Archive for category: Ministry

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4 Ways Your Church Can Use Mobile Technology

mobile phone and bible

I remember when I got my first mobile phone. It was the fall of 1996 and I was living with my wife in Austin, Texas. I had gone to the mall to buy some jeans and came across a kiosk for Sprint. They were offering “free” cell phones when you signed a two-year agreement.

It was a Nokia 2160 and by today’s standards it was heavy, ugly, and had limited functionality. But it was mine. And it was glorious. It could do everything I needed it to. I could call my friends and family whenever and wherever I was. It was the dawn of a new era. And it was only the beginning…

Today, people are connected to everything and everyone 24/7 via smartphones. Recent statistics reveal how mobile Internet access has become integral to our lives today:

  • More than 50 percent of smartphone users immediately pick up their smartphones when they wake up
  • By 2018, 8 in 10 email users will likely access their email accounts exclusively from their mobile devices
  • Within two years, there will be more than 3 billion smartphones in use

The mass adoption of smartphones has transformed how people shop, get their news, and communicate. And it can transform your ministry too.

How Mobile Technology Can Enhance Your Ministry

We’re now living in a mobile-first world. So two key questions for today’s ministries are:

  • How can your church leverage mobile technology to better equip your staff and lay leaders?
  • How can mobile tech help your church stay better connected and build stronger relationships with congregation members?

Here are four examples of ways mobile technology can help churches accomplish these goals:

  1. Check-ins for small group leaders – Mobile technology can be used to help you keep more accurate track of who’s showing up for small group events.
  2. Task management for ministry/discipleship – You can use mobile tech to assign specific outreach tasks to members of your leadership team.
  3. Sermons on the go – If someone can’t make it on Sunday, they can still listen (or re-listen) to your sermon right from their phone.
  4. Mobile giving ­– Congregation members can make gifts to your church in the most convenient way possible.

Moving Forward with a Mobile-Friendly Ministry

In today’s world, mobile devices are where we turn for everything from paying bills to buying clothes to watching movies to connecting with friends. It’s where people are looking and how they are connecting.

That’s why it’s essential for today’s churches to have a mobile presence. You want to be where your congregation members are. As technology continues to become more pervasive in our culture, it is important that we, the Church, leverage it in creative ways to spread the Gospel… for such a time as this.

Learn more about how mobile technology can benefit your church. Download “5 Ways That Mobile Tech Can Transform Your Ministry” now.

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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.

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The Party’s Over…

2017-06-13_09-22-33Whew! There is nothing like ‘VBS tired’. Whether you have 30, 300, or 3,000 in your Vacation Bible School, workers get tired…really tired. It is a bone-aching tired. However, it comes with a huge plus – knowledge that you had a chance to have a positive impact in the life of a child. Makes it all worth it, doesn’t it?

What’s next? VBS has come and gone. Now what? We have a few suggestions for you.

  1. Followup – Check out this updated blog post with ideas for finding those you need to reach out to, and links to help articles to help you accomplish that. This is your best opportunity of the year to reach unchurched families. Don’t let it pass you by.
  2. Express Gratitude – You have quite a few people to thank – parents for bringing their children (you might do that with ‘front-porch visits’ – see the blog post mentioned above), workers for their commitment to make that week happen, housekeeping staff for cleaning up after you all week, office staff for whatever support they gave you throughout the week. Be sure to thank them with an email, or cookies in the break room…something that lets them know their participation did not go unnoticed.
  3. Clean up your data – Admin users, run the Duplicate Finder to get any duplicate records merged so you can minister effectively to the right people. Staff, once you’ve finished with the VBS orgs, drop everyone and make those orgs Inactive (your Admin can do that from the Org > Search page, just let him know when to do that for you). Remember – you can always find those that attended VBS by using Search Builder. See the blog post mentioned above. Children do not need to stay enrolled in VBS all year!
  4. Rest – You probably don’t have long to do this, as some other event or program is probably just around the corner. But do take some time to get refreshed and energized so you do not get burnt out doing God’s work at your church. Read a new book; go to the zoo; have an old-fashioned picnic in the park with your spouse, your children or grandchildren…or just catch up on some sleep. Take care of yourself (and don’t neglect your own spiritual growth) so you can minister effectively to others.

Read more…in this updated blog post about effective VBS followup.

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Deceased This Month Report-SQL Recipe

2017-03-29_15-11-27This report is not just showing those that have passed away during the current month and year. It is a report that finds everyone in your database that has a deceased date with the current month – for all years. It it for a specific type of ministry.

The purpose is to give you a list of those whose deceased anniversary is in the current month, so that you can reach out to any surviving family members to let them know you are praying for them. The report itself has the deceased person’s name and a link to the people record (so you can find their family members) as well as the deceased date month/day/year. It sorts by the most recent date. So, it will include any people that have passed away in the actual current month/year.

This may not be something that every church will be able to use, but we know some churches really try to reach out to those surviving spouses or children somewhere around the first anniversary date of their loved one’s passing.

If you are interested in this report, just follow the instructions in the help article. We have everything you need – just copy and paste. As with all SQL and Python scripts, these must be added to your database by someone with the Admin user role at your church.

Read more…

 

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New DocX Merge in TouchPoint

Once again, a developer working for one of our TouchPoint churches helping them automate some of their tasks has collaborated with us on an excellent new feature that we have added to the open source project. It is a Word merge inside TouchPoint. This requires initial setup by your System Admin for your specific letters, but the merge letters themselves will be on the blue Toolbar as Custom Reports for use by your staff.

In very simple terms, here is how it works.

  • Create a letter using email replacement codes and save it as a Word document (docx).
  • Upload the document to our TouchPoint servers.
  • Create a special Custom Report that will be a URL link to this document.
  • Run your search, select your merge report from the blue Toolbar, then print and mail your letters.

This is perfect for sending letters to first-time givers, new members, letters requesting updated information…or many other scenarios. Your System Admin can follow the instructions in our help article to upload your documents for easy access when you are ready to create a mail merge. A user role is built in to the Custom Report, so only users that need to use these documents will see them as options. You determine what that role should be.

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Thank you to our friends at FCC Hudson and Keith for the idea behind this and for collaborating with us on this new feature. We are always thrilled when developers at a church solve a need for the ministry and offer their work product back to the TouchPoint community. That is open source at its best.

Read more…

 

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