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Is Your Church’s Technology Hindering Church Growth?

As a church leader, you’re constantly thinking about ways to further God’s ministry through the Church. How do we bring more people in each Sunday? Are we welcoming enough? Do we have enough to offer the different family types we’re seeing around us?

These are questions you’ll ask each week as you examine how your church can grow not only in numbers but also spiritually. 

What if I told you that the technology you’re using may be keeping you from reaching your full growth potential?

Here are a few common problems we see that you should evaluate.

Not flexible enough to grow with your ministry

Even if your church’s numbers haven’t climbed dramatically yet, that change is coming, and your software needs to be able to manage it. Think about how you use your software today. If you’re already having to create workarounds to meet your needs, those are only going to magnify as your congregation grows. Your software should be flexible enough to shift with your needs, which is exactly what MinistryPlatform does.

MinistryPlatform comes with many tools right out of the box, but it also allows for customization at almost every step. Build additional pages, sub-pages, views, reports, and more. With its open architecture database format, you can create custom tables and fields in your database without impacting upgrades and customizations. Additionally, you can use its robust API to create entirely custom applications for the web and desktop!

Calvary Chapel uses MinistryPlatform to manage its four growing campuses each week, from stewardship to children’s ministry. They also use it for major events such as concerts and conferences, integrating it with their website for a seamless experience for members and attendees. MinistryPlatform is flexible enough to meet their needs, both big and small! 

No automation to make workflows easier

With a large ministry comes lots of moving parts and pieces. We’re not telling you anything you don’t already know. But we are curious about how much time you spend day in and day out doing small tasks that seem to take up a large portion of your week.

As your ministry continues to grow, your list of to-dos also gets longer and longer. Consider how much time you could save if you could automate smaller tasks to make them quicker to accomplish. If your software doesn’t allow for automation, you’re missing out on the opportunity to take a breath throughout your day. 

MinistryPlatform comes with Notifications, which are scheduled emails that are sent every day like clockwork based on “jobs” within the system. For example, you can set an Event Attendee Message Notification that will send an email to Event Participants marked as Attended or Confirmed after the event ends that includes post-event information. Talk about making event follow-up simpler! And that’s just the start of automation within MinistryPlatform. 

Not conducive to tracking personal discipleship journeys

An individual’s spiritual walk with Christ is not always a straight path. When visitors come through your doors, or current members seek guidance, how does your leadership team walk beside them? This practice of discipleship provides the understanding and motivation needed to be more like Christ. While I’m sure you are not lost on its importance, many find it challenging to develop this span of care across an entire congregation effectively. Many churches have set up ministry teams designed to welcome new members. Others encourage but ultimately leave it to each individual to navigate their path alone

The time and effort needed to maintain and strengthen discipleship journeys often demand more than the resources currently used by pastors and staff. Many churches rely on texting software explicitly designed for churches to follow up with visitors or engage with disconnected members. These apps can be very effective at initiating and cultivating relationships. However, they are not conducive to creating, personalizing, and tracking individual discipleship journeys. 

Growth Method allows ministry leaders to create and customize engagement tracks to walk with individuals toward a specific spiritual goal. Each engagement track has a series of steps that help you quickly identify the progress made toward reaching the desired goal. Growth Method provides an easy-to-use dashboard that outlines the progress made by each individual within your span of care. Within seconds, you gain a true understanding of the spiritual health across your church.  

Now What?  

With the right software built for church growth, you can take a more proactive, data-driven approach to shepherding the flock. MinistryPlatform provides customized views of the entire church to help you keep a finger on the pulse of your spiritual community. Views that allow you to filter and find individuals who have been absent from church for a period of time or who have not participated in giving for a number of weeks or months. These actions may mean nothing at all. But perhaps you may have uncovered someone who is dealing with a recent job loss or going through a spiritual valley. You can send them a message to gain a better understanding. If there is a spiritual issue that needs to be addressed you can create an engagement track within Growth Method to ensure they receive the love and support they need.

CTA: Check out how Church of the Nativity uses MinistryPlatform and Growth Method to welcome new visitors each week and encourage them to engage and move into discipleship within their church of over 12,000 active parishioners. For more information on MinistryPlatform and Growth Method, click below to request a demo today.  

Leigh Ann Ortega

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, most notably as a Communications Director for a large church in Florence, SC, where she leveraged Realm to help solve key ministry challenges.