It's All About Access

With major technological advancements come easier, more comprehensive ways to integrate all aspects of church management with emerging technologies -- including Web-based applications.

The technology tools any church needs greatly depend on its size and program demands. In the end, however, every church leader wants to be as efficient and streamlined as possible when it comes to managing their congregation's data.

Just as Jesus preached that a wise man should build his foundation upon a solid rock, it's also important for churches to build their offices this way. When looking for a CMS these days, it's absolutely critical to look for a platform that offers some type of remote access.

Gone are the days when church data was only accessible from a desktop computer in the church office. Now -- with many CMS providers adding new products and features to match the changing needs of church leaders -- pastors, lay leaders, volunteers and members can access membership information, mark attendance for small groups, and even complete visitation tasks right from their home computers.

Let's look at a few examples of how church management software and remote Web access can help an organization become more efficient.

The Church at Battle Creek in Oklahoma was experiencing problems in reaching out to its 80 or so visitors each week. The senior pastor and his staff were rarely at their desks -- they were often out and about meeting with church members and working with ministry staff in the community. They wanted a way to follow up with visitors without being tied to their desks at the church office.

They implemented a Web-based component to their church management software. Now they have the ability to log on from home or any Internet connection and view their outreach assignments. After the membership secretary has assigned the visitors to the pastors (based on their ministry specialty), the pastors can log in and print a list of the people they're scheduled to contact, and then log the results from their visits back into the system to update the affected membership records in their permanent church record.

"It has made it possible for our pastors to have access to information at their fingertips from any location," explains Battle Creek Membership Secretary Saundra Powell. "As a pastor, you can't sit at your computer all day and get anything done -- it's just not possible.

"With online access to our membership data, our senior pastor can now look up reports on the other pastors to see who they've contacted and what the status is," Powell adds. "It's that simple. It has made everyone's job easier, and our church is growing because of it."

Powell says she enjoys the fact that she's able to provide just the right amount of information for the pastors she supports. "I think of our software as a ministry tool," she says. "I can customize data for each pastor as they need it and am able to do a better job because of the tools our online access program gives me."

The ministers at another church in Oklahoma -- Village Baptist Church -- wanted to create efficiencies within their church and give activity leaders access to membership information online to save communication time.  "Now all our activity leaders have access to online information," explains Ruty Coyle, educational ministry assistant. "[This eliminates] the need for me to send or e-mail information."

With tools to access small-group information online, lay leaders can look up members of their small groups, e-mail the groups all at once, post calendars of events, and more. For church leaders that do regular visitations each week, online access to key information can save individuals a lot of time.

In one instance, a church elder lived 30 miles from the church and routinely drove there after work at his secular job to get the printout of people to visit. Once he visited the three to five people on his list, he drove back to the church to drop off visitation cards with details of time spent, then make the 30-mile trek back home.

Once his church added online access to church member information, the elder was able to print out the list of people to visit from his work computer, go directly to the people's homes, and then return to his own home and input the results from his meetings into his computer, which were saved directly into the church database. This not only saved him time, it also saved the church secretary time from having to type up the information on the traditional visitation cards.

Another way Web access can assist churches is in managing small groups. Because small groups are so popular, church leaders are looking for software that can help them manage the process of creating small groups, connecting people to the right groups, tracking people so they know who's in which group, letting leaders manage their own groups, and letting the general population search for groups that interest them. Within specialized databases that work with your CMS online, features such as these are now available and can make a huge difference in running a church's small-group ministry efforts.

Of course, not all people will be granted the same accessibility to online information; special security permissions can be assigned to each user so pastors can see exactly what they need to see, at the same time preventing lay leaders and members from accessing information they don't need. Meanwhile, church members use personalized logins to update their contact information online. They may also look up other member information.

In the end, all of this lets church leaders do their jobs more efficiently and focus on their real priorities: outreach and evangelism.

Lauren Hunter currently consults to ACS Technologies as public relations manager. ACS serves more than 22,000 churches, schools and other faith-based organizations with its software solutions. For more information, e-mail lauren@laurenhunter.net.