Pro Church Tools — Company OS

Glossary

12 min read

Glossary

For agents: Fast lookup for the proper nouns in this OS. One-liners only — for the full story, follow the cross-links to the canonical doc. When in doubt about how something is named (capitalization, spacing, suffix), this glossary is the authority for short references; AGENTS.md “Terminology — locked decisions” governs the strict rules.

Companies, entities, ownership

  • Pro Church Tools — the brand. Use casually anywhere.
  • Pro Church Tools Inc. — the legal entity. Use in legal/ownership/equity contexts only.
  • Foyyay — the engineering team brand. Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Builds and runs Nucleus alongside PCT.
  • Foyyay Inc. — Foyyay’s legal entity. Holds 50.5% of Nucleus LLC (slim majority by 1pp).
  • Tentmakers — Brady’s holding company brand. Holds the PCT side of the Nucleus JV.
  • Tentmakers Inc. — legal entity. Holds 49.5% of Nucleus LLC.
  • Nucleus LLC — Idaho LLC. Owns and operates the Nucleus product. Owned 49.5% Tentmakers Inc. / 50.5% Foyyay Inc. See nucleus-history.
  • Mossio — Foyyay’s predecessor name (2016–2018 dev-partner phase, before the brand became Foyyay). Historical only.

Active products

  • Nucleus — church website builder + comms platform. ~3,300 paying customers, ~$250K MRR. Three pricing tiers in the v2 marketing rebuild — Essential, Standard, Complete. Powers every Free Communications Makeover. See products.
  • Nucleus Essential — entry tier. $49/mo today, becoming $65/mo when the 2026 marketing site launches (target June–August 2026). Includes Web, The Launcher, Prayer, Flows, People. Not offered to makeover customers — makeovers land on Standard.
  • Nucleus Standard — $99/mo. Default plan after a Free Communications Makeover. Adds Sermons, Posts, Messages on top of Essential.
  • Nucleus Complete — $199/mo (or $1,990/year — 2 months free). Adds Nucleus Giving + Nucleus Media on top of Standard. Includes 3 Pro Church Certified seats. Upsell target during the 7-day delivery sequence.
  • Nucleus Giving — Nucleus’s tithing/donation module. Bundled with Complete.
  • Nucleus Media — Nucleus’s media module. Bundled with Complete.
  • The Launcher — free embeddable widget for any church website (works on non-Nucleus sites too). ~17,000 churches signed up. Full formal name: The Launcher by Nucleus. Sub-product of Nucleus; bundled across all paid tiers.
  • Mission Control — private Posts collection pre-loaded on every makeover church’s Nucleus during v2 delivery. Holds 8 reference documents (Church Communications Policy, The Church Announcements Formula, Social Media Safeguards, Church Social Media Policy, Ministry Level Assignments, The 7 Building Blocks overview, Central Hub Quick-Start Guide, Promotions Playbooks). The methodology installed inside the customer’s product. Naming carries a triple meaning — space mission control / church mission control / biological nucleus = control center of the cell. See v2-package.
  • SocialSermons — productized done-for-you social media service. ~$100K MRR / ~150 churches. One word — never “Social Sermons.” See products.
  • Pro Church Certified — open-enrollment certification for church creatives. 9-module curriculum. $1,990 one-time or $199/mo × 12. ~500 churches completed. Always written out in full — never abbreviated to “PCC” in prose (folder/path names like pcc-marketing/ are the only exception). See products and landing-page.
  • The Comms Dept — productized done-for-you communications service for churches without staff to run their own comms. Always with capital “T” “The” as part of the name; never bare “Comms Dept.” Three pricing tiers based on church size, same deliverables across all: Starter $497/mo (under 200), Growth $997/mo (200-2,000), Scale $1,997/mo (2,000+). Platform agnostic — works whether the church is on Nucleus or not. See products and 2026-marketing-spec.
  • Brand Voice Workshop — Comms Dept setup deliverable. Analyzes 6 months of service transcripts + website to produce the customer church’s Brand Voice Document (Purpose/Mission/Vision, Core Values, Audience Personas, Voice Markers, Start Again Stories Framework applied to that church’s personas). Different from Brady’s own voice-profile — same kind of analysis, applied to the customer’s church.
  • Story Database — Comms Dept ongoing deliverable. Real congregation stories tagged by Persona / Ministry / Theme / Event / Length, used in announcement scripts. Initial mining at setup; refreshed quarterly via Story Campaigns.
  • Quarterly Promotion Calendar — Comms Dept deliverable. Master 13-week promotional plan with every event Levels-tagged (1-4) and scheduled across stage / email / text / bulletin / social / website banner.
  • Quarterly Story Campaign — Comms Dept deliverable that keeps the Story Database fresh. Rotating annual cycle: Q1 Staff Interviews, Q2 Congregation Voice Memos, Q3 Post-Event Surveys, Q4 Impact Stories.
  • Weekly Comms Package — Comms Dept’s weekly delivery: execution checklist + announcement scripts + bulletin copy + email/text copy.
  • Record of Truth — the church’s maintained calendar (all events). The Comms Dept’s promotional planning starts here. Customer-side responsibility to maintain.
  • Smuggle promo — promotional technique used in the Quarterly Promotion Calendar: surface a Level 4 (individual ministry) event by attaching it to a Level 2 (next-step) announcement, so the small thing rides along with the big thing.
  • Church Chaos Index — free 38-point comms diagnostic at churchchaos.com. The funnel entry point. Not a revenue product. See church-chaos-index.
  • Free Communications Makeover — free service installed on Nucleus Standard, delivered by PCT after a church submits an audit. The conversion engine of the 2026 funnel. See makeover-offer.

Active content properties

  • Church Chaos (the YouTube show) — flagship visit show of the 2026 Chaos Era. Host visits churches, measures their Church Chaos Index, prescribes fixes via the 7 Building Blocks. First episode in production. See youtube-formula.
  • The Pro Church Tools Show — the long-running PCT podcast (~2012-present, approaching 1,000 episodes). 2026 reframe is reactive-companion to the audit funnel. See podcast-operating-doc.

Sunset / legacy

Sunset content properties

  • Pro Church Daily — daily-cadence podcast (legacy). Many of the standard link blocks in voice-profile reflect this era’s intros and outros.

Sunset products

  • The Church Graphics Handbook — paid product, sunset.
  • Pro Church Academy — paid product, sunset. Predecessor concept to Pro Church Certified.
  • Pro Video Announcements — paid product, sunset.
  • Storytape — 2017–2018 sub-product (initial 2017 launch + 2018 social re-launch). Folded into Nucleus.
  • RebelGive — 2019 sub-product (323 subs / $24,837 MRR / $298K ARR). Merged into Nucleus LLC in 2020.
  • Charter49 / Charter55 — 2017 Nucleus launch lifetime-pricing tiers.

Deprecated frameworks

  • The 50% Rule — deprecated framework name. Superseded by the 7 Building Blocks. Don’t use in new copy.
  • ACDC Next Steps Ladder — deprecated framework name. Superseded by the 7 Building Blocks. Don’t use in new copy.
  • Twin Website Framework — the 2016 conception methodology behind Nucleus (external .com for visitors + mobile-first internal .info for the congregation). The 7 Building Blocks are the distilled internal answer to this original next-steps thesis. See nucleus-history.

Methodology & IP

  • The 7 Building Blocks — the core methodology. Through-line for everything PCT teaches, builds, delivers. Canonical at 7-building-blocks. The 7 in order:
    1. Levels — Assign Levels to Every Ministry (1–4 communication levels)
    2. Policy — Publish Policy (the 6 rules; see Communications Policy below)
    3. Ministry Homes — Give Each Ministry a Home (digital home page per ministry)
    4. Promotions Playbooks — Supply Promotions Playbooks
    5. Weekly Bulletin — Create the Weekly Bulletin
    6. Announcements Formula — Commit to The Church Announcements Formula
    7. Central Hub — Launch Your Central Hub
  • Levels — the 4 communication levels assigned to ministries (Block 1). Level 1 = churchwide / 80%+ congregation; Level 4 = individual ministries.
  • The Church Announcements Formula — Block 6’s named formula for stage announcements. Locked terminology.
  • Church Chaos Index — the 38-point diagnostic methodology, scored across 4 dimensions. Powers the audit at churchchaos.com. Scores dimensions, not blocks. See church-chaos-index.
  • The 4 Chaos Dimensions — the four scoring dimensions of the Church Chaos Index: announcement overload, destination clarity, promotional hierarchy, and the gap between what the website says and what happens Sunday morning.
  • Disney Dupe — strategic frame: Brand + IP + Platform as the AI-era moat. See disney-dupe.
  • Communications Policy (often The 6 Rules) — Block 2’s 6 rules for church communications. Canonical at communications-policy.
  • Social Media Policy — companion to Communications Policy. See social-media-policy.
  • Start Again Stories — storytelling architecture used in church-facing copy. See start-again-stories.

Strategic concepts & frameworks

  • The Chaos Era — strategic narrative for 2026. Single through-line, single funnel, single thesis. See 2026-chaos-era.
  • Implicit authority over claimed authority — 2026 annual theme. Real church examples beat principles in the abstract.
  • 167 hours outside Sunday service — the brand line. 168 hours in a week, ~1 of those on Sunday morning, 167 are the rest. Always 167 when describing the hours we help churches seize. See AGENTS.md terminology.
  • The Watch-Back Ritual — signature element of the Church Chaos YouTube show. The team watches their own footage on a tablet while the host watches them watch.
  • The Variable Third Act — Church Chaos episode structure rule. Each episode applies 2–3 of the 7 Building Blocks (never all 7) to keep the catalog fresh.
  • HDYHAU — “How Did You Hear About Us?” The self-report dropdown on the audit form, used as a third attribution signal alongside first-touch and last-touch UTMs.
  • The Disney Dupe filter — strategic decision lens: does this strengthen Brand, IP, or Platform? See disney-dupe.
  • The Comms Dept ramp — north-star lever for the long-term plan. The Comms Dept ramping to its MRR target is what enables the long-term investment plan.
  • Lifestyle discipline — companion lever in the long-term plan. Investing the upside rather than spending it. Aligns with VIBES. and “the family you choose” values.
  • The Free Makeover Funnel — the 2026 conversion engine. Audit → Makeover Offer → Makeover Delivery → Upsell. See makeover-funnel.
  • ARPU targets — Makeovers v2 goal of $125/mo (2.5× v1’s $50). Upgrade rate is the dominant lever. See arpu-targets.

Internal infrastructure

  • Content Brain — operational system for drafting in Brady’s voice. 12 Brady-voice skills + 12-year content archive (~26K sources, ~40K chunks). Repo: bradyshearer/content-engine. See content-brain.
  • Attribution v1 — UTM stamping + first-touch/last-touch/HDYHAU revenue rollup, in The Comms Dept Firebase app. Operating manual at attribution.
  • The 12 Brady-voice Skills — newsletter-intro, newsletter-outro, youtube-title, youtube-script, podcast-show-notes, ig-caption, ig-carousel, ig-carousel-opener, ig-reel-script, blog-intro, x-single, facebook-post.
  • Voice profile — extracted distillation of Brady’s voice from his published archive. Current version v0.1.3 (2026-05-01). Canonical at voice-profile; runtime in Firestore at /voice_profile/current.
  • Voice subprofiles — 8 platform-specific voice profiles (podcast, youtube_longform, certified, newsletter, blog, instagram, twitter, facebook). The certified subprofile is excluded from the merged corpus by default.
  • First-touch / last-touch — attribution methods. First-touch credits the entry-point content; last-touch credits whatever closed the loop. Both run side-by-side in Attribution v1 alongside HDYHAU.
  • GCP project ezra-488314 — the cloud project name for the Brady-voice skills + attribution infrastructure. The “ezra” name is a legacy artifact from an earlier internal-platform framing (the Ezra umbrella concept was retired); the cloud project ID stays for continuity.

People

  • Brady Shearer — founder of Pro Church Tools. The voice the OS draws from.
  • The Executive 7 — the inner-circle leadership team. Roster, roles, compensation, and Comms Dept profit-share arrangement filed at team (sensitive — never reference specifics externally). Names: Alex Mills (Nucleus GM), Kyle Van Ysseldyk (Makeovers Director), Mitchel Hughes (Customer Success Lead — one l; also referenced as “Mitch” in voice profile anecdotes including the “don’t screw it up” story), Roxanne Wiedemann (Customer Success Lead, Help Center), Ryland Frank (Customer Success Lead, Help Center), Tristan Persaud (Director of Creative), Owen Assman (SocialSermons GM + Show Producer).
  • SocialSermons remote staff — Chris Green, Mitchell Mueller (two l’s — distinct from Mitchel Hughes), Adrian Sivira, Richard Tandirerung (transitioning out end of June 2026, not being replaced). All on PCT payroll, remote. Report up through Owen Assman. Filed at team (sensitive).
  • Foyyay team — 4-8 engineers in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho who build and run Nucleus. Not PCT employees — separate company under the JV. See nucleus-history. Alex Mills is the PCT-side liaison.
  • Mitch / Mitchel Hughes — same person. PCT’s first employee (referenced in voice profile examples like the “don’t screw it up” anecdote) is now Mitchel Hughes, Customer Success Lead on the executive 7. Different person from Mitchell Mueller (SocialSermons remote, two l’s). Two distinct “Mitch” people in the OS; the original first-employee history and the current exec team member are one and the same.

Domains

  • prochurchtools.com — main brand site / blog.
  • churchchaos.com — Church Chaos Index audit landing.
  • prochurchcertified.com — Pro Church Certified sales page. See landing-page.
  • thecommsdept.com — The Comms Dept landing + the Firebase admin app where Attribution v1 lives.
  • ezra.church — internal admin dashboard URL. Password-protected, internal only. The “ezra” name is a legacy artifact from the retired Ezra-as-platform framing; the URL stays for continuity.
  • admin.thecommsdept.com/attribution — the Attribution v1 dashboard (first-touch / last-touch / HDYHAU rankings + conflict feed).

Locked stylization (quick reference)

For the full rules see AGENTS.md → “Terminology — locked decisions.” Quick summary:

  • The Comms Dept — capital “T” “The” always, never bare “Comms Dept,” never “Comms Department.”
  • The Launcher — capital “T” “The” always (parallel to The Comms Dept), never bare “Launcher” or lowercase “the Launcher.” Full formal: “The Launcher by Nucleus.”
  • Pro Church Certified — always written out in full. Never “PCC” in prose (folder/path names like pcc-marketing/ are the only exception).
  • The Church Chaos Index — full formal name of the methodology. Bare “Chaos Index” is wrong; minimum is “Church Chaos Index.” The 0-100 customer-facing score is the “Church Chaos Score.”
  • VIBES. — all-caps with trailing period. Always.
  • SocialSermons — one word.
  • 167 hours — never 168 when describing what we help churches seize.
  • Pro Church Tools Inc. / Foyyay Inc. / Tentmakers Inc. — Inc. suffix only in legal/ownership contexts; bare brand names fine elsewhere.
  • The 7 Building Blocks — the canonical block names are Levels / Policy / Ministry Homes / Promotions Playbooks / Weekly Bulletin / Announcements Formula / Central Hub. Earlier speculative names (Identity / Presence / Invitation / Welcome / Rhythm / Connection / Response) are wrong.

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