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.
Hi Jonathan. Honestly, our church has not done this, but I am curious about this as well. About a year ago, our church couldn't get enough volunteers for our GEMS program and they had to take a year off, but we still had enough volunteers for Cadets for that to be possible. Part of me wondered if it would have made more sense to try a co-ed group instead of two separate groups, but the church's goal was more to give volunteers a year off and to find GEMS counselors for next year instead.
Do you have any type of outline for what your co-ed group would look like? Like would you still call it GEMS and Cadets or would you come up with a new name? Would you still follow GEMS/Cadets curriculum or would you come up with something completely different?
I'm sorry I don't have an answer to your question, but I would really like to know how this works out for you and your church.
Hi. I was never in Cadets so I can't help you with that end of things, but our church uses Wix for our website and it's pretty easy to use. You can drag and drop to add content and there are a lot of pre-built templates to start off with. It's also one of the more popular website builders, so if you have a problem or can't figure something out there is a lot of information available to help troubleshoot.
Our church uses Servant Keeper for our church database/directory and to calculate online giving. It's good for generating reports and keeping track of a lot of stuff, like dates, allergies, membership status, and whatnot.
One question you may want to ask is whether this is something one person is going to use on one computer or if this is something multiple people are going to need to access at different locations. Most church database software programs have local (one computer) or cloud versions or their software that come at different price points.
Do you know what exactly you're trying to do or keep track of with the software?
When this first started, we livestreamed our services. Now we prerecord it.
When we were livestreaming, our pastor would do the prayers, announcements, and sermon from his couch at home. The service would stream live on Facebook and would be uploaded to YouTube afterwards. Our worship coordinator and her husband would record a separate video of them singing songs and hymns that people could watch or sing along with before or after the service.
We switched to prerecording so that we could have all of the elements of the service in one video and so that we could upload them to Facebook and YouTube at the same time. Prerecording also lets us add in videos so members of the congregation can do readings and the audience gets to see more familiar faces. This process means almost everything has to be ready by Thursday, but it also helps prevent buffering issues on Sundays.
We've been doing Zoom Social and Prayer Hours on Fridays, but not many people have been participating. I'm not sure if we have to change the times/days to get more people on, but we'll figure something out.
Bulletin: Events, calender for that week, announcements about/from church members, volunteer schedule for this and next week, general announcements.
Newsletter: Missionary updates, stories from our Bible Studies or Youth Programs, notes from organizations we support, monthly calendar, event recaps, announcements too long to fit in our bulletin.
Social Media: Reminders for events, pictures/recaps from events, sharing posts from other organizations we support.
Website: Full calendar is available here.
We also have a bulletin board and occasionally do email blasts for special events.
Posted in: What Vendor Do You Use for Online Giving?
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.
Posted in: Anybody Combine Gems & Cadets Into One Group?
Hi Jonathan. Honestly, our church has not done this, but I am curious about this as well. About a year ago, our church couldn't get enough volunteers for our GEMS program and they had to take a year off, but we still had enough volunteers for Cadets for that to be possible. Part of me wondered if it would have made more sense to try a co-ed group instead of two separate groups, but the church's goal was more to give volunteers a year off and to find GEMS counselors for next year instead.
Do you have any type of outline for what your co-ed group would look like? Like would you still call it GEMS and Cadets or would you come up with a new name? Would you still follow GEMS/Cadets curriculum or would you come up with something completely different?
I'm sorry I don't have an answer to your question, but I would really like to know how this works out for you and your church.
Posted in: Tools for the Webmaster Cadet Badge?
Hi. I was never in Cadets so I can't help you with that end of things, but our church uses Wix for our website and it's pretty easy to use. You can drag and drop to add content and there are a lot of pre-built templates to start off with. It's also one of the more popular website builders, so if you have a problem or can't figure something out there is a lot of information available to help troubleshoot.
Posted in: What Church Management Software Do You Recommend?
Our church uses Servant Keeper for our church database/directory and to calculate online giving. It's good for generating reports and keeping track of a lot of stuff, like dates, allergies, membership status, and whatnot.
One question you may want to ask is whether this is something one person is going to use on one computer or if this is something multiple people are going to need to access at different locations. Most church database software programs have local (one computer) or cloud versions or their software that come at different price points.
Do you know what exactly you're trying to do or keep track of with the software?
Posted in: Share Your Sermon Series
We're in a sermon series using the book "The Story." It's meant to be a journey through the Bible from start to finish over the course of many weeks.
Posted in: Name for Ministry to College and Post-College Folks?
We used to have a Bible Study that fit that category. We just called it Young Adults Bible Study.
Posted in: Share Your Sermon Series
We just started one this week on the Heidelberg Catechism.
Posted in: Live Streaming / Virtual Service Examples
When this first started, we livestreamed our services. Now we prerecord it.
When we were livestreaming, our pastor would do the prayers, announcements, and sermon from his couch at home. The service would stream live on Facebook and would be uploaded to YouTube afterwards. Our worship coordinator and her husband would record a separate video of them singing songs and hymns that people could watch or sing along with before or after the service.
We switched to prerecording so that we could have all of the elements of the service in one video and so that we could upload them to Facebook and YouTube at the same time. Prerecording also lets us add in videos so members of the congregation can do readings and the audience gets to see more familiar faces. This process means almost everything has to be ready by Thursday, but it also helps prevent buffering issues on Sundays.
We've been doing Zoom Social and Prayer Hours on Fridays, but not many people have been participating. I'm not sure if we have to change the times/days to get more people on, but we'll figure something out.
Posted in: Where Do You Live? Say Hi Below!
Greetings from Wantage, NJ, USA!
Posted in: Church Websites
Sussex Christian Reformed Church in Sussex, NJ
https://www.sussexcrc.org/
Posted in: Emojis and Christ-like Empathy
Thank you for this. As someone who comes from a family with a particularly bad medical history, this hits home.
Posted in: Does Your Church Have a Communication Strategy?
Bulletin: Events, calender for that week, announcements about/from church members, volunteer schedule for this and next week, general announcements.
Newsletter: Missionary updates, stories from our Bible Studies or Youth Programs, notes from organizations we support, monthly calendar, event recaps, announcements too long to fit in our bulletin.
Social Media: Reminders for events, pictures/recaps from events, sharing posts from other organizations we support.
Website: Full calendar is available here.
We also have a bulletin board and occasionally do email blasts for special events.