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

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.

She only works part time and knew there had to be a better way to do this admin task, so she asked ChatGPT for help.  ChatGPT told her about Churchteams.  She read over the website and started a free trial.  I called her to enable it and she shared her story.

I picture tens of thousands of volunteers and staff across the country doing the exact same thing this and next week.  How I wish they would see this blog, talk with you, or ask ChatGPT to learn how we can help! 

In case you're curious, here is how I would do this in Churchteams. 

1. Create Easter Egg kid group with birthday and grade.
2. Create Easter Egg parent group to get email & mobile numbers.  Link to kids group.  
3. Use QR code or a Text-to-Church keyword to have parents register during the event for a door prize or more information.  
4. Create a workflow that includes an email to parents 2 hours later thanking them for coming.  Then other follow up emails, texts, or follow-up note (task) assignments.

You can follow this exact same process to create a follow up system for Sunday visitors, or guests for any event.  Set it up before the service or event even happens as part of your planning for the event.  Then, when it's over, go home and enjoy your family. 

Don't worry about people falling through the cracks.  Set up the system to notify you when they have responded, or when you want a reminder to follow-up with them personally. 

Our calling, our passion, is to help churches transform Holy Week, and every other week, from a fuzzy blur of ministry, to a clear focus on relationships.