Mavis Moon

For our replacement of Power Point, our church tried Easy Worship and Pro Presenter by having our "Power Point team" try using them for a couple weeks. We ended up not going with either but instead are using Proclaim. That has turned out to be the easiest to train people on (our team is several people who take turns doing the slides at a service, so no one on that team becomes a "master user"), and the people who create the slides like it, too. 

For planning our services, we use Church Planning Center (https://planning.center/). It's working great for the worship leader and pastor and secretary who update it throughout the week. Our volunteers are doing well on it, too. We started small with just the true worship planning team on it, but now we have accounts for all volunteers - sound, power point, praise band members, accompanists, nursery, hospitality elder, deacon who intros and prays about the offering, everything. The secretary offers personal assistance for those who need it. There are a couple people who don't have email, but not too many.

I'm encouraging our secretary to move toward using Church Planning Center for our membership and offering tracking, too. I think it'll be good to have all that in one system.

I also like the "Salt of the Earth" calendar that Joyce refers to (http://christiancalendar.squarespace.com/). It is not something you can download and print, but you can order it and it is a beautiful calendar with art and with information on the litugical seasons and holidays. I think you would like it a lot.

I do automate my tithing. I find it works great -- maybe because I am SO forgetful! I have done an automated monthly donation to our church from back when I was using Quicken for DOS (yes, I'm that old). Back then, it would ask me if I was sure and it always reminded me of Malachi 3:8 “'Will a mere mortal rob God? Yet you rob me.' 'But you ask, "How are we robbing you?" 'In tithes and offerings.'" (I had to look that up!) It was like Quicken was asking me, "Will you rob God, OR will you send your offering to the church?" :) I send it to the church office each month.

I do automated giving for some other things, too, like some missionary support. What I don't do and haven't figured out completely is automated giving for the special offerings our church does each week. The deacons follow a schedule. If I were organized, I'd look up each week what the offering will be (it's in the bulletin and on the web), but I haven't gotten in that habit. Maybe I could set up an annual amount for each of the organizations or something.

To me, it feels the most like giving my "first fruits" -- I "pay" it just like my other bills, not deciding each month what I might or might not have leftover or what I do or do not feel like giving.

Anyway, automated tithing absolutely works for me!