Dear partner in ministry,

We hope this message finds you well.

As a valued partner in ministry, we wanted to share about changes happening within the services we offer.

This year, United Methodist Communications (UMCom) is realigning to assist denominational communications needs with our available financial and staff resources. We appreciate your understanding, grace and patience during this transition.

Effective immediately, we are no longer taking new orders for web hosting and will be sunsetting these services for all clients by the end of the year. (Domain registration and branded Google Workspace emails will continue to be supported.) UMCom had provided web hosting at below industry pricing and absorbed a number of associated costs without passing them along to our churches. Unfortunately, we can no longer sustain this effort.

The UMCom team has evaluated options for new web hosting vendors to help you move to and host your website on a different system. We’re pleased to announce that we are partnering with Tithe.ly as our preferred vendor to ensure a smooth transition from WordPress to their proprietary web hosting system. We believe that they can provide the service and price point to best accommodate your web hosting need. With Tithe.ly’s additional service options beyond web hosting, we have confidence that they can enable your church to expand and thrive in the digital engagement era and encourage you to evaluate the All-Access features.

Our Tithe.ly options include:

• Basic site: First three months free and then $19 a month
  • Unlimited Storage & Hosting
  • Video Embedding (YouTube, Facebook or Vimeo)
  • Contact Forms
  • Site-Wide Search
  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
  • Events Calendar
  • No monthly contract
• All-Access option: $99 a month (normally $119)
  • Everything in the Basic site package
  • Church Management System
  • Text to Give
  • Worship Tools
  • Websites
  • Point of Sale System
  • Church Apps
  • Church Media
  • Messaging

Tithe.ly migration details:

• Discounted Setup Fee: $50 one-time payment (applies to both basic and all-access)
• Migration takes seven to ten business days
• During conversion, pages are built on a subsite so your website remains active until finalized
• Minimal downtime upon final new site activation
• Transfer of four main pages plus event and sermon pages at no additional fee. (This should cover the majority of sites for local churches. Additional pages can be discussed with Tithe.ly on a case-by-case basis.)
• Phone calls, emails and resources from the Tithe.ly throughout the process

Information sessions with Tithe.ly and a Q&A document will be posted on UMCChurches to help address any outstanding questions that you may have. In the meantime, you can view a sample website on our dedicated Tithe.ly page.

Other options:

If you choose not to go with Tithe.ly, several options are available:

• Redirect to Find-a-Church - A simple setup that directs your website / URL to your church’s free profile page on Find-a-Church that you can update and add details to throughout the year
• Redirect to Facebook page - A straightforward option that directs your church’s website / URL to your church’s Facebook page
• Website transfer (Requires advanced skills and self-service transfer) - Transfer your existing WordPress backup website / URL to another WordPress or provider of your choosing (To be transferred by your local church staff / volunteer / vendor)

UMCom will begin fostering the transfer process on a rolling basis as selections are made.

We strongly encourage that you sign-up with Tithe.ly or notify us of another decision by June so that we can ensure the smoothest transition possible for your website before hosting support ends on December 31, 2025.

You will begin to see changes on UMCChurches.org, including the appearance of your client login page as we update the site to reflect the change in offerings. Rest assured; your login functionality will remain until a transfer has been made.

We’re grateful that you chose us to assist in your ministry needs. Though we realize that you may be cautious of changes, UMCom is dedicated to honoring our commitments even if the means of delivery is shifting. Also know that while we are partnering with Tithe.ly, no information or data will be shared unless you elect to do so during the migration process.

United Methodist Communications is excited for what God has in store for The United Methodist Church and its ministries and local churches. We remain committed to being your trusted partner in helping you to achieve success via Christ-centered communication.

Kind Regards,
United Methodist Communications
support@umcchurches.org