Ryan Coggins
I'm the executive pastor of Life Church, a multisite church of about 2,500 across five campuses in Southeast Wisconsin, and the founder of Aligned Insights. Everything on this site — the guides, the tools, the consulting — comes out of the operations work I do inside a local church every week.
Executive Pastor · Life Church — 5 campuses, ~2,500 · MBA
The work behind the advice
For nearly twenty years I've led operations and administration at Life Church — overseeing finance and admin, communications, events, and technology, and serving as campus pastor of its largest location. Along the way I've orchestrated campus acquisitions, building projects, and capital campaigns, helped form a nonprofit feeding the city of Milwaukee, and built the internal tools my own staff run on every day, including the Life Church Hub and ChurchPulse. Aligned Insights is where I help other churches do the same.
- 20+ years leading church operations
- Oversees finance/admin, comms, events & tech across 5 campuses
- Campus pastor of Life Church's largest location
- Led 3 campus acquisitions, 4 building projects, 3 capital campaigns
- Built the Life Church Hub & ChurchPulse (churchpulse.ai)
- Helped form a nonprofit feeding the city of Milwaukee
- MBA — Southeastern University
Start with something useful, not a sales call
The free church tools
Nine self-serve tools — savings, visibility, AI readiness, policy, budget, health, hiring — each returning something genuinely useful in minutes.
Take a look →The church operations guide
A working guide to how healthy churches run — people, process, finance, data, technology, and governance.
Take a look →Custom church dashboards
Focused dashboards a church owns and keeps improving, plus the safe-building skills to extend them.
Take a look →Guides I've written
Every article on this site is written by me, from work inside a real church — not generated filler.
Church Dashboard KPIs: The 12 Numbers Worth Putting on a Screen
The KPIs that belong on a church dashboard — how each is defined, where the data lives, and the caveats that keep the numbers honest.
Read guide →The Church Operations System: A Practical Framework for How Healthy Churches Run
People, process, finance, data, technology, governance — a working framework for church operations from an executive pastor who runs them weekly.
Read guide →How to Export a Year of Transactions From Your Church's Accounting System
Step-by-step exports for QuickBooks Online, Xero, Aplos, ChurchTrac, PowerChurch, Realm, and more — the one file you need for a savings audit.
Read guide →I Audited My Own Church's Spending. Here's What I Found.
A line-by-line audit of a real multisite church budget — where the money was leaking, why nobody noticed, and how to check your own.
Read guide →Does Your Church Need an AI Policy? (Yes — Here's What Good Ones Get Right)
Your staff and volunteers are already using AI. The dos and don'ts of a church AI policy that protects people without banning progress.
Read guide →10 Things Your Church Is Probably Overpaying For (With the Free Alternatives)
The most common overpriced subscriptions on church books — and the nonprofit tiers, free versions, and consolidations that replace them.
Read guide →What a Modern Church Finance Setup Actually Looks Like
Paper checks, late reports, and one person who knows everything — the signs your church finance stack is dated, and what to replace it with.
Read guide →The Numbers Every Church Should Watch Weekly (Not Yearly)
Attendance, giving, groups, volunteers — the vital signs of church health, why annual reports catch problems too late, and how to see them weekly.
Read guide →Is Your Church Ready for AI? An Executive Pastor's Honest Take
AI won't replace ministry — it replaces busywork. Where it actually helps a church, where it doesn't, and how to tell if your team is ready.
Read guide →The Family Asking ChatGPT for a Church Will Never Hear Your Name
People don't just Google churches anymore — they ask AI. Most church websites are invisible to it. Here's why, and how to fix it.
Read guide →Talk through your church's systems — free.
A 15-minute call, an honest snapshot, and 2–3 practical fixes within 24 hours. If more help would genuinely fit, I'll say so; if not, you still leave with the fixes.