With 60 years of ministry and three generations of pastors under their belt, Family Christian Church in Ecorse, Michigan, has turned their attention to developing and restoring families and making sure everyone who walks through the doors of their church feels and understands the mission… “You belong here.”
Lead pastor, Eric Cedo says ”The biggest issue facing Detroit is not drugs or the crime; it’s really developing strong families. The lack of strong families is what causes and is really at the root of all of these other issues. So our church’s name is Family Christian Church, and everything we do revolves around developing and restoring families.”
Over the last few years, Family Christian Church has reverted back to its roots and cut out many of their outreach and ministry programs in an effort to focus more on doing a few things well. One of the biggest ministries that Family Christian Church has dedicated time to is their monthly family dinner night that brings the whole church together with visitors and members sharing a meal.
“The entire church is welcome. We all come together. It’s a meal, and people bring friends and family and people who may not come to church. It’s really creating a sense of family and community,” Cedo adds.
With the emphasis on family and doing ministry well, Family Christian Church needed a tool that would help them do everything all in one place and wouldn’t require multiple resources to get the job done. They started off using The City as a church management system, but they weren’t able to create the sense of family they wanted through the tools available within The City.
“The City was great,” Cedo says, “But Realm is a lot easier to use. We’re using Realm not only to communicate with the people, but to really communicate with our leaders and teams to help them develop. We share resources for growth and development, and Realm gives us that platform to be able to grow our people.”
While the communication and development aspects of Realm are important to Family Christian Church, Cedo says one of the biggest reasons they switched are Realm Accounting and online giving.
“In the first three months of doing online giving through Realm, we’ve seen a 15% increase in our giving, and roughly half of our giving now is done through online giving in Realm. Having Realm Accounting on the backend, having one place for everything, is just crucial. When I recommend Realm to people, that’s the biggest selling point is that you can do it all.”
Cedo believes Realm is a tremendous tool whether the church is 60 years old or just starting out.
“We know that this is a big year for us and our growth as a church, and Realm gives us the framework to grow and expand,” Cedo says.
