Why We Said No to Public Group Discovery

The pressure to be discoverable

The logic seemed obvious at first. A public directory of churches and faith groups using Komuniti would be a distribution channel. People searching for a community would find yours. Growth would compound. We'd be the 'discovery layer' for faith in the UK.

But then I started thinking about who we actually built this for. Not people hunting for a spiritual home on an app. Churches. Specifically, UK church leaders who were tired of managing WhatsApp groups, tired of messages getting lost, tired of volunteers not showing up because they missed the rota post in a thread from three days ago.

A pastor's problem isn't discoverability. It's coherence. It's getting their own people to show up, to engage, to feel like they're part of something structured and safe. A public directory solves a problem they don't have.

What 'open' costs

The moment you make a community directory public, you change who feels welcome to join. You open the door to casual browsers. You invite comparison shopping. You create pressure to look appealing to strangers rather than to serve the people already in the room.

We saw this elsewhere. Social networks optimize for reach, not depth. They need endless discovery because they're advertising platforms dressed as communities. The incentive structure is inverted.

With Komuniti, we made a choice: the incentive is to make the communities inside work brilliantly. A prayer wall that actually gets used. A volunteer rota that eliminates the 'who's bringing the tea?' message threads. Event RSVPs that mean something because people know everyone going. A discipleship path for new members that feels personal, not broadcast.

That only happens in closed groups. Groups where the pastor controls who posts. Where members know they're in a dignified space, not a public square.

The UK church we're building for

We're UK-first. That matters here. Our churches don't need to be discovered. They need to function better. And they need tools built with UK realities in mind: Gift Aid integration through Givr so giving is frictionless and tax-efficient. Live streaming through Streamr for services. Member management through Ekklesia. This isn't a US platform retrofitted for British churches. It's built here, for here.

That's also why we say no to directories. A church's community is its own. If someone wants to join, they ask the leader. They come through the door. They're invited. It's old-fashioned, maybe. But it's how UK churches have always worked.

The real growth

Here's what we've learned: growth for a platform like Komuniti doesn't come from directory clicks. It comes from a pastor using it for twelve weeks, seeing their volunteer rota actually work, seeing the prayer wall get used between services, and telling another pastor about it in person.

It comes from a denominational office seeing that three of their churches are on Komuniti and the coordination between those churches actually improved. Then they recommend it to ten more.

It comes from a home group leader getting more consistent attendance because people know when they're meeting and what they're discussing, all in one place that isn't a chat app.

That's slower. Quieter. But it's real. And it builds something that matters to the people using it.

What we're building instead

So instead of a public directory, we've invested in making communities work harder internally. Better sermon note templates. Swap request logic in the volunteer rota that actually eliminates the email chains. A discipleship journey that adapts to where someone is in their faith. Integration so deep with Ekklesia, Givr, and Streamr that the whole stack feels like it was always meant to work together.

We're also learning that word-of-mouth is enough. A pastor in Bristol tells a pastor in Leeds. A denominational office recommends us to their network. A church that started on the Free tier (three groups, twenty members, one event RSVP a month) grows to fifteen members and upgrades to Starter at £19.99 a month because they need more groups and more RSVPs.

That's the growth story we want to tell.