We are part of the Plano campus of Watermark Church here in Dallas.  It was a Saturday morning in July, I was at our church for the second week of training on speaking.  I had spent the week putting together a 10 minute talk using the structure we had been given.  I had also had 3 lunch meetings that week, a morning ministry team meeting, an early morning accountability group and an evening spent with a couple's group.  I was tired that morning and wanted to be home to get stuff done around the house.  As I was talking with a good friend, I found myself complaining about all the time I had invested in ministry that week.  Now, that's not really like me.  I love ministry and am grateful for the opportunities to invest in the lives of people.  But, something was happening in me that morning that happens all the time in the lives of your most engaged leaders.  I was feeling over-engaged.

Ecclesiastes 3:1 says, "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven."  

I hear a lot of pastors debate the need for a quality experience at the expense of connecting and growing the vast majority of their congregations and their communities into their group system. I also hear the reverse of this, which is, in order to embrace a large quantity of groups, then quality must somehow be sacrificed. 

We approach ministry as if we have all the time in the world. Somehow we think our people will live forever, and so will the people our people need to reach for Christ. But let’s be honest, we don’t have the luxury of time. 

The apostle Paul didn’t have the luxury of time either. Reviewing his journeys in the book of Acts, Paul never spent more than 6-18 months in any one location, yet in his quest to spread the gospel throughout the known world and to reach Spain, he put leaders in place everywhere he planted a church and then gave them the crash course on ministry. We would call this “quick and dirty” before we would call it “quality.” Paul gave them their marching orders and then basically instructed them, “Do the best you can. The Holy Spirit will guide you. If you run into trouble, then send me a letter.” Then, Paul was off to the next place. 

In living with the tension between the quality and quantity of ministry, I want you to consider these words from Peter Drucker on the Profession of Management: 

In today’s world every church has data management needs. Managing church data doesn’t sound profound or spiritual, but it’s necessary. That’s why Church Management Software (ChMS or CMS for short) systems are wildly popular resources for church leaders. Since the 1980s entrepreneurs have been making software specifically designed for managing churches. As time has marched on and technology has progressed the abilities of ChMS systems has dramatically improved.  As a result there are better services and products available for church management than ever before.  If you are in the market for a ChMS, you will most likely want a system that includes the following much-in-demand features:

At Churchteams we whole heartedly believe that our church management software (ChMS or CMS) is the greatest value for churches.  The greatest value?  That seems like a pretty big claim.  Well to back it up, here are 12 features in Churchteams that lend credibility to this claim.