New! 📨 Improve email engagement using links for text and social

Posted by Boyd Pelley on 9/12/22 10:00 AM
Not everyone opens emails, so making them accessible by using text and social media will significantly help you get your messages in front of more people.  Last night we released a new feature that gives you the ability to create links that you can share anywhere.   
 
In addition to this useful upgrade, here are a few other email system improvements that we added to this release.  All of these are customer suggestions described in detail below.  We will also walk through these releases in the Communication briefing next Tuesday (9/20) at 2 Eastern / 1 Central / 12 Mountain / 11 Pacific.
 
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Tags: New Release, Communication

Improve website registration using the 1st of these 9 new releases

Posted by Boyd Pelley on 9/6/22 3:15 PM

Our team has been busy the last few months responding to customer ideas that make the software just a little always-better. 

These are listed in order of their release with the most current one first.  All of these were released in June, July, and August. 

It just happens this time that my favorite one, the update that I think may be most useful, is #1.  It was released a little over a week ago.  I think you'll love how it improves your website registration experience.  

  1. Use pop-ups for registration from your website.
  2. Use text message templates with free texting.
  3. Guardrails for group auto-registration from forms.
  4. Button and page title changes in service volunteers.
  5. Print option added to service volunteer schedule.
  6. Check-in Adults and College roles with other families.
  7. Incremental search now includes legal first name.
  8. Donor portal option shows giving for entire household.
  9. Filter reports for families with or without children.
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Tags: New Release

How texting and QR Codes can improve small group connection

Posted by Boyd Pelley on 8/30/22 2:45 PM

I recently found an article on Mobile Vs. Desktop Usage worldwide.  It confirmed my suspicion that in recent years mobile usage has surpassed desktop usage overall.

Think about how many people spend their working day on a computer.  Then compare that to time spent on the phone.  According to the article, the U.S. population spends 50% of their time online on their desktop / laptop, 46% on their phone, and 4% on tablets.  This trend toward mobile will surely only increase.

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Tags: Text-To-Church, Best Practices

How to interpret data to shepherd well and measure trust in a group.

Posted by Boyd Pelley on 8/23/22 3:00 PM

Trust is foundational to every relationship.  

In an article on building trust for Focus on the Family, Dr. John Townsend tells us that successful marriages are built on trust.

In his book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni makes it clear that a lack of trust on a team is foundational to every other team problem.

Proverbs 3:5,6 makes it clear that our ongoing relationship with God has to be founded on trust.

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Tags: Groups

How to collect small group data and then use it to pray.

Posted by Boyd Pelley on 8/16/22 3:00 PM

Last week we looked at lessons we've learned for helping connect people to groups.  Once people are in groups, though, how do you pray for and shepherd them.  We learned that an effective data capturing system can be used for attendance and much more.  

Before we start, it's helpful to realize that there are different perspectives on taking attendance.  Here are a few.

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Tags: Groups

Ten lessons from the school of hard knocks that improved Groupfinder.

Posted by Boyd Pelley on 8/9/22 2:15 PM

Churchteams started out in 1999 as a tool for making disciples and building teams. A year or so later we were referring to it as a small group software.  Within a couple of years it started gaining traction with churches all over the country. 

I was a small group pastor at the time and had been for almost a decade.  I wasn't new to the challenges of starting and building a small groups ministry, I was exhausted trying to do it.  When I understood cloud computing for the first time, I had a hunch this was the answer.  And, I had a friend who was willing to pioneer this idea with me using his skills as a software architect.  Mark and I have been doing that for 23 years now.  

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Tags: Groups

Seven problems volunteer scheduling software solves and a briefing tomorrow.

Posted by Boyd Pelley on 8/2/22 11:00 AM

People typically think of solving the problem of scheduling when they consider software for volunteers.  In this third and final post of this series on volunteers, we’re going to focus specifically on this, most complex , step of the volunteer system.

The best way to solve a problem is to define it.  Here are the seven problems and how scheduling software solves them.  It’s actually pretty complex.

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Tags: Volunteers

Three recommendations for building an effective volunteer system

Posted by Boyd Pelley on 7/26/22 3:00 PM

Generally, staff are the catalysts and budgets are the fuel for ministry. It doesn’t matter whether a church has a lot of these or not, it takes volunteers to make church happen.

But, there has to be a deeper calling to volunteer than just making church happen. Like stewardship, volunteering or serving is a matter of discipleship. It is an important part of becoming more and more like Christ.

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Tags: Volunteers

Seven steps to deal with the stress of volunteer management.

Posted by Boyd Pelley on 7/19/22 3:00 PM

It's the middle of July.  If you are church staff and have already been on your summer vacation, then my guess is you're beginning to stress about recruiting volunteers for the fall ministry season.  Am I right?

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Tags: Volunteers

Two truths we hold to be self-evident.  2) All people are equal.

Posted by Boyd Pelley on 7/12/22 3:00 PM

Last week I shared how church is critical to understanding the self-evident truth that all people are created.  This week I want to look at how a teams world-view is developed and how it gives people the best chance to realize the second self-evident truth - that all people are equal. 

Together I hope this two-week, Fourth of July inspired series of blogs gives a little perspective on what we are seeking to do as a company.

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Tags: Church Management Software, Best Practices

Two truths we hold to be self-evident.  1) All people are created.

Posted by Boyd Pelley on 7/5/22 2:15 PM

The second paragraph of the U.S. Declaration of Independence begins, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

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Tags: Church Management Software, Best Practices

Why should churches pay for texting? Built in budgeting features.

Posted by Boyd Pelley on 6/28/22 2:00 PM

In this short series on texting for churches, we've looked at the history of business texting (A2P) and compared free texting to Text-to-Church (10DLC).  In this third post, let's look at the budgeting features built in to T2C to help staff manage their communication budgets.

To start with, texts associated with the following features do NOT count toward your 500 allotted monthly texts or 2 cent overages.

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Tags: Text-To-Church

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