Spring Boot Church API

Church Management System

A Spring Boot-powered backend API for managing church operations including members, departments, events, families, contributions, announcements, sermons, and attendance tracking.

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Technologies Used

• Java 17
• Spring Boot 3.5.0
• PostgreSQL Database
• Spring Data JPA
• Spring Web
• Maven

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Project Structure & Design Principles

This project follows the Separation of Concerns (SoC) principle and clean architecture:

Layered Architecture

Layer	Description
Controller	Handles HTTP requests and delegates to the service layer
Service interface and service implemenation class	Interface define the methods and its implementation class contains the business logic
Repository	Interacts with the PostgreSQL database via Spring Data JPA
DTOs	Used for API data transfer — no entity exposure
Mappers	Convert between DTOs and Entities
Entities	Represent database tables
ApiResponse	Standard response format for all endpoints
Exception Handlers	Global handler to catch and respond with meaningful errors

Benefits:

• Scalable and maintainable
• Clean and reusable code
• API consistency with custom response wrapper
• Separation of business logic from web logic

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Global Exception Handling

A centralized exception handler (GlobalExceptionHandler) is implemented using @ControllerAdvice, which manages:

• ResourceNotFoundException
• IllegalArgumentException
• Validation errors
• Any unexpected exceptions

It ensures clients receive consistent and descriptive error messages.

Example Error Response:

{
  "status": "error",
  "message": "Member not found with ID: 5",
  "data": null
}

Clone the Project

# Clone the repository to your local machine

git clone https://github.com/Collins0399/springboot-church-api.git

cd church-management-system

Configure the Database

1. Create a PostgreSQL database:

CREATE DATABASE churchdb;

2. Configure application.yml located at src/main/resources/application.yml: yaml

server:
  port: 9001

spring:
  application:
    name: Church

  datasource:
    url: jdbc:postgresql://localhost:5432/church_db
    username: your_username
    password: your_password
    driver-class-name: org.postgresql.Driver

  jpa:
    hibernate:
      ddl-auto: update
    show-sql: true
    properties:
      hibernate:
        format_sql: true
    database-platform: org.hibernate.dialect.PostgreSQLDialect
 

Run the Application

Option 1:Using Maven (Terminal)

mvn clean install
mvn spring-boot:run

Option 2: Using IntelliJ IDEA

Open the project in your IDE.

Locate the main class: ChurchManagementSystemApplication.java

Right-click → Run.

Access the app at:

http://localhost:9001