ We picked the quickest route.”
Building a better( digital) front door In practice, that meant new tools were introduced one by one as different communications needs emerged. Fast forward a few years, and the staff— now three people, with one primarily handling children’ s ministry operations— was relying on a fragmented setup that began“ showing the seams” as growth continued. As a result, the church’ s digital presence no longer reflected its reality.“ It really didn’ t describe who we are, or what we believe, or what we’ re about,” Work explains.“ It didn’ t encapsulate a true vision or a snapshot of day-to-day life here, from Sunday morning to Saturday.”
At the same time, he— as the staff member leading worship and communications— was studying exactly how pivotal communication was( and is) in the life of any church.“ I was learning how we could really succeed or fail based on just front-door elements and how well we communicate with people both internally and externally,” he says.“ In this day and age, people are going to look at those things and take an automatic snapshot in their heads of what a church is or isn’ t.”“ Ours wasn’ t a terrible approach,” he adds.“ But over time we figured out,‘ OK, this isn’ t just a platform we use to send members Bible verses and remind them to check our calendar. It also needed to act as a true front door in a lot of ways.’” A better, more consistent, more reflective website— actively updated— became a top priority. As he learned more about church communications, Work began envisioning an app that could help keep everyone connected, staff and members alike. To this end, he began reviewing the church’ s broader technology ecosystem to better coordinate everything from volunteer management and service planning to website development and upkeep.
Moving from marketing to ministry infrastructure Although overhauling the church’ s Web presence was top of mind, the administrative burden was also becoming overwhelming for the small staff. A fragmented setup created inconsistent workflows, duplicated effort, training headaches, and hyperdependency on specific individuals— Work, in particular.“ A lot of admin-type things fall under the‘ communications’ piece of my role as Worship + Communications Pastor,” he explains.“ To put it simply, the first year we were surviving, just trying to figure out how to operate as a church. At year two, we were figuring out what we needed to hone in. Year three was about fine-tuning and tweaking what resonated with our church in terms of vision and day-to-day processes.” By Citizens of Heaven’ s third year in operation, Work began viewing the church’ s communications systems as more than marketing tools— they were ministry infrastructure. Consolidation, then, became as much a mindset shift as a technology decision. By 2024, the staff had grown enough that some of Work’ s responsibilities could be redistributed, giving him time to step back and evaluate the church’ s systems more strategically.“ I just began thinking: What if we didn’ t have our website on our current platform?” he recalls.“ What if the world was our oyster? What if we could pick and choose what was best for us?” Around that same time, a longtime friend transitioned out of a church-facing ministry role and into a sales position with Subsplash, an all-in-one church technology platform. The move prompted Work to spend about a month researching the platform and eventually request a demo.
18 CHURCH EXECUTIVE | MAY 2026