3 Church Software Questions to Ask Yourself

It's not clear why church leaders consider the word ‘business' negative when discussing operational, financial, or staff decisions. In reality, churches have staff, payroll, expenses, communication campaigns, and even loans for buildings. Sounds a lot like a ‘church business.' Every business today needs software to help organize and maintain it's clients. Churches' clients are their members and attenders. Church software, if utilized well, must answer three distinct questions. 

Enterprise business technology is breaking new ground with modern, mobile, cloud-based solutions, and class-leading support. Church software, for the most part, is not exactly that. What churches really need are software solutions that help them oversee all aspects of membership management, communication, check-in, and the financial health of the church. 

In the 2019 Church Tech Checklist, our company breaks down the top five technologies your church needs to be successful in 2019. These five technologies are crucial to grow and lead your team. Researching new solutions to add to your church is when you need to start thinking from the “business” perspective. What’s the end goal? Does it integrate with our current tech stack? Will they help us train our team? These are all crucial questions when committing to new solutions.

Let’s take a step back.

You can spend all the money in the world and have every product imaginable but that doesn’t mean your problems are all gone. In most cases ‘mo’ products mo’ problems.' To be helpful, church software needs to fall into three specific buckets:

1-Does it Engage Your Church?

Does this product/solution/platform help you engage your church throughout the week? Is it making it easier to communicate with your congregation and staff? Engagement solutions work best if it fits naturally into their lives, versus adding something to do the to-do list.

2-Does it Manage Your Church?

Does this consolidate information for me? Can I easily create reports to make leadership decisions? Can my congregation update their own information? A church management solution is probably the most important platform to have in your arsenal. Hold this software to a business standard. Does it have the support you and your team will need?

3-Does it Nurture Your Church?

Does this give my congregation more opportunities? Does this educate my community? Does this empower my volunteers? The technology you commit to needs to empower your team to do more and not burden them.  When researching these kinds of platforms be sure to involve the people on your team that would be using it most.

Technology is the greatest asset to utilize to run your church in 2019, but don’t get lost in all the shiny new products.

Our 2019 Church Tech Checklist is here to help set a foundation for your church.