In the past 30 years, the way churches find, compare and distribute curriculum hasn't changed much. Learning styles have changed. Technology has grown. But, curriculum providers have struggled to keep up.
The Disciplr platform aims to reimagine this process. To give teachers a single place to find and choose church curriculum, subscribe, and enjoy it in a digitally interactive format.
We caught up with Jeffrey Kranz from Disciplr recently to find out a little about the company's story and how they hope to change the way churches equip their members:
How was Disciplr founded and what is the goal of the company?
Disciplr is a partnership between David C Cook and HelloMogo, Inc. that launched in June 2015. Our goal is for Disciplr to be the very best way for churches to discover, purchase, create, and use discipleship resources. We’re starting with an emphasis on children’s ministry curriculum (though we do have some adult and youth resources), and expanding from there.
What are the main ways Disciplr seeks to help churches and ministries?
1) We make it easy to find great church curriculum quickly. It could take 30 minutes to choose a Sunday morning worship set from a list of 30,000 songs, but it might take three hours just to get an idea of what curriculum options are out there. Disciplr offers content from multiple publishers so churches can find needed materials in one place.
2) We make curriculum more affordable. Churches are paying to cover the print cost of curriculum – either by paying the print price to the publisher or paying the cost to print downloadable curriculum themselves. (I heard one pastor in Washington State say she spends $4,000 a month on toner!)
3) We make curriculum “simplr.” Curriculum is the most complex form of content churches use. It’s tough to select, distribute, and navigate. All other forms of church content have undergone some form of digital evolution (video, audio, sermons, even bulletins)! Disciplr makes church curriculum simpler by giving it a format to live in that makes sense in a digital-rich world.
4) We give churches a digital tool to help them retain volunteers. Congregation members are becoming more digitally savvy by the year, and within the decade, most volunteers will expect their church to have digital solutions in place. Disciplr gives churches a way to resource their volunteers with intuitive, digital tools.
5) We handle the busywork. People get involved in church ministry to make disciples, not deal with the hassles of managing volunteers and curriculum. We make it easy for volunteers to say “Yes,” and free staff and volunteers to spend more of their time on ministry and less on the busywork.
6) We help churches whether you’re on our platform or not. We regularly publish how-to articles on technology and ministry on the Disciplr blog, and we give away free resources from leaders in the ministry and church tech space.
How does the app and platform work?
The beauty of Disciplr is churches only pay for the content they purchase or subscribe to within the platform. The web app itself is free.
To start, visit the Disciplr store at Disciplr.com and preview curriculum. Once you've chosen one, you can check out and create a Disciplr account.
From your account, you can invite teachers and assign lessons to them. The leaders use Disciplr’s interactive lesson plans, materials lists, and resources to prepare and teach the lessons.
Disciplr is an app for leaders, not attenders. You can use it while you're you’re leading a group discussion or teaching a Sunday school class, without the group needing access to the materials.
You can see a sample of how lessons work here.
What teacher management tools do you offer and how will these help teachers?
Admins can invite multiple teachers to teach from whatever curriculum the admin chooses. The invitees get an email and are set up with an account. Once a new teacher accepts the invitation, they can see available lessons the admin has choosen for them.
This helps teachers in a few significant ways.
1) They can prepare for lessons in advance.
2) They’re not sifting through email searching for attached files.
3) Teachers can see the scope and sequence of the curriculum available. This allows them to find substitutes in case of last-minute changes of plan.
Is there anything else we should know about Disciplr?
We have a lot of free resources for churches, including a two-year elementary curriculum. You might also check out our free ebooks by KidMin experts Karl Bastian and Greg Baird.
[…] to improve based on feedback from hundreds of ministry practitioners just like you! In fact, many blogs and KidMin leaders have been talking us up over the last few months, so the pressure is really on, […]