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.

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. 

The uncertainty of this year so far has caused all of us to innovate like crazy.  This weekly blog chronicles much of our journey as a software company. 

Hopefully this season will soon be over.  To help capture what you've learned, I wanted to share with you a conversation with Dave Workman about an affordable, fun, and creative way for a team to do strategic planning. 

Dave was part of Vineyard Cincinnati, an innovative mega-church, from its inception and then as Sr. Pastor for 13 years.  Currently he is president of Elemental Churches, a leadership development group devoted to helping churches become healthier and more effective. He is the author of Elemental Leaders and The Outward-focused Life.  

Churchteams was built around the idea of growing a church using groups as the common building material for every ministry. This means that everything that involves more than one person is managed as a group. 

Every worship service, small group, class, committee, ministry team, leadership team, service team, mission team, event, and even assimilation step is managed as a group. 

This is one of the design constructs that makes our software unique, powerful and user-friendly.  Once understood, ministry rocks of all sizes are formed together to become a solidly built organization.

I was so encouraged by this email from Kelly, a church admin assistant, in response to How we help the church be the church.

"Thanks for all of your help during this time. We have had two families already connect using the set-up in Churchteams. One from our church and the other is un-churched. They happen to live right across the street from one another and hooked up after seeing the link on FB. Thank you for all of your help in getting our church ready for serving our community during these difficult times."

All across the country today, churches are empty because of the Coronavirus pandemic. 

I've loved reading  notes from pastors encouraging their people to trust God and then love and care for one another.  

This is a time for the church to shine!  And we built Churchteams to be the light on the hill for decentralized ministry.  Our team started talking about that and we came up with some ways beyond the Sunday experience that Churchteams can help your church be the Church (not a cap typo) during this crisis. 

NOTE:  As of 3/18/20, because of Covid 19, we are delaying a final decision on whether to continue with the User's Gathering until April 15th.  

Join our staff and so far over 40 other Churchteams clients for a couple days of focused training to improve your Churchteams skills at our User's Gathering this Spring.  Our goal is to provide not just a fun time together with CT staff you've interacted with, but also with other people doing exactly what you do.  

For Church Geeks like us, January means it's time to send out giving statements.  You could send out the familiar "thank you and here's what happened last year" cover letter that you  print, stuff in an envelope, seal, stamp and mail.  But, it's 2020 and there are some creative things you can do to spice it up this year.  Here are some thoughts on how to salt your giving statement content and  pepper your process.