Every group has two independent settings, and they answer different questions.
Who can see it? — members only, or anyone. Who can join it? — anyone, or only with approval.
They combine, so a group can be publicly visible but approval-only, or invisible to visitors but open to any member who finds it. Deciding them separately gets you the right answer more often than picking a preset would.
Start with Create your first group if you have not made one yet.
Who can see it
By default a group is public — it appears in your website's group directory, so somebody who has never been to your church can browse what exists and find their way in.
Turn on members only and it disappears from the public directory and shows only to people signed in. Right for a leadership team, a recovery group, or anything you would not advertise.
The instinct is to make everything members-only. Resist it for your ordinary small groups: a visitor who cannot see that you have groups has no reason to believe there is anything to join.
Who can join it
By default, joining is open — a member taps Join and they are in.
Turn on requires approval and joining sends a request to the group's leader instead. See Join requests.
New groups start open on purpose. Being an approved member of the church is already a meaningful gate, and adding a second one to every group mostly adds friction to the common case. Turn approval on where it earns its keep.
Featured groups
A group can be featured, which is what surfaces it on your website's home page rather than only in the full directory. New groups are featured by default.
If your homepage is showing eleven groups, this is the setting to turn off on most of them. Feature two or three — the ones a newcomer should actually consider — and let the rest live in the directory.
Built-in groups
Some groups are created by the platform rather than by you, for things like the welcome team. They work like any other group — you can rename them, change who leads them, and set their visibility — but treat deleting one as a deliberate decision, not routine cleanup: something else in the app depends on it existing.
A reasonable default set
For most churches:
- Ordinary small groups — public, open. Findable, joinable.
- Youth and children's groups — public, approval required. Visible so parents know they exist; approval because you want to know who is joining.
- Leadership and pastoral groups — members only, approval required.
Then adjust the two or three that do not fit.