Let's say the Jordans have children involved in youth sports.  Generally, they attend worship and Sunday School at 9:30 a.m. on Sundays.  But their new league plays about half their games on Sunday mornings.  So, during those weeks the Jordans attend worship and Sunday School during the 4 p.m. service on Saturday.  A great solution provided by an understanding church! 

Since February I've been blogging on ways to use Workflows to automate many of the routine but vitally important tasks related to people, communication and processes in the church. 

The other day, Kathi from Ohio asked about creating a workflow for her pastors to care for and encourage survivors after the death of their spouse. She is pretty good at  workflows and had already defined the pathway.

The conversation reminded me of many others we've had about how to handle the death of a spouse from the perspective of the database. So, let's start with that and then get to the workflow.

Today's post is a follow-up to last week's on volunteer recruitment.  The two posts work in tandem, you really need to master both to get the process down.

Last time we saw the need for a Ministry Connection Central group that simplifies church-wide communication and then auto-registers responses for specific Ministry Connection follow-up.

We then saw how to use a specific Ministry Connection group to develop a follow-up system to move those interested in connecting to their next step of registering for training. The system automates communication to ensure we are doing due diligence as staff to honor their initial interest.

The church runs on volunteers. Pastors and staff are looking for help. Attenders and members are anxious to help. So, why is recruiting hard?

Every week or so staff get notified that people want to serve in their area of ministry. They send an email or leave a voice mail and if there's no response, they're on to next week's contacts. They don't have an adequate system or bandwidth to continue pursuing people.

Meanwhile attenders and members keep responding to the asks about their interests on Sunday and wonder why staff don't respond like promised. It could be that the email or voice message came in the middle of their work day, got put aside for later and then forgotten.

We recently gave some thought to how to solve this problem using the Churchteams system and Workflows. Here's what we came up.  See what you think.

If you've ever been to Disneyworld during summer vacation season, you know the lines for rides can be long.  But, for a few more dollars, you can buy a Fast Pass.  These allow you to skip the long line and go through a special line reserved to get you on the ride quickly.

The reason we invest a disproportionate amount of resources for a software company into support is development. 

Our clients are our friends and our friends are committed to giving us their honest feedback and best ideas on how to make their lives and this software better.   

Leaving kids in children's ministry the first time is scary for guest parents.  They are concerned that the situation is new and uncertain for their children.  They are uneasy about leaving their kids with people they don't know.  They might even have to battle thoughts about worse case scenarios.  Their worry distracts them from fully engaging in worship.    

But you have worked hard to invite and welcome them.  You've made sure the children's area is clean and looks fun.  You've staffed it with good people who really care.  You've even provided security with check-in.  All of these are important, but what if when parents walk away you could do a little something extra.  Here's a simple idea on how to extend your hospitality one step further to help assuage guest parent fears.

People love to be recognized on their birthday.  It's a small thing but means a lot.  Many pastors and church staff have decided that it is worth the effort to do something special for their people or a subset of people like their volunteers or leaders on their special day. 

You have the data in the database.  There are a lot of ways to use it, but if I were developing a system to make this happen, here's how I would do it. 

Without a doubt their church management software is a church's primary tool for knowing the condition of the people under their care.  It is the source of information and communication that builds shepherding relationships.

Proverbs 27:23 says,  "Be sure you know the condition of your flocks, give careful attention to your herds."  Caring for people God has brought into our church to disciple and shepherd has always been our heart.  If you've been around us much, you've seen our incredible analytics to shepherd small groups and small group leaders well.  So, it just makes sense to us to use giving as another metric to help reognize people who might be wandering away from the fold.

Proverbs 4:23 tells us, "Guard your heart because all you do flows from it."  That means that the choices people make, the things that drive and motivate them to action are an outflow of their heart.

So, when they give to your church or organization for the first time, they are saying something significant.  They are saying they believe in what you are doing and they want to be a part.