The story of 2020 will always be the global pandemic of Covid-19.  All of us are different.  It's worth the time to log what we've lost and grieve it well.  It's also worth the time to examine what we've gained and how to build on it. I hope you're doing that personally and as a church. 

The upgrades we've released the past few months reflect insights gained from working closely with clients in 2020.  Some of these are really minute, but the first one in particular positions us well for the post-Covid expectations of performance at the peak time of Sunday mornings.

We all know that trust is foundational to successful relationships.  It is also foundational to a successful relationship with your database.  If you don't trust the data, you don't trust what the data tells you.  That's a problem.

As you closed out your books for the year, did you notice your online giving line item?  Did it give you sticker shock?  

Maybe your administrative oversight team even commented on it as they reviewed last year's financials.

We recently ran a report across a broad cross section of our churches with contributions in 2020. In it we discovered that Churchteams clients brought in 102%of the income in 2020 that they had in 2019.  

"Great things in business are never done by one person; they're done by a team of people."

Steve Jobs

Last fall we automated the Academy training webinars that I had done almost every week for years.  They are now available on-demand 24/7. 

Workflow - noun - a series of emails, texts, personal notifications, or data or group changes scheduled to occur over a selected time period.  Used to track a follow-up process.

Reports - noun - Information gathered or actions to take related to families or individuals based on their group involvement, member attributes, or giving data.

Last week marked the end of decades of little change in how churches have created their directories and held their Picture Days as Lifetouch shuttered their church division and Waldo, the photo industry’s newest cutting edge photo management and delivery platform, announced its expansion into churches the same week. Waldo, currently loved by hundreds of thousands of families across the country who use the service at their families’ camp or school, is now available to churches in North America. 

For most of us, a new year represents an opportunity to identify any potentially harmful habits that have crept into our life and purpose to do something about them.  You know, habits like eating, exercising and daily time in the Word.  The Bible calls them "little foxes that spoil the vineyard."

In the same way, an organization has a way of creeping toward sloppy software habits - many times for good reasons.  For example, we have had one software to help us host videos and another one to manage marketing for many years.  Early last year, we found  a software that excels at automated webinars. We started using it to learn how to effectively automate our webinars.  A few months ago, we realized we could do the same thing by combining features we already have with our video and marketing software.  So, last week we built the required landing pages and went from 3 back to 2 software applications. (See the results by clicking the links on our Webinar page.)  It felt like we lost 10 pounds.

Great news!  We are just about to the end of 2020.  I think all of us are ready to move on to 2021.  But, before we go, I thought it would be interesting to review the 52 posts of this blog this year to see what we might glean as we look ahead.

Like sparks from kindling wood promising warmth and light against the darkness, Advent starts with prophetic voices announcing hope for a coming messiah in the midst of a dark time. 

I remember from my church staff days that it was all hands on deck for Christmas Eve  services.  I see the staff at my church today all working together to cover volunteer spots for these services just like we did.  Because it is such a special time for families, I doubt  this stretch for volunteers on Christmas Eve will ever change.  But, we can help.

As the Andy Williams song (Youtube) tells us, this really is the most wonderful time of the year.  But, like everything else in 2020, the pandemic is making us re-think how we do Christmas services and events. 

(verse 3) There will be services for reserving and childcare for serving.  Families wary to go.  Because of scary Covid stories and tales of the gories of viruses long, long ago.