Winter is a busy season in ministry. You’re starting to reflect on this year’s ministry opportunities and look ahead at the new year, all while preparing for the holiday season and planning your Christmas ministry ideas. While looking at your successes of this year and goals for next year, be sure to evaluate how your current church or parish management solution supported your efforts and where the gaps are that need to be filled.
Some of the ministry goals we hear the most from growing churches, parishes, and dioceses are:
- Measuring discipleship and engagement growth
- Connecting with congregants or parishioners in personal ways while continuing to grow technology to reach beyond the walls
- Encouraging spiritual stewardship
- Using administrative staff time more effectively
If your current winter church solution isn’t meeting those needs, check out MinistryPlatform and how it meets all those and more!
Measure Discipleship and Engagement Growth
Growth isn’t all about numbers but more about the spiritual development of those within your church or parish. Many of the steps taken during that growth and development can be tracked, such as participation in groups, sacraments, milestones, and much more. This helps you to know where someone is in their spiritual journey and where they may need help as they move forward.
MinistryPlatform has all kinds of tools and processes that can show you where someone is along their journey and which step they might be ready for next. Our system can automatically change someone’s engagement level or their active/inactive status based on criteria you determine ahead of time. From assimilation to leadership, we can help you target gaps so you are better equipped to reach out and help someone take their next step.
Connect Inside and Outside the Walls
If you’re only connecting with your church or parish through one-way communications, you’re missing a vital part of building a stronger family of believers.
Think about it like this: When I call my internet service provider, I have to go through a series of automated, one-way communications where they tell me news and offers. However, while I listen to those and may find something useful from them, I’m just waiting (impatiently, if I’m honest) to speak to an actual person to talk through my need. Your members are the same. They may benefit from hearing your announcements and news. However, they are longing for a personal connection to your church and others in it.
PocketPlatform was built from the ground up to provide a rich and engaging app experience for MinistryPlatform congregations. This means your members can engage with each other and their groups, view group gatherings on the calendar, and more. Plus, leaders have tools to take attendance, share curriculum, and talk to those in their groups. PocketPlatform also allows you to segment content to specific audiences, so your congregants or parishioners are getting the information relevant to them.
You can continue sharing content such as news and announcements, but do it more effectively using widgets to automatically push events or other content from MinistryPlatform to your mobile app (and your website!).
Encourage Spiritual Stewardship
Part of the spiritual journey is learning faithful stewardship, and it’s your responsibility to be faithful stewards of the gifts given by contributors. Are you currently providing ways for your contributors to easily give tithes and offerings, and are you tracking those gifts appropriately?
MinistryPlatform integrates with a number of giving providers, including Vanco, the preferred MinistryPlatform payment processor. Vanco makes giving and payments easy for your donors, volunteers, and staff. Giving can also be integrated with PocketPlatform to provide a seamless mobile app-giving experience.
We’ve got your contributions covered. Whether scanning or manually entering them into MinistryPlatform. Or exporting journal entries and bank reconciliations to your accounting system and everything in between. Our Batch Manager Tool uses state-of-the-art CAR/LAR technology. It has a streamlined UI with all your donation processing details on one screen. You can scan checks or envelopes, and the image files are easily accessible in the donation record in MP.
Use Administrative Staff Time More Effectively
Being on staff at a church is more than a job. It’s a calling! As a former church staff member, I can relate to the frustration of using a system in a way it isn’t designed to try and fit it to your needs. So much time is spent, and the results aren’t always what you expect. If that’s your current situation, consider a solution built that is customizable to your needs From fields to reports to security, MinistryPlatform offers the flexibility needed to support your ministry.
MinistryPlatform allows almost any functionality almost anywhere you need it. You can email from anywhere in the system. Or create a chart or graph for just about anything you can imagine, and reports are customizable and flexible. No more screenshots or exporting data to outside email accounts to send an email to a list. Save yourself time, and Tylenol with a system built exactly the way you need it.
Customization Like You’ve Never Seen
MinistryPlatform is the most customizable church management system. It allows you to bring all the tools you already love into one place while adding solutions to build your unique solution. The fully integrated API allows churches to expand “beyond the platform,” and our ecosystem of integrations allows the church to have a single source of data while allowing a myriad of applications.
Let us show you how MinistryPlatform can push your winter church ideas ahead of the game. And give your staff the gift of a new church solution for Christmas. Sign up for a free demo and see how we can help you.
Leigh Ann joined the ACST team in 2019 as a Product Marketing Manager. She oversees the launch and overall communication of key solutions to support the church’s needs. Prior to joining ACST, she spent several years in communications and graphic design roles. Notably as a Communications Director for a large church in Florence, SC. There she leveraged Realm to help solve key ministry challenges.
