Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.  We pray that you and your family have a blessed next couple of weeks.

As 2025 closes our team thought it would be fun to thank you for allowing us to partner with you this year by sharing some fun facts about how you used Churchteams this past year and some of the upgrades you liked the most!

Many of you who take care of church finances and those of you who are responsible for church stewardship are already thinking about sending statements in January.  

I just set up January 8 and 13 for our annual Live Statements Briefing via Zoom --register here. I also just reviewed our excellent Knowledge Base article on How to send out giving statements.  So, those are ready to go.

If you’ve ever coordinated a mission trip, you know the unique blend of logistics, excitement, and spiritual preparation that comes with it. Mission trips are deeply transformational—for the teams who go and the people they serve—but managing all the administrative details can quickly become overwhelming. 

Here are three big advantages your church stands to gain by keeping mission trip management within the Churchteams ecosystem, thus managing all your data in one place.

The close of the calendar year represents a pivotal season for church finances. For many ministries, a significant portion of their annual operating budget and capital campaign funds is generated during the month of December.

But in an era of digital noise, how do you ensure your church’s crucial appeal cuts through? The answer lies in leveraging the power of your Church Management and Communication Software (ChMS). A successful end-of-year (EOY) campaign isn't about mass emails; it’s about personalized connection, clarity of vision, and seamless technology.

Email is still one of the most valuable ways churches connect with their members and community, and we want to make this process as smooth and enjoyable as possible for you and your team. That’s why our email platform is designed with powerful but easy-to-use features built right in—no third-party software hassles required.

With Churchteams, you get the flexibility and creative options you need, paired with the intuitive experience that makes your ministry communications shine.

One of the topics we've discussed many times over the years has been how to provide secure check-in for children without printing labels.  With Text to Check-in and a few recent upgrades we released yesterday, this is now possible.  

Here's the big idea.

Text-to-Church, especially the Check-in feature, is one of the distinctives of Churchteams in the ChMS market.  Parents check in their kids simply by texting the word CHECK to your church's T2C number, which is often the church office number.  They get a Security Code, good for the day, texted back, and they show it to the volunteer or greeter.  This confirms they have checked in.

I recently read a Lifeway article written by my friend, PJ Dunn.  It is a tongue in cheek piece offering 10 Ways to Scare Off Young Adults from your Church. 

The premise of the article is that churches need to invest in technology and communication strategies if they are going to be effective in reaching young adults.

You'll notice he is a Churchteams fan, but I wanted to add a few thoughts of my own to continue the conversation he started with this article.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a blog post on managing the list of Events on your Website, App, and Text-to-Church keyword all in one place.  Click here to read more about how this three-in-one functionality works saving time for staff responsible for communication.

Since then we added the keyword RESOURCES to separate these links from EVENTS.  This also matches the functionality in the Member App.

The Member App was created to make it simple for members to manage their giving, serving, groups, events, and resources—all from their phones. At the same time, we know that some people may find it more convenient to access these features on a computer, laptop, or tablet. 

Managing events on multiple communication platforms is easier than ever with Churchteams. 

With our latest upgrade, you can create or update an event in the database, and it automatically shows up and drops off, according to the dates you set: (1) the link Events Calendar on your Website or FB page, (2) your Member App, and (3) your Text-to-Church EVENTS keyword list!  

This is game-changer functionality for staff responsible for church communication.  Instead of a task list reminding them to add or remove event promotions in multiple places, they simply create the event in the Churchteams database and let our automation do that work for them.