I am the pastor of CrossWay Church, a newer CRC church plant, in Vancouver, WA (a suburb of Portland, OR). I am married and have two adopted daughters.
A little shamelss self promotion as well, I have created a new set of guides to help congregations figure out which many church websites option are the best for them. You can find it here. New Church Website Guide
Mavis, I just started to looking at Salesforce in our church and appreciate your posts. I did not install the NonProfit Package when I first signed up. I don't know what version of the NonProfit you were talking about in this blog post, but Salesforce has come out with Version 3. After looking at the it's household model, (your SPAM filters didn't let me put in a link) I felt like it was the best option for us. I tried to install the extra pack afterwards and ran into some big access issues. I wasn't too far along in our process, so we just started over with fresh install of Salesfoce NonProfit Pack (one of the first options when you sign up). I would really suggest that people do their homework on accounts before they sign up. They can spare themselves some problems. As you said, the non profit may not work best for everyone. If you think it is best, it is smart to start with it rather than trying to convert to it later.
Free Church Database Option: I have looked into various church software options a bit but they were way above my price range. I thought about creating my own database, but it is above my expertise and most the Mac database software is pretty expensive.
I just discovered ChurchInfo @ http://www.churchdb.org/. IT IS FREE! I am starting to play around with it. It seems to have some of the functionality of the Servant Keeper / CCB. It has most of the stuff you would want to track (families, individuals, giving, events, attendance, check in / out, etc) and allows some flexibility. I can create new categories for my types of events. It is an internet based data base (MySQL) so you can either store it on your own personal online server (cloud) or store it on one computer. Either way, it allows multiple users with different levels of access. Because it is internet based is is cross-platform (Mac or PC). I am trying with info stored on my Mac right now for some future kid's events.
Honestly, it didn't come with a ton of installation instructions on the Mac end of things so it took me a while to figure out how to install it, but once I got it working it seem pretty user friendly. The PC installation process seemed much easier.
Wow teddy bearrs? I have never heard of that one. I was wondering if anyone does things more subtly than that. Do you have a welcome table that they can stop by at and give a packet of information? Do you give any other gift? A book, a CD, etc. I know of a couple of churches that used to give out coffee mugs.
Right now, we offer a CD that introduces you to the worship music we sing. It has some of our favorite songs and some that might be unfamiliar to them. We make it ourselves from 11 x 17 Card stock. The jacket is also informative and introduces them to how (normal order of worship, artists, band make up) and why we worship (why we chose the songs we do, etc). You can see it at http://www.churchwebtoolkit.com/?p=161
The only other gift we have handed out in the past was a small book on Heaven when we did a series on that. The book has been tied to a small group, so we hoped that it would encourage them to join it.
Would something like this make more sense? It is something we are wrestling with. We don't want to be gimmicky.
We ran into the same issue. We don't have a church secretary to manage all this so it was a huge task.
We have used two things to really streamline things and found both helpful. They are free.
1) Send out a form to all volunteers on a quarterly basis before we create a schedule. We use a Google form that we send out to all our volunteers asking them when they are available. Their responses are automatically recorded in a spreadsheet. So we have all the info at our fingertips when making the schedule --way easier than what we were doing and people don't have to switch as much. Here is a blog I wrote a while back to explain what we do with a sample form (I shared this with local pastors). This saves the amount of time that the main scheduler has to do things.
2) Service Builder: This is a free worship planning site that has a song database and has added some really cool features for volunteers. Multiple people can schedule and it will highlight if a person is schedule for multiple tasks. Another cool feature is that it can automatically email or text (they have to set it up) people to let them know when they servce. We use it for attendance too. I just wrote a blog about this as well that has more info. I wrote it because my main issue with ServiceBuilder is you can't see much without creating an account. I tried to put up some images for people to see. I have let other pastors from our Classis join our church's account to check it out in more depth before they create their own account. Would be willing to do this for others too! Message me directly and I can set it up for you.
Posted in: How to Start a Church Website
A little shamelss self promotion as well, I have created a new set of guides to help congregations figure out which many church websites option are the best for them. You can find it here. New Church Website Guide
Posted in: Salesforce for Church - Part I
Mavis, I just started to looking at Salesforce in our church and appreciate your posts. I did not install the NonProfit Package when I first signed up. I don't know what version of the NonProfit you were talking about in this blog post, but Salesforce has come out with Version 3. After looking at the it's household model, (your SPAM filters didn't let me put in a link) I felt like it was the best option for us. I tried to install the extra pack afterwards and ran into some big access issues. I wasn't too far along in our process, so we just started over with fresh install of Salesfoce NonProfit Pack (one of the first options when you sign up). I would really suggest that people do their homework on accounts before they sign up. They can spare themselves some problems. As you said, the non profit may not work best for everyone. If you think it is best, it is smart to start with it rather than trying to convert to it later.
Posted in: Salesforce for Church - Part I
Here is the link to the article: https://powerofus.force.com/articles/Resource/NPSP-What-is-an-Account-Model
Posted in: Where can a church get low cost, decent quality resources and supplies?
Found a good print website. Print24.com You need a bit of lead time, but I was able to get 2500 full color double sided half page flyers for $130.
Posted in: What software works for tracking church membership information?
Free Church Database Option: I have looked into various church software options a bit but they were way above my price range. I thought about creating my own database, but it is above my expertise and most the Mac database software is pretty expensive.
I just discovered ChurchInfo @ http://www.churchdb.org/. IT IS FREE! I am starting to play around with it. It seems to have some of the functionality of the Servant Keeper / CCB. It has most of the stuff you would want to track (families, individuals, giving, events, attendance, check in / out, etc) and allows some flexibility. I can create new categories for my types of events. It is an internet based data base (MySQL) so you can either store it on your own personal online server (cloud) or store it on one computer. Either way, it allows multiple users with different levels of access. Because it is internet based is is cross-platform (Mac or PC). I am trying with info stored on my Mac right now for some future kid's events.
Honestly, it didn't come with a ton of installation instructions on the Mac end of things so it took me a while to figure out how to install it, but once I got it working it seem pretty user friendly. The PC installation process seemed much easier.
Posted in: What software works for tracking church membership information?
Has anyone used the The City by Zondervan?
Posted in: Does your church give first time visitors gifts? If so what do you give?
Wow teddy bearrs? I have never heard of that one. I was wondering if anyone does things more subtly than that. Do you have a welcome table that they can stop by at and give a packet of information? Do you give any other gift? A book, a CD, etc. I know of a couple of churches that used to give out coffee mugs.
Posted in: Does your church give first time visitors gifts? If so what do you give?
Wendy: I appreciate the feedback.
Right now, we offer a CD that introduces you to the worship music we sing. It has some of our favorite songs and some that might be unfamiliar to them. We make it ourselves from 11 x 17 Card stock. The jacket is also informative and introduces them to how (normal order of worship, artists, band make up) and why we worship (why we chose the songs we do, etc). You can see it at http://www.churchwebtoolkit.com/?p=161
The only other gift we have handed out in the past was a small book on Heaven when we did a series on that. The book has been tied to a small group, so we hoped that it would encourage them to join it.
Would something like this make more sense? It is something we are wrestling with. We don't want to be gimmicky.
Posted in: Does your church give first time visitors gifts? If so what do you give?
Would be happy to send you a pdf of what we actually use rather than the generic template that i posted on the blog if that would help.
Posted in: Volunteer Schedule Conflicts Ideas?
We ran into the same issue. We don't have a church secretary to manage all this so it was a huge task.
We have used two things to really streamline things and found both helpful. They are free.
1) Send out a form to all volunteers on a quarterly basis before we create a schedule. We use a Google form that we send out to all our volunteers asking them when they are available. Their responses are automatically recorded in a spreadsheet. So we have all the info at our fingertips when making the schedule --way easier than what we were doing and people don't have to switch as much. Here is a blog I wrote a while back to explain what we do with a sample form (I shared this with local pastors). This saves the amount of time that the main scheduler has to do things.
2) Service Builder: This is a free worship planning site that has a song database and has added some really cool features for volunteers. Multiple people can schedule and it will highlight if a person is schedule for multiple tasks. Another cool feature is that it can automatically email or text (they have to set it up) people to let them know when they servce. We use it for attendance too. I just wrote a blog about this as well that has more info. I wrote it because my main issue with ServiceBuilder is you can't see much without creating an account. I tried to put up some images for people to see. I have let other pastors from our Classis join our church's account to check it out in more depth before they create their own account. Would be willing to do this for others too! Message me directly and I can set it up for you.
Posted in: Does anyone have recommendations for parenting classes?
Nate We did not end up using it. Sorry, I don't have anything to share.
Posted in: Do you have suggestions for a Small Group study to help teach some basic principles of community?
Andy Stanley's Community is a good video series is a pretty good intro to small groups as well.