Built for the Church, By a Church
How One Mega-Church Created Its Own Technology to Support Growing Ranks

By Jeff Hook

Six years ago, Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Texas found itself with a good problem to have: meeting the needs of a congregation that swelled with the opening of a new sanctuary.

Today, that crowd numbers 30,000 during holiday weekends, including Easter and Christmas. As many churches that have experienced such growth can attest, the information-processing needs of a mega-church can be overwhelming. Leaders at Fellowship Church reluctantly decided to build their own software solution — Fellowship One — that would not only meet their needs but could later be sold to other churches.

First, the leaders at Fellowship hired a group of systems developers who knew how to build quality systems. They didn’t use volunteers who simply knew how to program computers because, they say, knowing how to build systems is a very different thing.

The team was initially directed to solve the most cumbersome problem: children’s check-in. As Fellowship grew, this process presented problems for several reasons. First, in today’s world many families are splitting up. Custody battles are sometimes not shared with the church’s care workers, which creates a situation in which an estranged parent could gain access to the child. Second, with a premium placed on convenience, a long line at children’s check-in time can deter families from attending weekly worship services. (This is especially true at one of the most needy, crucial times in their lives.) Additionally, it’s difficult to monitor care worker-to-child ratios as rooms fill up. Also problematic is the assurance that care workers will have valid background checks on file before each — paid or volunteer — serves in the children’s ministry.

Fellowship Church leaders developed the system to incorporated technology, yet not intimidate users. Fellowship One is volunteer-driven. In other words, people are still greeted by people at the church and checked in by bright, smiling faces; however, the program is designed to be used with as little as five minutes of training.

The children’s check-in process at Fellowship Church was so well received that it was rolled out to all activities outside the main worship service. By tracking attendance for all activities, Fellowship Church is able to chart the assimilation of its members, better understand which activities are meeting its congregation’s needs, and quickly follow up on individuals who’ve missed an activity they would otherwise attend. Providing name tags for adults who check in enables people to remember names more easily.

The next issue addressed was follow-up.When churches have several visitors attending every weekend, or when people are learning how to get involved with their church, not having someone acknowledge their attendance or follow up on an information request can quickly stymie growth. Before building its required functionality, Fellowship Church used e-mail to manage these requests. Unfortunately, they found that e-mail systems didn’t provide the level of accountability they wanted. Leaders couldn’t track the history of contacts to a family, which, if used properly, could provide a level of intimacy that makes those families feel more like part of the church. For this reason, they designed Fellowship One to track all information requests and route them to the appropriate person.

Over time, the church added functionality to streamline much of its operations. These capabilities include a contribution application that allows the church to capture images of its checks and post all contributions to people’s accounts by 1:30 on Sunday afternoon. It also tracks pledges, recurring gifts and non-cash contributions. Additional functionality allows users to schedule volunteers, track giftedness against job requirements and send e-mails to groups. Its latest features let congregants perform certain “self-service” functions from the church’s website — to find a small group, for example, or register for an activity, complete a volunteer application, or give online.Many of these features reduce the number of calls to the church office and at the same time give a congregant a reason to visit the church’s website beyond simply getting information.

When in 2003 leaders at Fellowship Church found maintaining and enhancing custom software to be extremely costly, they approached a church member about building a company that could take responsibility for the software and provide an Internet-based service to it and other churches. The resulting company is Fellowship Technologies.With the spin-out of the technology from Fellowship Church, the software that was once built for a church, by a church is now built for many churches, with input from many churches.

Jeff Hook is the president of Fellowship Technologies LP. The company has more than 50 customers ranging in size from a church plant which hasn’t yet opened its doors to one of the largest churches in the country. In its first year of operations, the company signed up seven of the 100 largest churches in America as clients. Previously, Hook was an executive with several software and consulting companies, including Fuego, i2 Technologies, Oracle and Price Waterhouse. He says his passion for Christ is enhanced by his love for his wife, Brigitte, and three children, Jeffery, London and Harrison.