Archive for category: Marketing Blog

What Features Should You Look for in a Church Management System?

There are literally dozens of church management solutions out there. Given the abundance of systems available, it can feel overwhelming to start narrowing down your search. But you can eliminate well over half of the available options simply by deciding which features your church management software must have.

“Well,” you may be asking yourself, “that’s great and all, but how do I even know which features I should demand my church management software have?” A practical way to approach this question is to first establish what you would like to accomplish as a church.

Determine the top goal you’re looking to achieve

Ask yourself and your team: What’s one thing you want to do better as a church and ministry staff? A few examples of top ministry goals include:

  • Equipping staff with tools for better assimilating new members to the church
  • Giving lay leaders tools to manage their individual small groups or ministries
  • Unifying all the church’s data into a single database

Once you’ve established a concrete and measurable goal, you can begin to evaluate each church management system’s suite of features for how well they will help you reach that goal.

Identify system features that fit your objective

Some examples of features that could help your ministry achieve the goals noted above include:

  • Check-ins – Check-in for children’s ministry should not only provide security and name badges for children, but it should also record attendance in your database. Many churches have gotten away from taking attendance in classes and Sunday services, largely for practical reasons. Sometimes the only way churches have of knowing which families are most active is to check how often their kids are attending children’s ministry.
  • Registrations –Churches do a lot of registrations. Unfortunately many church management softwares are clunky when it comes to accomplishing this task. Since this tends to be a troublesome area, ask: What does this software do to smooth out the rough edges of the registration process? How can it make registrations quicker, easier and more convenient for your church?
  • Contributions – Contributions are going to be a key element of whatever system you are using. Does the system support not just one-time giving but recurring giving? Can people get their contribution statements after they have given through the system? How much of the contribution do you get to keep (what are the transaction fees)? These are key things to look for as you scout church management systems.
  • Reporting – Your database is only as valuable as (1) the data that’s in it, and (2) the data you can get out of it. If you can’t get data out of your database, what’s the point of putting it in? Look for systems that provide strong reporting you can actually use.

Focus your search on the specific needs of your church

There are a lot of great church management systems out there that can do a lot of great things. But they may not necessarily be great for your church. Focus on your needs by honing in on what you really want to accomplish. This will help make your search more targeted and fruitful.

If your goal is putting tools in the hands of lay leaders, look for systems with things like check-in and registration features that will be useful to them. If your top priority is unifying all your data, make sure you focus only on systems that will connect directly to your database. Let your goals drive your search, especially in the early stages when you have a ton of different options in front of you.

Learn more tips for finding the best church management system to meet the specific needs of your church. Download our free resource “What to Know Before You Switch” now.

/0 Comments/by
, , ,

Webinar: Next Gen Digital Giving

In this webinar, we partnered with Pushpay to unpack the top digital giving strategies and tools you need to know about in 2020 and beyond.

/0 Comments/by
, , ,

How Mobile Tech Can Assist Your Support Staff and Lay Leaders

Running an effective ministry is all about teamwork. No one person can do it alone. In order to effectively tend to your flock and give them the support and attention they need, you must have a team of people working together.

That’s why ministry staff and lay leaders are such an essential part of your church community. They allow you to accomplish more, to reach more members, to enable people to become disciples who make disciples.

In order to help your support staff and lay leaders be as effective as they possibly can you want to equip them with the tools they need to succeed. That’s where technology comes in.

2 Valuable Ways Mobile Technology Can Benefit Lay Leaders

Here are two examples of ways you can use mobile technology to make your ministry team more effective:

  1. Check-ins for small group leaders

Small groups are a great way to foster relationships with other believers and encourage spiritual growth. But managing small groups can easily devolve into an unwieldy black hole when it comes to tracking participation and engagement.

Church leaders who measure ministry effectiveness by the health of their small groups want to know:

  • Who is attending?
  • When are they attending?
  • Who has stopped attending?

Some churches ask their small-group leaders for an average estimate of the number of attendees. Others require their group leaders to use sign-in sheets. This method can be effective, but it comes with its own set of challenges inherent to any manual analog system.

Any system that relies on manual processes for accuracy is likely to succumb to human error. The good news is there are now mobile apps available that empower lay leaders to report attendance and make notes about the members they are discipling.

The apps automatically update the Church Management System with who did and didn’t attend. Later, church staffers are able to run attendance reports from which church leaders can gauge overall small-group engagement levels. This is a real time-saver for office staff and it leads to more accurate information.

  1. Task management for ministry/discipleship

In 2003, I was a guitarist in a secular rock band. I had given my life to Christ and had been serving on the worship team in my local Church. I was often at Church four to five times a week. I loved my new friends, my pastors and my life. I was connected… And then I wasn’t.

My band went on tour and my support system went from 5,000 to nothing. Sure, a couple of friends reached out, and one of the pastors gave me a call, but it was hard. I was a young believer and I felt alone. And while some people knew I was away and unable to engage in the body, to most it seemed like I just dropped off the face of the earth.

Jesus spent a lot of time talking about the Lost. One of my favorite stories in the Bible is the parable of the lost sheep: “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?”

The good news is today Church leaders don’t have to rely on memory alone to keep track of all the “sheep” in their flocks. Technology makes it easy to track all of your members and assign outreach tasks to the folks on your ministry team. These tasks trigger push notifications on lay leaders’ mobile phones and enable them to see the task along with the phone number, address, Google map, and notes for the assignment.

These new mobile tools enable support staff and lay leaders to better do their jobs. And that results in a more connected community for your ministry.

Download our free resource “5 Ways That Mobile Tech Can Transform Your Ministry” to see other ways mobile technology can help support your church.

 

/by

Make Sure You Don’t Lose Your Data When Switching Church Management Systems

Anyone who has ever lost a Word document they were working on because they forgot to save the file or their computer suddenly shut down knows the painful heartbreak of lost data. It’s a soul-crushing experience. You have something so valuable and then, in an instant, it’s gone.

What will happen to your old data is a too-often-overlooked element of switching church management systems. Here’s what you don’t want to happen: You don’t want to fall in love with a software on the front-end, only to find out on the backend you’re not going to be able to bring over the data that you thought you could. That’s why you have to ask the right questions early in the process.

Three key questions to ask about ChMS data conversion

When it comes to data conversion, what are the things you need to think about as your explore new church management systems? Start with these questions:

1. What data do you need to bring over?

What data do you have that it’s critical you bring over to the new system? This is an important thing to know and may even help determine which systems you choose to explore further (it could be a non-negotiable).

Make sure you ask software salespeople upfront, what kind of data can I bring over? Giving history? Attendance history? And what might be lost if I switch to this software? Know what the situation is with each software, so you can ask yourself and your team the next questions…

2. What would losing your previous data mean?

What’s it going to mean for your team if you can’t bring over your giving history? Or what if you can bring over last year’s giving data, but you can’t bring over any previous years? What’s it going to mean for your small group leaders if you can’t access attendance history from last year? What’s the impact level?

For some churches, losing past data might not be a big deal. It may be easily accessible from another space when necessary. For other churches, it may be a big deal. Your team may need to access that data for all sorts of things. That’s why you want to make sure you ask whoever’s telling you about the software, am I going to be able to bring over the data that I need?

3. What are the hidden costs of lost data?

Going back to the previous conversation about cost, how much will it cost your church if you lose your previous data or if you can’t have all your data in one place? Again, this doesn’t necessarily mean how much money will it cost you. Is it going to cost your team time and aggravation?

For example: If there’s ever a question about who attended camp back in 2015, the person who’s checking will have to go to a separate system to find that data. It may seem like a small hassle in the moment. But, over time, small hassles tend to pile up and become big hassles. And that can come at a cost.

Think ahead by looking back at your data

Switching over to a new church management system isn’t only about what happens to your data moving forward. It’s about integrating your existing data to make it convenient and accessible for your team. You want to make sure you can bring over information from previous systems without losing what’s important.

10-questions-devicesLearn more valuable insights about shopping for a new church management system by downloading our free content paper “What to Know Before You Switch” now.

/0 Comments/by
, ,

Bringing the Church to Your Members via Mobile

It’s a fact of life: People can’t always make it to church. Whether they’re sick, out of town, or dealing with whatever curveball life has thrown at them on that particular Sunday, sometimes people just can’t physically be there.

So what’s the best thing to do when a person can’t make it to your church? Bring your church to them! Now if you just have one or two people out, that might actually be feasible. But when you get into the dozens it can’t be more complicated, if not downright impossible.

Fortunately, this is an area where technology can be a great resource for churches.

2 Ways Mobile Technology Can Benefit Parishioners

Technology can help bring your church to people wherever they are, offering opportunities for them to be engaged and involved even when they are not physically present. Here are a couple of examples:

  1. Sermons on-the-go

I love my Church. I love the worship, the message, the leadership team, and I have built a close circle of friends. On rare occasions, I may not get to attend on a Sunday (sick child, out of town, etc.) and, while I may miss the fellowship, I no longer have to miss the service.

Many churches are now using technology to spread the Gospel beyond the four walls of the church. You no longer need a million dollar budget and a satellite channel to broadcast your weekly services.

Here a few super easy options to offer your sermons online for mobile users:

  • Facebook Live is a great way for your congregation to view sermons on the go, and all it requires is a mobile phone and the Facebook app.
  • iTunes Podcasts are my favorite way to pass the time whenever I have to brave the Austin traffic.
  • SoundCloud Podcasts are a fantastic alternative to iTunes.

Offering mobile-ready versions of your sermons is a great way to keep your congregation engaged when life gets in the way of attending a service.

  1. Mobile giving

When I was a kid, we passed the collection plate every week and I was always excited when I had the opportunity to give a couple of quarters. Keep in mind that back then if you needed some cash you had to go to the bank during business hours.

This was in the 80s and ATMs were not in widespread use. Over the last few years we have seen a vast migration of business transactions move from the traditional brick-and-mortar storefront to the digital world. Amazon Prime anyone? Can I get an Amen?

While many Churches are now offering an online portal, it’s time to step it up and offer a mobile-first solution. Today, many people—especially younger people—do not carry cash or checks anymore.

A recent “State of the Plate” report found only 21% of millennials were interested in giving on a church website, but 49% were interested in giving on a mobile app.

Providing folks an opportunity to give on their phones is a great addition to passing the collection plate, and you can even link to the mobile-giving app from an SMS text message.

These are just two examples of ways your church can use mobile to build stronger connections with congregation members. In both cases the idea is the same: Remove the barriers preventing interactions with parishioners and bring your church to your community members wherever they may be.

Learn more ways going mobile can benefit your church—download “5 Ways That Mobile Tech Can Transform Your Ministry” today.

/by
RESOURCES

Subscribe to Our Newsletter

Get product updates delivered directly to your inbox!

Join 255 other subscribers

CONNECT

Take TouchPoint for a free test drive and see if it’s right for you.

Get Started
CONTACT SALES

Users love TouchPoint Church Management Software on G2

This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.

OKLearn more