St. Andrew Methodist Church was founded in 1986 by Reverend Robert Halsey. Located in Plano, Texas, St. Andrews is a thriving church that focuses on reaching out to the community and helping those in need. St. Andrews has an average weekly attendance of around 2,000 in person and is in the process of adding another Worship service. They also have multiple ministries that focus on helping the community at large. One of the largest ministries within the church is one that they started a couple of years ago called the Second Act. The Second Act is made up of people who are at the end of their working careers, whether that means they are getting ready to retire or are well into retirement. As a group, they take trips, have learning sessions with presentations, or even just do small social gatherings like going out to dinner or going to a ball game. They have games every week, and as the person who sits at the front desk, Megan Koch has a great time interacting with the members as they come in for their activities each time.
Megan Koch’s story of joining the staff at the church is a bit unique. She moved from Illinois to Texas approximately seven years ago to complete her Master’s Degree in Opera at UNT North Texas. While completing her degree, she wanted a church job, singing in the church as a professional singer. Her dad recommended that she reach out to a friend of his, so she did via email, introducing herself again, and identified that she was available as a substitute if they ever needed someone in the choir. It was perfect timing, as they were looking for a full-time professional singer, and he invited her to come out and audition. The rest, Megan says, is history.
Two years ago, they needed a full-time person at the front desk, so she applied for and accepted that position. Megan has quite a few responsibilities at her front desk position. She is the receptionist, so she answers the phones and greets people as they enter the office. She is also part of the Welcome Team, which is a hospitality kind of crew. That team is in charge of greeting people on Sunday mornings and making the church feel homey, cozy, clean, and welcoming.
Part of her job is to help direct people to The Storehouse, which is technically a separate
organization housed on the church’s property. They have a food pantry, clothing closet, ESL classes, and forklift certification classes, just to name a few of the organization’s offerings.
Megan is also the primary user of MinistryPlatform from ACS Technologies. She uses MinistryPlatform to pull reports, mark attendance, and keep track of prayer requests for the congregational prayer team. She is also one who problem-solved software questions for the staff and has started dabbling in some coding for personalizations in MinistryPlatform. She tends to be a little more available during the day for questions, so she also acts as a liaison for other members of the admin team, who are a little less available.
They have been using MinistryPlatform for just over a year. She said they mainly switched to it because everything could be done from one place.
“The fact that it can do everything all in one spot, from scheduling our events, marking attendance, giving, and everything else that we do. We’re working on getting it to actually connect to our air conditioning, our doors being open, and all of that. It can do so much already, and we’re very excited for Volunteer Management to come out soon.” Megan – Receptionist, St. Andrews United Methodist Church
Megan spends most of her time using the registration and group features of MinistryPlatform. She is also working on connecting the different registration events to their website using Widgets, which will allow their members to connect to MinistryPlatform without leaving the church’s website.
With everything that MinistryPlatform can do, St. Andrews can focus more on ministry and less on day-to-day operations.
To learn more about St. Andrew Methodist Church, click here.
To learn more about MinistryPlatform, click here.
Jenna Wallace
Jenna joined the ACST team in February 2020 as a Ministry Consultant for small to mid-size churches with a focus on empowering these ministries with the tools they need to accomplish their goals. She believes regardless of the size of the ministry, each church can utilize technology to fulfill the calling God has given them. Prior to joining ACST, she spent several years as a Sales Consultant across multiple industries, all focusing on relationship building, which she feels has allowed her to provide trusted advice to those in need. Jenna is passionate about helping others which fuels her eagerness to serve.
