Text-TO-Church ^TM is a new User Interface concept.  It combines texting ideas that have been the domain of specialty platforms, with the functionality of a full church management system.  For over a decade people have been able to send a text to donate to an online giving platform.  In recent years applications were developed to text to register for something like an event or a content drip.  With Text-TO-Church, all the functionality of your church database is now just a text away.  Here's the list of current features that fit under the Text-TO-Church concept.  Click the link for a more complete explanation of each one.  The Text-To-Church Innovation post was written to help you actually experience everything except Text-to-ME which wasn't done at that time.

I've never thought of self-promotion as an admirable trait.  I always thought of it as the antithesis to the humility and character to which I aspire as a follower of Jesus.  Among many others, here are a couple of verses that have served me well through the years in many different situations.

I have done several blog posts the past 4 months related to texting.  The response has been incredible.  We are excited to see this innovation engage guests, regular attenders, members  and staff in a new, extremely relevant way.  The more we have worked with it, the more we realize the potential of texting as a tool for simple and user-specific interface with your Churchteams database. 

When Mark and I started, the motivation was to build software to help churches make disciples and build teams.  For us, people are intrinsically the focus of this.  Resources like space and money, though important, have not been the problems that we've built software to solve.  There are other software products focused on just these issues.  I was explaining to our marketing partner a couple of months ago that our focus is on everything related to "People Data."  In my webinars I often talk about the 5 Software sets that from my perspective every church needs, and Churchteams is just one of them.   The one place where all your people data can live.  Here they are:

 Support is a huge value for Churchteams.  We love our clients and love interacting with you.  From these interactions we learn what makes using the software more difficult than it needs to be and gain fresh ideas for improvement. Mark and Donna not only are building the exciting future of Churchteams features, but they also work tirelessly to upload data and make your best ideas a reality.  This makes Churchteams a better tool for everyone.  Here is a list of touch-upgrades to the software since early June.

Churches have always addressed the needs of families.  Priority is often given to worship and the education or discipleship of not only children, but also their parents. As the role of marriage and family continues to denigrate in our culture, churches are taking up the slack to help people better understand and align with God's design.  Although we don't do content for training, another question on the minds of these churches is how can a church database help manage family ministry?  Here how we do it.

*Okay, yes, I did make up the phrase "Text-TO-Church".

Receiving a text FROM a church is nothing new.  Lots of churches use text to send updates, news and reminders. This feature has been part of Churchteams for a number of years.  

In the last blog I shared ideas on how to best use our church database to recruit volunteers.  This is a huge effort for many church staff every late summer and early fall.  But, the rest of the year is about helping these volunteers thrive and succeed in their ministry.  Here are some ideas on how to use Churchteams to help you make sure your volunteers have as positive an experience as possible.

 August is the time of the year that many church staff are feeling the pressure of recruiting for their fall ministies.  The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers few.  And the staff are feeling the pressure of both.   I remember this season well from my many years as a small group and family pastor.  My wife and kids remember it as well.  Dad was always a little more amped up.