Piloting a helicopter demands one’s complete attention to control the madness of the multiple parts of the machine. Pilots lean on 3 dimensional thinking to navigate the constant roll, pitch and yaw and move in the desired direction. It reminds me of the skills needed to operating a successful church. Cultivating a well rounded ministry requires simple systems, a focused strategy, and powerful tools. Churches are more than worship services, bigger than small groups, take more energy kid’s ministry, and more complex than special events or service opportunities.
The truth is, you have to do it all, and you have to do it well. Let’s consider the many things churches need to master to build a successful ministry and the tools needed to get the work done.
1) ASSIMILATION & DISCIPLESHIP
Churches want people to come onboard and stay onboard, and people are looking for churches to join. Visiting a church is intimidating. It’s never easy for someone to be the “new kid on the block.” Assimilation is the cure for intimidation. Even though churches want people to get involved and people want to get involved, it doesn’t always happen. Ministries must provide people clearly marked “next steps” they need to get involved and stay involved. The assimilation and discipleship plan must be clear for both leaders to reference and church members to follow. Realm’s pathways gives leadership the digital tools to create simple steps to get assimilation done.
2) GROUPS & TEAMS
Church is a team sport, and the teams that play well together win together. Constant multilayered communication is the lynchpin of great teams. The basic communication a team needs consists of who’s on the roster, where the game is being played, what time the game starts, and how the game is to be played. Realm’s Groups provides churches the ability to manage all of this. The next layer of communication happens in real time. Players need to adjust during the game as things come up and stuff needs to change. Realm’s Groups gives church teams a place to communicate so they can adjust to the constant demands of change.
3) FINANCES
God can use a churches who have no money. However, God can use a church with money to do greater things than one without money, as long as that church is focused on His Kingdom. Churches have to make it easy for people to give, make tracking gifts efficient, and budget their resources well. Realm takes care of all of this. People can give online for via text message, gifts are automatically recorded, and the accounting module makes budgets work.
4) COMMUNICATION & COMMUNITY
A church without community isn’t a church, community can’t happen without communication. There are more communication tools than ever before, but that makes churches compete with every voice, status update, commercial, phone call, email, text message, direct mail, movie, concert, and radio show out there for people’s attention. If they are going to accomplish their mission, they have to break through the noise. Realm Connect makes it easy for churches to break through the noise of life and communicate with each other. It gives leaders a chance to speak to the whole church or specific groups of people, and it gives people a chance to communicate with each other.
5) PROFILES
A church is as strong as its people. As numbers of people grow, the ability to know everyone shrinks. Leaders must know their people if they are going to be able to lead them effectively. They have to understand them if they are going to equip and empower them to fulfill God’s purpose for their lives. Realm makes it easy for leaders to find people who meet certain criteria and get in touch with them. It allows members to track their giving history, and gives them control over their privacy settings so they can connect with the people who matter most to them.
6) DASHBOARDS & REPORTS
Good data drives good decisions. Effective churches track more than attendance and offering totals. Sometimes they way we feel something went is not actually reflected in the numbers. Church leaders need to be led by the Spirit and they must understand their church’s data. It’s hard to make decisions about the future if you don’t know how effective things were in the past. Leaders should know who is attending their groups, how many people have given for the first time, and the demographics of their church. Realm provides a power set of dashboards with the data churches need to make decisions.
7) EVENTS
Special events reach new people and keep people connected, but they take a ton of work and planning. Churches create events that reach their community, build community within their existing body of believers, and give people a chance to be a part of something bigger than themselves. Successful events require a mixture of planning and promotion. Realm’s Groups help ministries plan and promote events while Realm’s Registration Events help people register for them. Realm provides the tools that support successful special events.
8) ATTENDANCE & CHECK-IN
Churches need to know how many people participate in it’s different ministries so that they can leverage their resources effectively. Attendance numbers aren’t the gold standard of success, but they provide a reading of the ministries health. Today’s Kid’s Ministries need a check-in system to keep kids safe, help parents feel secure, and supply workers with the information they need to minister effectively. Realm gives churches a way to take attendance within various ministry offerings so that church leadership knows who is going to which group. Realm’s Check-In is the perfect tool for kid’s ministry.