Rachael Klein

Our church uses Planning Center.

Some Pros for Planning Center for me are:

• All-in-One Database: You can do a lot with Planning Center. You have the options to manage your church's member database, create lists, and create simple directories. You can also opt in to all the other feature it offers, like online giving, Child check-ins, Groups, Church calendar, etc.
• Volunteer & Service Scheduling: One feature I like the most is the Services feature, which helps plan worship services and schedule volunteers. Volunteers can accept or reject requests for dates they are scheduled for and add their blockout dates for when they'll be away.
• Church Center App for members: Members can download Planning Center's app, the Church Center App. In the app, members can manage their personal/directory information, volunteer schedule, online giving, see the church calendar (if you use that feature), communicate with one and another, and more. You can also use Church Center features on a desktop/laptop. If your church doesn't have a website, you could direct people towards your Church Center URL instead.
• Great customer service and help articles: Planning Center's customer service team is super helpful every time I've had to contact them. They also have a ton of articles and videos on their website explaining how to use or set up features.

Some cons for me are:

• Your congregation needs to be a little tech savvy: Some of our members use the Church Center App, but others do not. This becomes an issue for in-app features like the app's church directory. Members only appear in the in-app directory if they approve their information to be made visible to others. If you have members who don't use apps or don't have an email address, they can't login in to approve this. This results in members still needing to contact the office when they have to get in touch with someone else from church, but don't have their contact info because they can't look them up.
• Scammers/Hackers: Over the years, there have been a few incidents where scammers have figured out how Planning Center works and try to use that to their advantage. Planning Center used to have a feature where you could send text messages to members, but it got hacked and they now use a separate third-party instead. I didn't want to add another subscription, so we no longer have access to that feature. A year or so ago, there were scammers who pretended to be church members so they could log into their Church Center app accounts, access the directory, and email everyone at church to ask for gift cards. This happened to us as well as a few other church I spoke to.
• The subscriptions add up: It's nice to have a database and app where you can manage most of your church's needs, but the subscriptions do add up. Sometimes I wonder it if would have been better to go with a database that charges a flat rate, like Breeze, but I know that Planning Center was the only option at the time that had all of the features we were looking for.

Sorry, that was probably more information than you were looking for. Hope it helps though!

Our church ended up going with Vanco for our online giving. We called the company we got our church database software from (Servant Keeper) and that's who they suggested. Their customer service is very good and it integrates with our database so we can download transaction information for yearly totals and whatnot. I don't remember what the pricing information ended up being though.

We just started having outdoor services (we're in northern NJ). Our church is fortunate to have a large hill behind the church lined with trees at the top for shade. Our Plan B in the event of bad weather is to cancel the outdoor portion and livestream the Pastor and Praise Team. I don't think we'll be having services in the sanctuary until it's safe to have the majority of the congregation back in there.

NJ laws currently allow for 100 people indoors or 25% capacity, whichever is lower, but religious and political groups can have unlimited numbers outdoors as long as we social distance and take precautions.

We have a worship team that leads us during services, but with all the COVID restrictions I honestly don't see us having choir right now. Maybe things will be different by the time Christmas rolls around, but it might be safer to wait until next year.

You could encourage the congregation to send cards or notes if you have a lot of non-techy members. Depending on your area's guidelines, you may be able to have a drive-through or drive-by celebration of some kind.

A few years ago, our church did a study using the NIV Once-A-Day Morning and Evening Bible. I don't remember what the inside of the book is like, but our pastor had created a weekly reading guide and little devotionals and Q&As to go with it that we printed everyweek with our bulletin.

Hi Alana,

For attendance registration, there is a free website reopen.church that lets you create a online place for people to RSVP to services.

I don't know where you are in reopening, but another resource is Cool Church Solutions came out with a free ebook that provides checklists and tips for prepping your building: https://www.smartchurchsolutions.com/resources/ebook/covid-19-and-church-facilities-are-you-prepared/

Back when Advent started, one of our volunteers put together take-home Advent wreath boxes for families to light during the holiday season. Depending on what your restrictions look like, you might be able to put materials or activity ideas in boxes for home use.

There are companies, like Orange Kids Media, where you can buy access to videos and resources that you could post on your website for the kids to watch at home as well. They have different programs for different age groups, like one for Pre-K, one for kids, and one for teens.

I'm not a youth anymore, but my friends and I have been engaging in weekly game nights online. You might be able to find different online games that you could play together online by streaming through Zoom or Discord.

I don't know if it counts as a logo, but we have a stained glass window that we use as our image on basically everything (website, Facebook, bulletin covers, newsletters, etc.).

Hi Bob,

When our church presents the proposed budget at the yearly Congregational Meeting, we have separate line items for our minister's salary, for wages for paid employees and those who get some kind of stipend, and for some of the expenses related to them (employment taxes, pulpit supply, accountant fees, etc.). In years past, we broke down the expenses related to benefits, but this didn't happen last year (we went through some big changes over the past few years, including a new pastor and new financial secretary).

Hope that helps answer your question.

Hi Jay. Our church also uses Servant Keeper and we use Vanco for online donations. We picked Vanco because that was the service recommended by Servant Keeper.