How well are your emails really being received?  We've been on a learning curve in this area the past few years.  As many of you know we released significant upgrades to our email system back in 2016.  Here's the blog post - New Release: Built-in Email Marketing.  It contains the details. But since it came up at our User's Gathering a couple of weeks ago, here are a few best practices that some of our clients are using to increase the impact of their email communication.

We had such a great time gathering last week with staff and friends from around the country.  It was our first time to do something like this and we learned much that I hope to share with you in the next few blogs.  We broke into smaller groups and did work around tables.  One of the first questions people interacted over was, "What delights you about Churchteams." 

Helping people connect to groups has been a core feature in Churchteams since the beginning.  We started using the term Groupfinder for this feature back in 2001.  You customize the search options to fit your church and the questions you would ask to help someone find a group.  Then categorize the groups accordingly and people looking for groups can find a match themselves. This removes staff from being the bottleneck for connection, but notifies staff when connections are made to keep them in the loop.

Many churches that receive hundreds of checks every week use check readers and scanners to help with data entry. We recently did some research on these systems and built then released what we believe is a much more streamlined approach. Here is what we learned and our application.

He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.  Malachi 4:6

The highlight of the youth ministry year is often that week everyone gets on a bus to go sleep in a cabin, play lots of games, and learn more about what it means to follow Jesus as a teenager. Lives are changed forever at youth camp. 

Easter is this weekend. Once you do your follow-up from this weekend, the final run for the ministry year begins. This is a great season for recognizing volunteers and celebrating milestones like school graduations. But, for many of us, those things are already in motion and we are looking ahead to plans for the summer. In the next few blogs I'd like to help you get started on that planning and how to use church software and Churchteams in particular to help you make it happen.  To get started, check out this model of the role of software in ministry.

In my last post I mentioned that our "Better Website" hadn't performed like we had hoped the first month. As I wrap up this series of blog posts, it's important not just to present a plan to your folks, but also to have a process in place to help avoid failure and find success.

The team has been busy the past few months adding a number of items that you may have already seen and not realized.  For power users, take a moment to review these 12 items, all of which sharpen your Churchteams experience.  

My guess is that most of you will especially appreciate the new pinned attributes.  Third on this list.

These few blogs on building a better website are really just a synopsis of my thoughts as we've gone through the process. We released our website just over a month ago and are tweaking it along the way. To be honest, it hasn't produced like we had hoped it would. But, it certainly is not a flop either. Reminds of Proverbs 16:9.

This is #4 in this series about making a better website.  The big idea is that your website needs to tell a story.  If you are not the hero, see #2 in this series, then what is your role as a church?  What is our role as a Church Management System provider?  The answer: We are the guide.