Plan your season with Lighthouse AI

See the weeks ahead, plan a series from Silas's suggestions, make drafts from it, and read the forecast and insights.

Lighthouse AI helps your staff plan ahead. Silas reads your Sundays, your calendar and, if an admin allows it, the themes in what your people write, and suggests what to plan. Admins and staff can open Lighthouse. Group leaders and members can't. It comes with every church: the forecast for all, and Silas's read with any paid part.

Lighthouse has six tabs: This season, Series, Forecast, Insights, Count and Settings. On a computer they're in the bar at the top of the page while you're in Lighthouse. On a phone they're under the page title. Silas makes his suggestions, forecasts and insights early each Monday.

Open Lighthouse AI

On a computer, open Lighthouse AI from the button at the top right of any page. On a phone, it's the lighthouse button at the top of the screen, next to search.

The button opens This week's read: when Silas last read, the forecast for the next service day, his top open insight and his top suggestion. Press Open Lighthouse to see all of it. On a computer there's Settings beside it too. Press the × or Esc to go back to your page.

After a new read comes in early Monday, the button says New read (on a phone, a yellow dot). It clears once you open the read on that phone or computer.
Until Lighthouse starts forecasting, it shows how many Sundays you've counted, like 3 of 8 Sundays.
Before the first read, it says Your first read comes early Monday.
If it says This week's read didn't load, close it and open it again.

What Lighthouse reads

Lighthouse reads what your church keeps in Trellis. Every church gets Sunday's forecast from its head counts. With any paid part, Silas writes the Monday read. Each part adds what it keeps: Groups adds themes from prayer requests and write-ups once your groups pass 25 people, Serving adds serving days, and so on. See What Lighthouse reads in Settings for yours.

This season

This season shows the next 14 Sundays as a grid. Each column is the week that starts that Sunday. The rows are:

Church year
Calendar
Culture
your city, or Your city until you add one
Your church, for the dates you've added
Your people, the theme named most in each week, as a strip that gets deeper as more people name it

Your people appears only when an admin has turned on reading people, Silas is on, and your church has Groups past 25 people or Pioneer. Without them the page says so and links to Settings. See What Lighthouse AI reads.

Under Silas suggests are his ideas for a series, one Sunday or a class. Each card says when it would run, why he suggests it, and what comes with it.

Plan a series

On This season, find an idea you want.
Press Plan it. Silas drafts the series, which takes a minute or two.
Press Open the series.
Read it week by week. Each week has a passage, a title and a big idea.
Press Keep this series when you want it.

Press Not now to put an idea away, and Bring it back to see it again. If the drafting didn't finish, the card says so and offers Try again.

A series is marked Draft until you keep it. Every series you plan stays under Series, the latest to run first. If your church has Worship planning and Serving on, keeping a series also adds it to Worship planning and links the plans that already exist for those Sundays, unless a plan is already in another series.

If you follow the lectionary, choose Revised Common Lectionary on Settings and Silas prefers its readings for the passages.

Make drafts for a week

Each week of a series has a Make a draft row. The buttons are Sermon outline, Group study, Kids’ lesson, Post, Email, Class session and Service order. Press one and Silas drafts it, which takes about a minute, then opens it. A kind you've already made for that week isn't offered again.

An outline is a shape to preach from. The sermon is yours to write and preach.

A Group study has up to two controls on its page. How long your groups meet is 45, 60 or 75 minutes, and keeps four, five or six questions. Who it goes to, shown when Silas wrote an opener for a stage of life your groups are for, is Every group or the groups for one stage of life, each with its own opener. Changing either doesn't ask Silas again, so it isn't another draft.

Your church can make 60 drafts a month. Planning a series counts as one, and so does each draft made from it. A draft that can't be shown, or that names someone from your church, isn't kept or counted. The series page says how many you've used. When the month's drafts are used, the buttons turn off and the page says when more come.

Hand a draft on

A draft stays in Lighthouse, marked Draft, until someone on staff hands it on. Each draft page has one filled button:

Share with group leaders for a group study or a kids' lesson. Every group leader will see it under Resources.
Add to your message notes for a sermon outline, when you preach that Sunday and your church has Worship planning and Serving. Nobody else sees your notes until you share them.
Send to Communications for a post or an email. It arrives as a draft message, and nothing is sent until someone sends it from Communications.
Send to Registration for a class session. It arrives as a draft event.
Copy the text for a service order, or for any draft whose part your church doesn't have on.

After you send a draft, its chip says Handed and the page links to where it went. Print prints a draft as it's shaped on the page.

Forecast

Forecast shows how many will be in the room. Each coming service is a bar with its likely range, which should hold 4 services in 5, and the expected count. Press a bar to see the count, the Guests and Kids checked in figures, what moves it that day, and a So: line on what it means for planning.

Under that, Where hearts are heading follows each theme over the last weeks and the weeks ahead, and The track record shows how past forecasts did.

Lighthouse starts forecasting once eight Sundays are counted. Until then the page says how many you have. See Count and import past counts.

Insights

Insights shows up to three readings across the parts your church uses. Each has a Likely or Possible chip, What points to it, What argues against it, the day Silas checks again, What would change it, and What Silas would do with it.

Press Plan these to mark a reading as planned, or Not now to set it aside. Take off the plan and Bring it back undo them. The marks are for your team, and they change nothing else.

Settings

The page opens with What Lighthouse reads: a row for each part, with a ✓ on the ones Lighthouse is reading. Admins can add a part from its row.

Open Settings and press Save when you're done. Admins and staff can change:

Readings, under The church year: Revised Common Lectionary, The seasons only, no set readings or Our own plan.
Civic days, under The calendar.
Football, The school year and Big national moments, under Culture.
City, and the dates you add with Add a date: a Name, when it Starts and when it Ends. Leave Ends empty for one day. Will this change who comes? is No unless you pick More people, Fewer people or Not sure. See When something happens in the news. Remove takes a date off.

Statement of faith is where you paste what your church believes, up to 6,000 characters. Lighthouse keeps the four drafts that teach (sermon outlines, studies, kids' lessons and class sessions) consistent with it, and never uses it for anything about people. Only an admin can change it; other staff can read it. It has its own Save statement button under the box, because Save at the top doesn't save it. A draft made with it says so at the top.

Two switches are limited to certain roles: reading prayer requests and write-ups, and Read giving. See What Lighthouse AI reads.

When something happens in the news

A storm, a tragedy or a plant closing in town can change who comes for a few Sundays. Add it with Add a date in Settings, from the day it happened, and answer Will this change who comes?

More people raises the next Sunday's forecast by 10%, and Fewer people lowers it by 15%. The effect halves each week, over 3 Sundays. Each of those Sundays says so on Forecast, for example After the storm −15%.
Not sure doesn't move the forecast.
Whichever you pick, those 3 Sundays are left out of what Lighthouse learns about a normal Sunday, so one odd week doesn't throw off the next two months.

Saving the date makes the forecast again straight away. Trellis adds big national news the same way. Lighthouse reads nothing from the news, the web or social media: it knows only what Trellis or your staff mark.

When Silas is off

Sunday's forecast doesn't need Silas. When an admin turns Silas off, the rest of Lighthouse pauses. The button says Paused, and every Lighthouse page says why. Nothing goes to Anthropic: no new read on Monday, no themes, and Plan it and Make a draft say Silas is off. Sunday's forecast is still made from your own counts, so Forecast keeps learning, and everything Silas read before stays.

An admin turns him back on from the Turn Silas on link, or on the Silas page in Church settings. Settings in Lighthouse says whether he's on. See Silas settings.

What Lighthouse doesn't do

Settings lists what Silas never does here. He won't write the sermon, send or post anything, name or quote anyone from your church, or take a side in an election.

Still stuck? Ask Silas