For churches
A tour of the admin
The admin is where your missions team keeps the gallery current. On hosted Missionary Lane it's at app.missionarylane.org; on a self-hosted gallery it's your gallery address followed by /admin.html. Everyone signs in with a password and a code from an authenticator app.
On this page
The top bar #
What you see depends on your role.
| Item | Who sees it | What it's for |
|---|---|---|
| Missionaries | Everyone | The list of families and ministries; the home page of the admin. |
| Announcements | Everyone | News for the gallery's ticker and banner. See Announcements. |
| Giving | Owners, and members with Finance switched on | Connections, funds, payments and givers. See For treasurers. |
| Settings | Admins and owners | Members, web address, AI and voice, World Tour and map. Editors see Your account instead. |
| Billing | Owners, hosted only | Plan, credits, payment and invoices. See Billing. |
| Help | Everyone | Short articles for each screen, with a search box. |
| Switch church | People in more than one church | Choose which gallery you're working on. |
Send feedback at the bottom of every page reaches the Missionary Lane team. Settings → Your account → My feedback shows where each message stands. You can also email richard@missionarylane.org.
The Missionaries page #
- Getting started ticks off the first steps as you do them, with a link to each.
- Upcoming dates lists birthdays and anniversaries in the next 30 days.
- View the public gallery opens the gallery in a new tab.
- Add a missionary starts the kiosk editor.
- Tick several people, choose Set to … and press Apply to change their visibility together.
- Export CSV downloads every record and field, including staff-only and financial details, so keep the file private. Upload CSV takes a file downloaded here, shows every change before it's applied, and updates existing missionaries only.
The kiosk editor #
Each missionary or ministry has seven steps. Only the name is required, and you can come back to any step.
| Step | What's in it |
|---|---|
| 1. Who & where | Type, status, names, place, region, sending and giving details, contact details, support and visits. |
| 2. Family & dates | Family members, birthdays, anniversaries and milestones. |
| 3. Photos & videos | The slideshow. See Photos and video. |
| 4. Newsletters | Upload prayer letters; the AI reads them. |
| 5. Kiosk design | Colours, decorations, welcome words and the three narration scripts. |
| 6. News & facts | The briefing about the place, which updates by itself. |
| 7. Privacy & publish | Draft, Public, Limited or Hidden, position in the gallery, and what the public sees. |
Every step is described in Missionaries and letters. An eye next to a field shows whether it can appear on the public site; tap it to switch between Public and Private.
Settings #
| Section | What it does |
|---|---|
| Run setup again | Reopens the setup wizard: your look, church details, sharing. |
| Web address | Connect your own address. See Web addresses. |
| AI & voice usage | The last 30 days of AI and voice work, and credits left. |
| AI and voice keys | Use Missionary Lane credits or your own keys (hosted). |
| AI helper | Choose the AI service and paste its key. |
| Human voice narration | Choose the church voice and record kiosks. See Narration. |
| World map | An optional CARTO key, used when you haven't added a Google key. |
| World Tour | Show or hide the tour, your church's location, the globe or Google 3D look, recording the tour's narration, and your Google Maps key (which also puts the World Map on Google Maps). |
| Welcome desk | Your pastor's photo or picture, name and title, your missions statement, a letter from your pastor and a recording, for the desk at the start of the virtual hall. Every part is optional. See The welcome desk. |
| Members | Invite people, set roles, reset two-step sign-in, and (owners) switch on Finance. |
| API keys | Create and revoke keys for the API and the MCP server. See API keys and scopes. |
| Your account | Your two-step sign-in devices and your feedback. |
World Tour and map settings #
- Show the World Tour in the gallery turns the tour on or off.
- Your church's location is where the tour starts. In Google Maps, right-click your church and click the two numbers at the top to copy them, then paste them in, like
38.3032, -77.4605. Leave it empty to start at the first missionary. - Look: Illustrated globe (free), or Photorealistic 3D from Google, which needs a Google Maps JavaScript API key from your own Google Cloud account, limited to your gallery's address. Google bills your account after its free monthly sessions. Without a working key, the tour uses the globe.
- Record the tour narration records every line of the tour in your church's voice (the voice in AI and voice): your totals at home, the journey to each family, a few facts about the country and the family itself. Each line is recorded once. When a family is added or moves, or its tagline or status note changes, the new lines are recorded within the hour, and lines no longer used are deleted. Until a line is recorded, the visitor's device reads it. Recording uses voice credits like kiosk narration.
- Google Maps browser key: with it saved, the world map is Google Maps. Enable the Maps JavaScript API for the key and limit it to your gallery's address; Google bills your account after its free monthly map loads. If Google refuses the key, the map falls back to OpenStreetMap.
- Without a Google key, the world map uses free OpenStreetMap tiles. A free CARTO basemaps key from carto.com gives it a cleaner look; the key is checked with CARTO before it's saved.
Help inside the admin #
Help holds short articles for each screen, from getting started to self-hosting, with a search box. Buttons in the articles take you straight to the screen they describe. These documentation pages cover the same ground in more detail.