I grew up watching my father, who was also my pastor, operate as a servant leader. My love for the church and church work came from seeing his passion, participating alongside him, as well as learning firsthand how the work impacted the members' lives and community.
As I grew older, the excitement I once felt turned into anxiety as church work started feeling more like a burden than a blessing. Upon reflection, I realized that my passion was still there, but I needed a clear plan. So I started learning how to create a church management system that would allow passionate and committed church workers to regain the joy of serving while also doing the much-needed work of the ministry.
Steps to Simplify Critical Church Management and Manage Church Growth
Have you ever been part of a ministry that just never seemed to move forward, where no matter how many dedicated, creative, and capable people were on the team, everything always seemed to be last minute and done without a plan or timeline? Although churches rely heavily on volunteers, people are not the only component of what is needed for an effective church management system. Effective systems include people, processes, and tools.
The current line of thinking that talent alone leads to effective church management is hurting many congregations. Focusing on better serving your members and the community will produce organic numerical growth so the ministry will have a greater impact on the community at large.
Following these steps through a system-based software option will help you plug the gaps that are causing visitors to get overlooked and members to feel disconnected.
Here are some tips that will help smoothly manage church growth and guarantee an efficient and effective church organization.
Collect Member Information Automatically
Are you still using member cards that require manual entry to input data into a spreadsheet or church software?
By incorporating a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform like Keap into your operational toolkit, you will be able to collect member data efficiently and automatically. By leveraging digital form automation, you can ask questions to collect essential data right on your landing page or website which will flow directly into your CRM, making it easy to collect and organize member data.
Metrics are frequently overlooked as another aspect of collecting church data. Do you have a goal for growth or member retention? How do you measure growth without collecting data? Data creates a clear picture of how close we are to achieving our goals.
Communicate with Members Effectively
Having clear and concise communication is essential in ensuring announcements are transmitted and received.
Using email and text marketing, churches can expand the avenues through which information can be received, and message frequency can promote higher visibility.
The data that you are able to automatically collect can also be organized by tagging, or labeling, the contacts so that members can be segmented into subgroups according to the areas of ministry in which they are engaged.
Targeting specific groups within the church (i.e., women, men, youth and marriage groups) helps to cultivate effective communication and messaging confidence, ultimately leading to better open rates.
With automation software like Keap, you can even automate email and text messages so they send at just the right time, like a welcome or confirmation email after a form is submitted or reminders about an upcoming event a member registered to attend.
Connect with Members Intentionally
An effective church management plan has the ability to integrate many of the tools that are used to manage the day-to-day church operations.
The ability for members to set appointments for counseling or administrators to track and assign tasks that remind leaders to follow up on member requests and resource needs will yield positive results. The native and third party integrations for giving, teaching, or simply capturing leads coming from your live stream or online training can decrease the time spent on administrative tasks.
Implementing an efficient church management system increases the time available for congregation-focused activities, giving ministry leaders and volunteers needed bandwidth to truly connect with members and visitors.
Final Thoughts
Developing a church management system within a tool like Keap will help you get organized, follow up, and automate to create peace of mind, grow and know your congregation, and free up time to make meaningful connections. Start a 14-day Keap free trial today.
About the Author
After 20+years in corporate America and obtaining a master’s degree in Operations Management, Felicia Hairston Momon started Out of the Box Remedies LLC, helping entrepreneurs get out of the box and back to the business they love. Her most recent assignment has been working with churches and nonprofit entities to improve organization and operational efficiency and to mitigate volunteer burnout using a church management program she created, Rooted.
