Church Turns to Facilikey to Provide Safe, Simple Access

From cleaners to band rehearsals to small-group meetings among church leaders, Lee Chatham, the Executive Pastor of Soul Church in Raleigh, North Carolina, had a problem. A key problem.

He needed a way to give safe access to the different people and groups who needed it, “without the headache of keeping track of keys,” Chatham explained.

Then Chatham found Facilikey, the digital door key, which he called “an easy choice because it gave us the flexibility.” The app lets the people who need it unlock the door from their own phone.

“The Facilikey app allows those who need access to our building at different times to unlock the door from their own device,” Chatham said.

Facilikey provides digital access and security for small businesses, from churches to gyms to Pilates studios. The owner trades clunky keys and shared passcodes for a system that shows exactly who is in the building at any given time.

That visibility matters, Chatham said. It solved the problem of not knowing who might be in the church at any moment. “We know who has access to our facility, and when,” he said.

A Facilikey feature lets him limit a person or group to a specific day or time. “We set it up so our cleaning contractor has access when they need to get in, our band has access on Thursdays for rehearsal, and our small-group leaders have access according to when their group meets,” Chatham explained.

It also freed the church staff from the logistics of passing keys around and tracking who is inside, removing the “countless hours tracking who is in the building when passing off keys, or having to be present to open the building,” he said.

“It has removed any potential issues around being available to make sure the building was unlocked for different events,” he added.

Chatham said he would recommend Facilikey to any business in a similar position, whether a church, a personal-training gym, or a Pilates studio, “because it removes the logistical challenges that come with having lots of people who need access to a building at varying times and days.”

And when it comes to day-to-day use, it “works flawlessly,” he said.