How Effective is Your Assimilation Process?

by: Church Community Builder

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While many churches implement a number of systems to help them manage the metrics that help them carry out their mission, assimilation often gets lost in the shuffle.

But assimilation, the process through which we forge interpersonal connections, plays a critical role in creating disciples. Assimilation – by fostering intimate relationships and interactions – lays the foundation for meaningful emersion in the church, and subsequently, intentional discipleship.

Assimilation begins with a person’s first visit to your church and ends when that person becomes connected to and engaged with your church. But it is possible, however, for someone to join a church without ever truly making a connection.

But you can’t steward someone without a relationship. Assimilation connects people to your church through relationships – so a church that does assimilation well will also create strong disciples.

So churches employ a variety of systems designed to help them carry out their mission because while assimilation is all about human interaction, systems help us identify and connect with real people and develop a growing relationship with God.

Assimilation includes four basic processes:

Hospitality: Do you leave the door open for guests of your home to walk in, or do you greet them at the door and warmly welcome them into your home?

Church hospitality is much the same. Feeling welcome is due largely in part to feeling comfortable and familiar – and first-time visitors don’t know how to find the restrooms, check their kids into the nursery, or get to the worship center.

And there are two ways to deal with hospitality – passively and actively. Passive hospitality provides directional signs and information for newcomers that make navigating the church easier.

But active hospitality calls for action. It welcomes newcomers with people available to greet and help anyone entering your doors.

Information Gathering: When churches gather information, they often pleasantly find that they had more visitors than they realized.

And while hospitality is hard to quantify, gathered information is easy to measure. Churches that gather information will fuel their ministry opportunities and make each person feel more valued and known.

So with accurate metrics, a church can not only know their attendance numbers, but also the number of new visitors and recognize changes in the attendance patterns of their returning congregants.

Think of it like this: If hospitality is the heart of your system, subjective and qualitative by nature, then information gathering is its head, objective and quantifiable – and actionable with follow-up.

Follow-Up: Following up and following through is an intentional process that gives life to information cards. It’s recognizing what people need, when they need it, and provides you the tools and insight to connect with them intimately. It will also help identify opportunities for pastoral ministry.

Follow-up helps the pastor engage individuals when they need pastoral ministry through information gathering that provides the dates, milestones and prayer requests that connect people when it matters most.

Connection: Many churches confuse attendance with connection. People who feel intrinsically connected to their church – that they are valued and that they matter – are people ready to delve deeper into their relationship with Christ. Connection marks the end of assimilation and the beginning of discipleship.

People often connect to church when they develop meaningful relationships, and helping them connect at a deeper level in your church creates opportunities for responsibility and ownership.

Because when people feel that their church is intimately invested in them, they are more likely to sacrificially and intimately invest in their church – becoming members, givers, servers and volunteers, and ultimately, intentional disciples.

Every church – of every size – must have a process that supports a fully functioning system to ensure no one gets lost, left out or overlooked. Because while no data should ever be more significant than the people it represents, that data facilitates assimilation. And the more powerful your assimilation process, the more powerful your church will be.

When guests – new and returning – arrive, take care to treat them as you would a guest in your home – thoughtfully, warmly and with a comforting joy that acknowledges the value of their presence.

Because ultimately, we as church leaders are responsible for the people who come through our doors. And as a godly leader, when you help ready a heart to be receptive to God and He is allowed to infiltrate everything they do, you are cultivating intentional disciples and stewarding the people God has brought through your doors to serve Him.

Want to learn more about an effective assimilation process? Connect with an Auxano Navigator today.

> Read more from Church Community Builder.

Tags: Assimilation, Church Community Builder, Connection, Hospitality, follow-up

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Are You Placing Your Volunteers?

by: Church Community Builder

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Ministry strategy hasn’t changed much over the past millennia. And nothing can propel your ministry further and faster than thriving, healthy volunteerism and ensure the long-term health and vitality of your church.

And thankfully, people are the one resource every church has more than anything else.

Healthy volunteers are those in our pews who are growing in their relationship with God. And those people who are growing in their relationship with God naturally desire to serve.

As Chris Mavity explains in his ebook, ‘Your Volunteers: Place,’ healthy volunteerism isn’t about staffing a team of random people; it’s about knowing enough about each individual to offer a customized volunteer opportunity to fit their specific interests, skills, passions and gifts.

His ebook guides church leaders through the process of connecting people with the work in which they will thrive and equips them with the strategies and tools required to effectively steward the Church’s number one resource – people.

So then how, exactly, do we really get to know so many people in order to place them according to their innermost passions and gifts?

Getting to know a lot of people intimately is much like completing a jigsaw puzzle, Mavity explains. A jigsaw puzzle has a grand picture on the outside, but inside there are hundreds or thousands of pieces that make up the complete picture – and the same is true for your church.

The key is looking at the placement of a volunteer the same way you’d start to assemble a jigsaw puzzle – by learning the basics about them (placing corners and edges) – and creating your puzzle’s ‘frame.’ Only then will you get a sense of who the person is and in time through observation, feedback and results, you will be able to place various inside pieces, allowing you to see and understand even more about the person.

And much like fitting puzzle pieces together, you’ll find that your initial impressions and approaches to placement won’t always be the best fit. No problem. Just adjust a corner piece and some of the edge pieces to make it work.

Volunteers are a precious component of church life. When the purpose of each puzzle piece is made clear, volunteers can do amazing work to grow the Kingdom. And when you get the right person in the right place at the right time, your volunteers will grow and evolve, and you’ll become more adept at fitting more pieces into the jigsaw puzzle.

And as your church implements the ideas in ‘Your Volunteers: Place,’ you will also see discipleship-level growth that naturally multiplies.

Read more from Church Community Builder.

Tags: Church Community Builder, Church Volunteers, Volunteers

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How to Make the Most Out of Easter Attendance

by: Church Community Builder

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How a Better How Helps Every Leader

by: Church Community Builder

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“People respond not primarily to what you do, but to how you’re being … toward them.”

The goal of every leader is to develop people. But if you’ve spent any time in a leadership role, you know it’s not easy. That’s why there are thousands of books, seminars, and blog posts written on the topic.

If we want to cultivate the kind of authentic life change in the people we lead, there’s one thing that matters more than anything else – authentic leadership. Authentic church leadership produces authentic results – members and volunteers that consistently convey a genuine love for their work and a commitment to your vision to help you reach your better ‘how’ through ministry.

So how can we as church leaders express our genuine motives and cultivate life change? Here are a few key ideas:

1. Process – your HOW – must be considered first. Process should be mapped out with a core team, which includes the people with the authority to make it happen and hold people accountable. Document the process and ask this question: If all we had were people, pencils, and paper to execute the process, would it work? If the answer is ‘yes, then you have a solid process.
2. Then determine your WHY. Church leadership must articulate why their vision and new strategy matter to them, the church, and the staff. If no one knows why they matters, the strategy will fail.
3. Check yourself. The first sign that you might be in danger of falling into the trap of inauthentic leadership is believing you’re not susceptible to it. The greatest obstacle to engaging a broad base of people in your church in authentic community could be that you’ve lost touch as a leader with the people you’re leading.
4. Start with your staff. Your staff knows the truth about your church more than any other subgroup in your church. A church whose stated values don’t line up with the values expressed in the church offices Monday through Friday will leave staff leadership feeling cynical and limited in their ability to ignite ministry activity. Authentic community starts with the staff.
5. Embrace authenticity in every area of ministry, not just your preaching. Many pastors think authenticity only comes from the pulpit. However, the weekend message is only a springboard to authenticity. Creating authentic experiences doesn’t happen in an hour on Sunday morning; it comes from adopting a mindset of authenticity in everything we do.
6. Find systems – your WHAT – that support and sustain. From supporting the efficiency of a process to making sure gaps are closed, systems exist to help us do process better. This is where technology begins to enter the conversation.
7. The right technology accelerates and scales your processes for growth. Everyone needs to get this – not just the ‘tech-savvy people. This is one of the primary goals to consider when evaluating technology. ‘Techies’ don’t always have the full view into the vision and processes technology must support, yet they are often the ones making the decisions about which technology is best for your church. Prepare for misalignment when you let this happen.

And once you develop and implement a leadership strategy and process, you’ll need to apply those same guiding principles to filling your leadership pipeline.

Because – if you’re like many church leaders – you may often feel like your church has more ministry to do than people or time to do it. And if you’re a good leader who values healthy ministry, you will constantly face this challenge; it comes with the territory.

While so many church leaders say they value the idea of developing more leaders, few have processes in place to implement and measure the idea.

Tony Morgan suggests, “However many hours you are paid for or volunteer, you should take 20 percent of those hours to invest in other leaders.”

But how do you implement the 20-percent rule for developing leaders in your ministry?

Here are three simple ways church leaders can implement Tony’s 20-percent rule:

1. Make it a priority. When you’re faced with those overwhelming times of ministry, consider that the feeling is an indicator that it’s time to do one of two things: simplify or delegate. Tony points out that you don’t just wake up one day with a healthy leadership team. You have to prioritize it and then build new systems to make it happen.
2. Equip, then ask. Growing your ministry and growing leaders work hand-in-hand. Potential leaders need to go through an intentional discipleship process before they are ever approached about taking on leadership responsibilities.
3. Develop a pipeline for multiplying leaders. Leaders don’t materialize out of thin air. Determine what this process looks like for your specific church and what characteristics you are seeking in potential leaders. Churches experience exponential growth when they disciple in their community and build a leadership pipeline.

When you align your HOW (processes), WHY (vision) and WHAT (systems) with your leadership pipeline, you can directly – and positively – impact how those systems will produce the results you desire.

Dedicating a portion of your time toward authentic leadership and multiplying leaders is about more than getting rid of an overwhelming feeling. Ultimately, it’s about impacting more lives as you and your leaders begin to lead and care for those that are touched by your ministry.

> Read more from Church Community Builder.

Tags: Authentic Leadership, Church Community Builder

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What Church Leaders Must Know About Going Multi-Site

by: Church Community Builder

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For churches with plans to go multi-site, navigating what should be unique about each campus and what needs to be consistent can be tricky. Because no matter the number of campuses your church has or plans to have, multiplication is the goal – multiplying believers, ministries, groups and churches.

So if you are considering going multi-site, it’s important to stay focused on multiplying the mission of God – and not just your brand of church or the reach of one person.

So how can churches successfully expand their reach?

Strategy.

This is what is at the heart of planning for multi-site success: If you don’t have a plan, multi-site won’t work. Churches who experience rapid growth – and who maintain that growth – place a premium on intentional and strategic leadership. And strategic leaders understand that what they do has eternal significance. Church leaders have been entrusted with the spiritual care of many and to steward that carefully, they must consider strategy an important facet of their pastoral responsibility.

Leadership Development.

Multi-site ministry is about multiplying the reach of one church; it’s about one church meeting in different locations. If multiplication is the goal, then church leaders should keep developing new leaders at the center of what they do. That’s not just staff leadership but volunteer leadership, too.

Central Services.

This is one of the strongest arguments for multi-site campus development: The ability to share leadership and resources is the best stewardship decision churches can make.

And with your three key ingredients for a successful venture into multi-site now identified and defined, you’ll need to consider your church’s financial health and the ‘stories’ your numbers tell you in an effort to make your multi-site campus become self-sufficient in the shortest time possible.

Because starting a new campus is tough. Sustaining an existing campus is even tougher. But nothing compares to trying to keep a campus afloat when it becomes a big drain on the operational budget. It can really erode the excitement around your multi-site ministry.

Excitement can very quickly evolve into fear and worry as you infuse more money into your expansion campuses than you may have anticipated or budgeted, causing it to become an enormous cash burden.

So you should (and can!) understand the financial needs of what it will take to have a successful multi-site ministry before you make the leap. Here are a few tips to help your multi-site campus become self-sufficient as quickly as possible:

Buy nothing!

Buildings are short-term solutions with long-term consequences. Figure out the balance between what you need and what you need right now. The building you can afford to buy now will be too small in a few years, and you won’t be able to get the majority of that money back.

Find existing spaces that don’t need a lot of work.

These spaces typically have a good number of resources available such as seating, a stage, lighting, and audio/visual equipment in the auditorium. Not only can this offer incredible savings, but it puts you directly in touch with the families in the community.

Don’t just rent space from them – invest in them. Engage the parents in painting projects at the school, putting coats on needy kids, and making sure that hungry children are fed at lunch.

Once the campus has reached its full growth potential in attendance and giving, you can start to look at the next steps.

Meet in another church or rent a ‘timeshare’ space.

This is a great option that few churches consider. There are so many churches out there that hold only one service. Let them do their service at nine, and pay them for letting you do your service at 11.

Lease improvements/retrofits and purchasing are two very expensive options. Renting a ‘timeshare’ space can save your campus a ton of money, and help your campus get to self-sufficiency faster.

Include your campus pastor in all of the financial conversations.

Your campus pastor is the one who’s going to be building relationships with your new church members. Therefore, they will be primarily responsible for cultivating generosity at your new location. Sit down with your campus pastor, and talk about the financial plan along with a cost structure. Set goals. Follow up on them.

Grow towards your people.

A campus is an extension of your existing church, which is what makes it different than a plant or a satellite church. Use the Church Community Builder Donor Analysis Report to see where the largest – or fewest – number of your giving units drive from to attend church. If there are a decent number of people who are driving more than 15–20 minutes to attend your church from a certain area, you should have a very good idea of where your next campus should be.

You shouldn’t launch a new campus until you know how you plan to become financially stable and how long it will take you get there. That doesn’t mean there won’t be unexpected surprises along the way. It just means everything won’t be a surprise and you will be able to move forward with an even greater sense of confidence, knowing you’ll be able to sustain what you started.

The quicker your campus moves from startup to self-sufficient, the sooner you can begin planning your next launch.

> Read more from Church Community Builder.

Tags: Campus Pastor, Church Community Builder, Multi-Site

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How Technology Can Ease Your Small Group Ministry’s Growing Pains

by: Church Community Builder

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Turning the Summer Slump into a Summer Hump

by: Church Community Builder

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There’s just something about summer that makes our hearts and minds swell with its endless possibilities. Both school and the sun are out – and calendars seem to beg for adventure and change of pace. Families want to take advantage of the bounty that the warm weather brings and maximize their time together unencumbered by the (over-)scheduling of the rest of the year.

But between vacations, family reunions and other summertime activities, many churches can lose their momentum and sense of community.

ENTER: The dreaded “summer slump.”

It happens every year, and every church leader knows exactly what summer slump means: a drop in attendance, decreased participation, and reduced giving. Your church gains great momentum coming out of Easter as lives are changed, and your attendance is at an all-time high.

But then Memorial Day creeps up. Your attendance plummets, giving is down, and congregants just aren’t as connected to your mission, ministry or even to one another as they were just weeks ago.

The summer slump has begun.

According to Lifeway, average Sunday morning attendance drops by 23 percent in June and 34 percent in July – and in many churches, this ‘slump’ can last through Labor Day weekend.

This can be disheartening to a church leader when faced with the annual prospect of having to make progress toward the vision with fewer people and less money.

To combat the dreaded slump, churches just have to be willing to get a little creative. So here are three articles you may have missed that may inspire you to approach the summer slump with a renewed spirit.

Say Goodbye to The Summer Giving Slump: “You can pray about it and hope for the best, or you can pray about it and develop a plan to overcome it. If you’re interested in the second approach, here are some practical ideas for cultivating more consistent generosity during the ‘dog days.’”

4 Ideas to Keep Small Groups Thriving This Summer: “Before your church gives up on maintaining a thriving small group ministry during the summer, here are four ideas you could pass along to your leaders to keep the momentum going.”

Three Things Your Church Can Do Today to Prepare for Summer Giving: “Don’t allow summer to be a stressful season for your church. Instead, consider how these three ideas can help your church create incredible momentum for your fall kickoff and the new church year.”

So if you’re tired of dealing with summer slumps – and really, who isn’t? – consider implementing any one of these ideas this summer to see how they can serve you and your church well during the dog days of summer.

> Read more from Church Community Builder.

Tags: Church Community Builder, summer attendance decline, summer slump

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Your Volunteers: Training Your Greatest Ministry Asset

by: Church Community Builder

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Once you have recruited a volunteer – moving them from a come-and-see to a come-and-serve mindset – you’ll need to train them.

In the follow-up to ‘Your Volunteers: Recruit,’ Chris Mavity’s ‘Your Volunteers: Train’ addresses three critical components to training: the differences between training and equipping, training for the long term, and the four characteristics of healthy training – but what, exactly, does each mean and entail?

Training v. Equipping: As Mavity puts it, “Training is providing input, in various forms, to influence a person’s future actions, attitudes, and behaviors. You’ll need to train your volunteers so that they achieve the specific ministry outcomes you desire. Equipping is about providing the resources a person needs to perform the duties associated with the roles and responsibilities for which they have been selected. For example, a custodian needs a vacuum cleaner, a data entry volunteer needs a computer, and a Sunday school teacher needs a classroom and supplies.”

Training for the Long Term: There are two types of training: orientation and ongoing training. Orientation training helps your volunteers understand the role, responsibilities,and expected outcomes of the assignment. It also gives your volunteers enough guidance, information and instruction necessary to complete the assignment while helping them gain confidence. Ongoing training is focused on life-skills development by helping your volunteers become a better version of themselves and communicating that you care about them as people – not just in a ministry capacity – and that you will pour into them to make them better in all aspects of their lives.

Four Characteristics of Healthy Training: As you develop your training, keep it …

… simple. Understand the purpose or scope of your meetings and tailor your information and activities to that single purpose.

… spreadable. Volunteer training that works in one department of your church will likely be useful – with a few modifications – in others.

… scalable. As you grow, your processes will need to be able to adjust to account for the number of volunteers you have.

… scrappable. If something isn’t working, scrap it. Keep the focus on outcomes, engagement, participation and productivity.

Training your volunteers takes commitment, time, effort and energy – but it’s so worth it. When you make a commitment to training your volunteers, you’ll find that your training will keep everyone focused on growth, your volunteers will become influential members of your congregation, and you’ll better be able to anticipate what’s next.

> Read more from Church Community Builder.

Tags: Church Community Builder, Volunteer training, Volunteers, training volunteers

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Four Keys for Improving Your Assimilation Process

by: Church Community Builder

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If you ask 100 church leaders to define assimilation, you’ll probably get 100 different answers. Some might say it’s all about creating relationships. Others might say it’s when a new member joins the church.

For us, the best way to define assimilation is with a metaphor. In the same way that an engine is composed of multiple parts all working together to move a vehicle in one direction, effective assimilation is a system that involves many different areas working together to move people from first-time visitors to fully engaged members. It’s a process that begins with a person’s first visit to the church (for any reason) and ends when that person becomes connected to the people, ministries, and programs that drive the mission.

We’ve identified four keys to help you improve and streamline your assimilation process.

1. Evaluate your current process, it’s important

It is often the case in ministry that there is so much to do and too little time. Sometimes all you can do is barely keep your head afloat. It can seem daunting to imagine having the time to stop, strategize, and learn a new system. However, taking the time to think through your church assimilation process might be the single most effective choice you can make in your ministry. Having a systematic approach to your assimilation process is imperative to ensuring that no one is overlooked and that your church is not leaking people. It’s tough to know whether your assimilation process is providing enough opportunity for life change without taking a step back and evaluating your process.

2. Identify the primary areas that need attention

After having evaluated your church’s current assimilation process, what are some of the areas that need immediate attention? What role do each of these play in ensuring your church’s growth keeps… well, growing?

Each church’s assimilation process will be unique.

However, after working with many of our church partners at Church Community Builder we have identified four primary areas or processes that often need attention: Hospitality, Information Gathering, Follow-Up, and Connection.

3. Develop a strategy for improving your church’s assimilation process

Take time to intentionally invest in a plan that;s going to improve your church’s overall health and growth. A process is something that can be measured and monitored; the same should be true of your assimilation strategy. Here are some ways we’ve seen churches benefit from greater intentionality around assimilation:

• They end up mapping out how a new visitor is integrated into their community. This helps them remember the new visitor experiences.
• They develop a process that can be replicated and reproduced. These are critical to the success of your ministry, and should regularly be assessed and tweaked.
• They’re able to measure what’s working and what isn’t. You can’t manage what you don’t measure.
• They place a higher percentage of attenders into small groups. Active small group participants are more likely to be faithful givers, volunteers, and lay leaders.
• They have greater success connecting people with volunteer opportunities that match their passions and abilities. Just filling slots leads to burnout; matching people to positions leads to breakthrough.
• Their churches are producing active leaders instead of frozen chosen. They make it more comfortable for people to get involved that just sit and consume.
• They discover ministry opportunities they didn’t know existed. God has given your members unique gifts and a purpose that he wants to fulfill through your church. That purpose might be something you hadn’t considered before. 

4. Leverage technology to measure the results of your process.

Your church management system has the ability to make assimilation more efficient and effective. In addition to helping you distribute workloads, it can provide a place for recording and measuring the effectiveness of your process. The larger your church becomes, the more moving pieces there are, and the more you can your staff will need to depend on robust technology designed to accelerate the rate your people grow, connect, and engage with the long-term vision and development of your church.

A healthy church maximizes the assimilation process

There’s a quote that reads: “If you want something you’ve never had before, you have to do something you’ve never done before.” And there’s probably a list of things that you’d like to do to help your church reach more people and move those people along the pathway of discipleship. However, you can’t keep doing the same things and expecting different results. Discipleship suffers without a good assimilation process that facilitates moving people into a deeper relationship with Christ, people struggle to connect, first-time visitors are discouraged as there is nothing in place for them to move forward and connect with the church and it’s vision, and your backdoor remains just as open as your frontdoor.

The end result: overall church health decays because there is no plan in place to help people keep growing.

Maybe your assimilation process needs a quick pulse check, maybe it needs some surgery, or even a complete overhaul, one thing we know for certain is that it is essential to building a thriving ministry.

The more powerful the assimilation process, the more powerful your church will be.

Here are some practical next steps you can take today:

• Outline your church’s assimilation process. Document it.
• Assess the effectiveness of your current process. How are you doing in the 4 primary areas we identified?
• Put the necessary changes in motion

Learn more about improving your assimilation process – connect with an Auxano Navigator today.

> Read more from Church Community Builder.

Tags: Assimilation, Church Community Builder, Discipleship

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Technology, Leadership and Their Influence on Ministry

by: Church Community Builder

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We are about three months into a new year – new goals, new ideas, new plans. But for some, there are old problems hanging around like questions about technology. Decisions about church technology are usually put off until something breaks or fails regularly. At that point, the decision about what to do next is often delegated to someone who understands tech lingo rather than someone who knows how technology actually needs to help people accomplish the mission of the church.

Technology can have more of an impact than you initially think…

…it can be seen as a commodity like the paper in your copier or it can be seen as a powerful tool that empowers people and supports ministry processes.

Let’s unpack that statement and look at some of the ways technology can give you a way to measure and see that you are moving people through a path to deeper engagement with your church and in their walk with Christ.

What if using technology doesn’t feel natural to me?

This is a great starting place. Steve Caton in Getting Disciple Making Right hit the nail on the head when he said that many called into ministry, “…are probably not naturally drawn to numbers,…data analysis and complex algorithms.” Technology isn’t something you necessarily anticipated being an integral part of an effective ministry.

You spend a great deal of time preparing for such things as pastoral counseling, preaching, education strategy, and effective leadership. There are very few seminary classes on technology, especially how to use technology to make better ministry decisions.

But just because using technology might not come naturally to you doesn’t mean it can’t easily become one of the most beneficial tools for improving your ministry.

So how do we leverage it even when it doesn’t feel natural? Here are a few ideas:

• Communicate your vision. Technology used in the absence of a clear vision for success is almost a complete waste of time.
• Design good process. Before you implement any software, review the ministry process you hope it will support. Does it still work? Does everyone know their role? Do you hold people accountable?
• Develop ministry opportunities for those gifted with technology. If your church struggles to use social media, create a volunteer team of people with experience to help.
• Celebrate people who are good with technology just as much as you celebrate any other volunteer in your church.
• Create a specific ministry in your church to connect generations. Creating a ministry opportunity for younger members of your church to show older members how to use technology to stay connected with family or benefit from tools they’re interested in is a great way to develop the intergenerational community that every church needs. It can also be equally beneficial for the younger generation to learn skills (construction, repair, sewing, baking, etc.) from the older generation.

Your church management software is more than a database.

So since much of this might not come naturally to you, it is understandably easy to get into the habit of thinking of your church management software as just a database in which to keep track of attendance and giving. Moving beyond this thinking is a great step to seeing your church management software as something that allows you to see God’s hand in and through your ministry.

How can that begin to happen?

Two steps can be a great leap forward in moving beyond simply seeing numbers and seeing ways to continue ministry, improve ministry, and grow to be more effective in growing disciples.

We all have systems and processes that we use to do church (i.e., engage people, equip people, and multiply disciples). Communicating with small groups, keeping attendance in children’s ministry, and placing volunteers are examples of common systems.

The first step in allowing your church management software to deepen engagement is to first evaluate your processes for these ministries. Once you’ve taken a close look at your processes and decided which of those are effective, then look for technology that is going to support those systems, processes and the people who really drive your church. The technology should fit your effective processes – not the other way around.

Second, look for technology that is going to be usable by a wide variety of people. The more people who can use the technology, the greater and richer the data becomes, thereby giving you a richer resource from which to determine your continued efficacy, new directions you should take, and what systems might need changing.

How can I connect more effectively with different types of church members?

You’re growing to be comfortable with the idea of using technology in ministry. You’ve taken a close look at your church’s systems for effective ministry and chosen a church management system that supports those processes. So how can you use all this new information and technology to increase your church’s ministry with the various people who walk through your doors?

Certainly, ministry would be easy if everyone in your church understood your church’s vision and shared the same passion for reaching others. Unfortunately, that will probably never be the case. Will Mancini has identified four different types of members who make up every church. Each member has a different level of understanding of the vision of the church and their role in accomplishing it.

• These are people that understand the vision of your church and play an important role in achieving it.
• These are people who understand where your church wants to go, but haven’t taken an active role in make it happen.
• These are people who might be actively involved but don’t have a clear understanding of where your church is headed. Therefore, they end up hijacking whatever ministry they’re involved with.
• These are people who understand neither the vision of your church nor why they are important.

Technology can play a huge role in helping you keep your ‘crew’ energized and moving other types of church members toward becoming actively engaged church members.

• Technology helps you really ‘know’ your crew. It’s important to develop a clear portrait of your key volunteers. Whether it’s a volunteer who’s been serving at your church for the past 15 years or a first-time giver, your ability to make your ‘crew members’ feel appreciated depends on how much you know.
• Technology helps you activate passengers. Instead of relying on the same volunteers or donors time and time again, technology allows church leaders to embrace the decentralized shift our culture has made. Technology allows you to reach church members where they are, communicate with them effectively, and connect them with a ministry that aligns with their skills and passions.
• Technology helps you convert pirates. Most of the time, people who hijack ministries do so because they aren’t properly equipped. Before anyone starts serving in your ministry, they need to be equipped with supporting relationships, biblical teaching, encouragement, support, accountability, a sense of belonging, and a sense of purpose.
• Technology helps you invite stowaways to become passengers. There is a reason some churches are full of spectators. Churches which value connections understand that life change happens when you help your church members become the ministry, which only happens when you effectively help people engage with the culture and mission of your church.

We started out by saying technology can give you a way to measure and see that you are moving people through a path to deeper engagement with your church and in their walk with Christ. Here are 5 simple concepts that look at technology as a tool to increase engagement, equip more of your church body, and increase your disciple-making capabilities.

1. Technology can be used to help you remember what you know about people in your church, allowing you to connect more effectively with people.

2. Technology enables your churches to create numerous waves of momentum instead of getting stuck in an uncomfortable spot without a plan. Without thinking strategically about your technology, you miss the opportunity to record and analyze important data that illustrates the growth pattern of your congregation.

3. Thinking strategically about your technology gives you the opportunity to record and analyze the important data that illustrates the growth pattern of your congregation.

4. Thinking strategically about your technology can have a significant impact on how well you are connecting with first-time guests and what you learn from those who don’t return. People want to know they matter and feel a sense of belonging. Technology helps you avoid becoming a catch and release ministry.

5. Technology can improve the effectiveness of your small group ministries and depth of community. How can you expect authentic community and care to happen in the absence of accurate information?

Technology in the church can be so much more than it often is. Taking the time to be strategic with it won’t be easy or fast but it’s so worth it!

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Tags: Church Community Builder, Leadership, Technology

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