Skip to main content

Onboarding Improvement: Denomination Selector + Required City/State

Problem

  1. Churches sign up without city/state — chatbot can't reference local resources
  2. Denomination field is freetext — inconsistent values, hard to map to theological lens or tradition care context
  3. Theological lens and tradition_key must be manually configured — should be automatic

Solution

One form captures 4 fields, auto-configures 5 systems.

Form Fields

Church Name: [________________________] * required (existing)
City/Town: [________________________] * required (NEW — was optional)
State/Province: [dropdown ▼] * required (NEW — was optional)
Church Family: [dropdown ▼] * required (NEW)
Denomination: [dropdown ▼] * required (loads based on family, NEW)

State/Province Dropdown

── United States ──
Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, ... Wyoming (50 states + DC + territories)

── Canada ──
Alberta, British Columbia, ... Yukon (13 provinces/territories)

── Other ──
→ Shows freetext fields:
State/Province: [____________]
Country: [____________]

Country auto-sets: "US" for US states, "Canada" for Canadian provinces, freetext for Other.

Church Family → Denomination Cascade

Step 1 — Family selector (15 options from denominations.family): Baptist, Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist, Pentecostal/Charismatic, Presbyterian/Reformed, Non-denominational, Anglican, Orthodox, Anabaptist, Adventist, Evangelical, Restorationist, Protestant, Other

Step 2 — Denomination dropdown (populated from denominations WHERE family = selected): e.g., Baptist → Southern Baptist Convention, American Baptist, Independent Baptist, Free Will Baptist, Missionary Baptist, Reformed Baptist, "Just Baptist (no specific denomination)"

Step 3 — "Other" path: Freetext field: "What is your church's denomination or tradition?" → Fuzzy match against denomination_aliases table → No match? Store raw text, assign tradition_key='universal', primary_lens_id=10, flag for review

Behind the Scenes (auto-configured on selection)

denomination selected → query denominations table:
denomination.tradition_key → sets tradition_care_context (care calibration)
denomination.primary_lens_id → sets theological_lenses (theological calibration)
denomination.family → stored for analytics/segmentation

Label Changes

CurrentNew
CityCity/Town
StateState/Province
(none)Church Family
Denomination (freetext)Denomination (dropdown)

Database Changes

Already done (2026-04-01):

  • denominations.tradition_key column added and populated for all 64 denominations
  • denominations.primary_lens_id column added and populated

Still needed:

  • Add denomination_id FK column to churches table (links to denominations.id)
  • Make city and state NOT NULL with defaults on churches table (or enforce in UI only)
  • Update signup/claim flow UI components

Where This Applies

  1. ChurchWiseAI direct signup flow (churchwiseai.com)
  2. PewSearch claim flow (pewsearch.com/claim/[slug]) — church already has city/state from directory, just needs denomination confirmation
  3. Admin dashboard settings (allow editing after signup)