ChurchFinder Directory Scraper

Scrape public ChurchFinder city directories and church profile pages into clean church lead records.

ChurchFinder Directory Scraper helps you collect church names, denominations, addresses, profile URLs, phone numbers, service information, descriptions, ratings, and other public details from ChurchFinder.com.

What does ChurchFinder Directory Scraper do?

ChurchFinder Directory Scraper turns public ChurchFinder pages into structured datasets.

It can start from:

• ⛪ ChurchFinder city directory pages
• 🔗 Individual ChurchFinder church profile URLs
• 🏙️ A state + city pair that the actor converts into a ChurchFinder city URL

The actor visits directory rows, follows profile pages when enabled, deduplicates church profiles, and saves one dataset row per church.

Who is it for?

This actor is useful for teams that need church directory data for legitimate business, research, or partnership workflows.

Outreach and lead-generation teams

• 📣 Local marketing agencies building city-level church outreach lists
• 🧰 B2B vendors serving churches with software, maintenance, insurance, printing, fundraising tools, or events
• 📍 Local SEO teams comparing public directory coverage across metros

Community and partnership teams

• 🤝 Nonprofits finding potential partner congregations for programs, relief work, or local events
• 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Faith-based coalitions mapping nearby churches and denominations
• 🏛️ Civic organizations identifying public congregation contacts for community announcements

Research and publishing teams

• 🗞️ Publishers researching churches by city, denomination, or region
• 🧪 Researchers studying public religious-organization distribution by geography
• 📊 Data teams enriching internal church datasets with source URLs and public profile details

Why use this actor?

Manual ChurchFinder research is repetitive. A single city can include many paginated results and every profile may contain extra details.

This actor helps you:

• Save public church profiles into a spreadsheet-ready dataset
• Normalize city, state, ZIP, phone, and denomination fields
• Keep source URLs for auditability
• Limit runs with maxItems and maxPagesPerCity
• Choose between fast directory-only scraping and richer profile scraping

What ChurchFinder pages can I scrape?

Use public ChurchFinder pages such as:

https://www.churchfinder.com/churches/ca/los-angeles
https://www.churchfinder.com/churches/ny/new-york
https://www.churchfinder.com/churches/tx/houston

You can also provide a direct profile URL:

https://www.churchfinder.com/churches/ca/los-angeles/abundant-life-christian-church

Data extracted

The output dataset contains church lead records.

Field	Description
name	Church name
profileUrl	ChurchFinder profile URL
denomination	Denomination or affiliation when visible
address	Public meeting location or directory address
city	City parsed from URL, profile, or address
state	State parsed from URL, profile, or address
zip	ZIP code when available
phone	Public phone number when shown on the profile
website	Public external website link when present
email	Public email address when present as a mailto link
pastor	Pastor/contact name when visible in directory rows
serviceTimes	Service-time text when visible
description	Public about/description text
rating	Numeric rating when visible
reviewCount	Number of user reviews when visible
sourceUrl	Page URL that produced the record

How much does it cost to scrape ChurchFinder church leads?

This actor uses pay-per-event pricing.

• A $0.005 start event is charged once per run.
• A result event is charged for each saved church record.
• BRONZE result price: $0.000063256 per church record, with lower prices on higher Apify tiers.
• You control volume with maxItems.

For a low-cost first run, keep the prefilled input at 20 churches and one city page.

How to use ChurchFinder Directory Scraper

1. Open the actor on Apify.
2. Paste one or more ChurchFinder city URLs into Start URLs.
3. Set Maximum churches to the number of records you need.
4. Keep Open profile pages enabled if you need phone, ZIP, descriptions, and ratings.
5. Click Start.
6. Export results from the default dataset as CSV, JSON, Excel, or via API.

Input example

{
  "startUrls": [
    { "url": "https://www.churchfinder.com/churches/ca/los-angeles" }
  ],
  "maxItems": 25,
  "includeProfiles": true,
  "maxPagesPerCity": 3
}

City input example

If you do not provide startUrls, you can use state and city:

{
  "state": "ca",
  "city": "Los Angeles",
  "maxItems": 25,
  "includeProfiles": true
}

Output example

{
  "name": "Abundant Life Christian Church",
  "profileUrl": "https://www.churchfinder.com/churches/ca/los-angeles/abundant-life-christian-church",
  "denomination": "Disciples of Christ",
  "address": "3500 S Normandie Ave Los Angeles, CA 90007 United States",
  "city": "Los Angeles",
  "state": "CA",
  "zip": "90007",
  "phone": "(323) 733-8082",
  "website": null,
  "email": null,
  "pastor": null,
  "serviceTimes": null,
  "description": "Abundant Life Christian Church is a Christian church in Los Angeles California.",
  "rating": 5,
  "reviewCount": 1,
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.churchfinder.com/churches/ca/los-angeles"
}

Tips for better results

• Start with one city and a low maxItems value.
• Enable profile pages when contact details matter.
• Disable profile pages for faster directory-only collection.
• Increase maxPagesPerCity for larger cities.
• Use profileUrl as your dedupe key in downstream systems.

Directory-only vs profile mode

Directory-only mode is faster because it saves data visible on city listing pages.

Profile mode is richer because it opens each church profile. Profile pages can include:

• Phone numbers
• ZIP codes
• About text
• Review counts
• Ratings
• More precise denomination data

Integrations

You can connect the dataset to common lead and research workflows:

• Export CSV to Google Sheets or Excel
• Send JSON records into a CRM
• Use Apify integrations to trigger webhooks after a run
• Combine with enrichment tools for website or email validation
• Schedule recurring city checks for directory monitoring

API usage with Node.js

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: process.env.APIFY_TOKEN });

const run = await client.actor('automation-lab/churchfinder-directory-scraper').call({
  startUrls: [{ url: 'https://www.churchfinder.com/churches/ca/los-angeles' }],
  maxItems: 25,
  includeProfiles: true
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items);

API usage with Python

from apify_client import ApifyClient
import os

client = ApifyClient(os.environ['APIFY_TOKEN'])

run = client.actor('automation-lab/churchfinder-directory-scraper').call(run_input={
    'startUrls': [{'url': 'https://www.churchfinder.com/churches/ca/los-angeles'}],
    'maxItems': 25,
    'includeProfiles': True,
})

items = client.dataset(run['defaultDatasetId']).list_items().items
print(items)

API usage with cURL

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/automation-lab~churchfinder-directory-scraper/runs?token=$APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{
    "startUrls": [{"url":"https://www.churchfinder.com/churches/ca/los-angeles"}],
    "maxItems": 25,
    "includeProfiles": true
  }'

Use with MCP

You can call this actor from AI tools through Apify MCP. Use the hosted MCP server and expose this actor as a tool:

https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=automation-lab/churchfinder-directory-scraper

Claude Desktop MCP setup

Add this server to your Claude Desktop MCP configuration file:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apify-churchfinder": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "mcp-remote",
        "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=automation-lab/churchfinder-directory-scraper"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Restart Claude Desktop, then ask it to run the ChurchFinder Directory Scraper tool with a public ChurchFinder city URL.

Cursor MCP setup

Add this to your Cursor MCP configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apify-churchfinder": {
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=automation-lab/churchfinder-directory-scraper"
    }
  }
}

After saving, reload Cursor and enable the apify-churchfinder server in MCP settings.

VS Code MCP setup

For VS Code MCP-compatible clients, add a server entry similar to:

{
  "servers": {
    "apify-churchfinder": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=automation-lab/churchfinder-directory-scraper"
    }
  }
}

If your VS Code MCP extension expects mcpServers instead of servers, use the Cursor-style JSON above.

Example prompts:

• "Scrape 25 ChurchFinder churches in Los Angeles and summarize denominations."
• "Find ChurchFinder profiles in Houston and return churches with phone numbers."
• "Create a CSV-ready list of public ChurchFinder church leads from this city URL."

Legality

This actor collects public data from public ChurchFinder pages. You are responsible for using the data lawfully and respectfully.

Do not use scraped contact data for spam, harassment, or unlawful discrimination. Follow applicable privacy, marketing, and data-protection rules in your jurisdiction.

FAQ and troubleshooting

Why are some fields empty?

ChurchFinder profiles vary. Some churches do not list a phone number, website, email, service time, or reviews. Empty fields are returned as null.

Why did I get fewer results than requested?

The city may have fewer public listings than your maxItems, or your maxPagesPerCity limit may stop pagination early. Increase maxPagesPerCity if you need more from a large city.

Should I disable profile pages?

Disable includeProfiles when you only need name, profile URL, denomination, and rough address. Keep it enabled for richer lead records.

Related scrapers

Other automation-lab actors that may support lead-generation workflows:

• https://apify.com/automation-lab/google-maps-scraper
• https://apify.com/automation-lab/yelp-scraper
• https://apify.com/automation-lab/business-directory-scraper
• https://apify.com/automation-lab/website-contact-finder

Changelog

0.1

Initial version for public ChurchFinder city and profile pages.

Support

If a page does not parse correctly, include the ChurchFinder URL, your run input, and a sample of the missing fields when reporting the issue.