Boyd Pelley

Boyd Pelley
Co-founder, Churchteams. From 1990 to 2008 served as discipleship, administrative and family pastor of churches in New Mexico, Nebraska and Texas. Married 30+ years, 2 married adult children.
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Recent Posts

New!  One distinctive:  2 registration, 3 communication, and 3 data management upgrades

Posted by Boyd Pelley on 7/29/25 12:45 PM

One of the distinctives people love about Churchteams is our attention to our clients.  You are the ones using the software day in and day out.  What you say to us matters.  We listen.

Here are 2 registration,  2 data management, and 3 communication upgrades that illustrate this point. 

Review them here, then click on any that sound interesting to learn more.  If you're a regular Churchteams user, they might (1) save you some time, (2) help you communicate more clearly, or (3) help you empower your leaders.

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Tags: New Release

Groupfinder has a fresh new look! Six common questions about this tool.

Posted by Boyd Pelley on 7/22/25 1:45 PM
We’re excited to share the brand-new look for our legendary Groupfinder tool! The refreshed user interface offers you a cleaner look for thesearch filters, enhanced mapping features, and beautifully aligned group image cards. Use the embed code we provide to make the groups page on your church website look and feel inviting.
  
 
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Tags: Groups, Websites

5 hidden metrics to help your church track outreach, assimilation, and connection

Posted by Boyd Pelley on 7/8/25 2:00 PM

Worship attendance and weekly giving are obvious metrics every church uses to evaluate health and growth.  But, there are a series of activities underlying these numbers that actually drive them.  These include: outreach, follow-up, equipping, groups, and serving.

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Tags: Reports

What is the best way to help church members find a small group?

Posted by Boyd Pelley on 6/24/25 2:00 PM

The most effective way to help church members who aren’t yet part of a small group is through focused, personal communication designed just for them, rather than a general announcement.

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Tags: Groups

How to track the story of worship services - important notes as well as attendance

Posted by Boyd Pelley on 6/17/25 1:30 PM

The story of your weekly service(s) involves more than just attendance.  Customize our meeting reports to capture not only attendance; but sermon topic, salvations, baptisms, guests, parking spots, weather, holidays, and anything else that adds depth to your worship history.  

Last year I wrote blog posts on How to solve the problem and see the potential of worship service attendance and The best way to collect attendance from all your worship services.  These focused on how to use Check-in (we call it All Check) and Connection cards to capture individual attendance.  This can be augmented with counters reviewing the total and adding in a # for guests to accurately reflect actual attendance.

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Tags: Best Practices

New!  How to use Precheck By Text to improve entry into ticketed events

Posted by Boyd Pelley on 6/3/25 2:30 PM
Thanks to this upgrade, gaining admission to your ticketed event is now easier than ever! Guests simply text "checkin" to your Text-to-Church number, click the provided link to confirm, and then show their confirmation text at the entrance.
 
While most church events are open to all, some require tickets for admission, either to confirm payment or to manage capacity.   Our registration and check-in features have worked together for years to sign people up for events and then check them in just like they would for a service. 
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Tags: New Release

What trends for using technology in discipleship still need addressed?

Posted by Boyd Pelley on 5/20/25 2:00 PM

The last question to our panel (context) which is the title of this blog post was open-ended in nature.  I took it as an opportunity to share two major concerns I have for technology in discipleship.  The first one relates to parenting and the use of technology.  The second one concerns church data and the use of technology.

I was a family pastor for many years and have always been interested in parenting through different seasons of technology development.  Our kids graduated from high school in 2008 and 2010, so their first phones were flip phones.  They used them a lot to text their friends, so we had to put boundaries on their access to their phones at night.  They were also not allowed to look at them at school.

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Tags: Church Management Software

How AT&T's discontinuing email to text will impact church texting

Posted by Boyd Pelley on 5/6/25 2:15 PM

In less than six weeks, on June 17th, AT&T will Say Goodbye to email-to-text and text-to-email.  In other words, your church-goers who use AT&T will no longer be able to receive texts you send through our free texting option.

When we first developed texting in Churchteams, it was done exclusively by leveraging this service which was offered by all major US telecommunication companies.  This allowed us to offer free texting for many years.  However, in 2020 and 2021, all the major telecoms launched their 10DLC (10-Digit Long Code) services, the first step in a shift away from free texting.

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Tags: Communication

How to balance the benefits of technology and personal relationships in discipleship

Posted by Boyd Pelley on 4/29/25 2:00 PM

 

The third question given to our panel (back story) had to do with finding the balance between the use of technology and the importance of face-to-face relationships in discipleship.  

I think I understand the concern behind this question, but to be honest my definition of discipleship leaves very little room for technology interference.  Here's what I mean.

Christian discipleship is about becoming more and more like Jesus.  At its core this is something that happens within the heart of a person.  This means transforming a person's mind, emotion, and will so that they align with that of Jesus.

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Tags: Church Management Software

How to turn a fuzzy blur of ministry into a clear focus on people

Posted by Boyd Pelley on 4/15/25 1:15 PM

Holy week can be a blur of admin details for pastors and church staff.  They are spending extra time this week preparing for a Seder meal, or maybe a Good Friday service, and very likely extra services over the weekend.   And, hopefully, a plan to follow-up new guests.

I just got off the phone with a part time, children's minister who put together an Easter egg hunt this past weekend.  She got a stack of cards with information from the families that attended.

She just finished manually entering that data into a spreadsheet.  One at a time she is copying and pasting addresses to send emails.  She is also typing phone numbers into her phone one at a time to send follow up texts.

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Tags: Best Practices

What tools do you offer churches to effectively foster deeper spiritual growth?

Posted by Boyd Pelley on 4/8/25 1:30 PM

What tools do you offer churches to effectively foster deeper spiritual growth?

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Tags: Church Management Software

How do you think technology has changed the way discipleship is practiced?

Posted by Boyd Pelley on 4/1/25 2:30 PM

Last week I attended the Disciple Leaders Network annual meeting in Oklahoma City.  On Monday night they asked a group of us who work in the technology in ministry space to talk about discipleship and technology. 

I thought the questions we discussed were particularly interesting and that you might be interested in them. 

There were four questions overall.  Here's the first one along with my expanded response.

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Tags: Church Management Software

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