Nate W.
First and foremost I am a follower of Jesus Christ. I'm a husband and a father of two (just had the second one a couple of weeks ago). My life is extremely blessed because of my family.
On a professional note, I have both my Bachelors and Masters degrees in accounting. I worked for one of the Big 4 accounting firms for a brief amount of time (most people don't last long with those companies).
I have served as the accountant for my church and in various other church leadership positions. I currently operate a website where I write about church management software. I have a lot of experience testing and reviewing this type of software. Hopefully some members of this community will benefit from this experience. Feel free to contact me for more information at any time.
I really think that a good church managment program can benefit church leaders. It's extremely difficult for the church leaders that I work with to manage their time. They want to spend all of their time visiting and directly helping the members of the church. However, the nature of a church is that you have to spend time managing it. This involves keeping records about accounting, attendance, and more. Fortunately, today we have church software that can help us manage these tasks. The software definitely speeds up the process, but it doesn't do everything by itself.
Hopefully your church can have a church management system that will allow the leaders to be out and visiting with the people, instead of being stuck in the office. I really think my site can help with identifying a good system for your church.
Posted in: How to Start Using Google Apps
Great article. One thing I have never been able to figure out is the difference between the free google apps that google offers to everyone and these google applications that you are talking about Mavis. For example, on my person email account I've been using google documents, google chat, and google calendar for years. When google relseased this paid version of google apps I got really confused because all the applications they are offering I already have. I already share files with members of my church using google documents and I share a calendar with some of the church leaders as well. Anyways, if you have any idea what the difference is (if there is one) that would be great.
P.S. I didn't know you could use google to make a website. I might see if I can use it to complement my church management software site I'm running.
Posted in: How to Start Using Google Apps
Hey Mavis,
Thanks for the information. It will be nice to finally put that question to rest!
Nate
Posted in: How to Use Facebook at Your Church
This is a great article. I have to admit that I've been avoiding creating a facebook page for my church management software website. I'm really not that tech savvy, and I thought it would be more difficult than this. I don't know if this is a newer criteria or not, but I heard that you needed something like 150 followers before you could have an official facebook page. I guess I'll go and try and set mine up and then I'll see if there is something else I'm missing.
I should mention that the members of my church do use facebook quite frequently, especially the youth. It is a great way for leaders of the church to connect with the youth. One word of caution though: there has been a few minor problems with adult male leaders "friending" female youth members. There isn't necessarily any guilty parties, just a bad perception. Unfortunately these are just the times we live in.
Thanks for the great article.
Posted in: I Don’t Believe in “Waiting Till Marriage”: A Brief Reflection on Sexuality and Spirituality
Very thoughtful article and comments. I honestly wish I would have been taught much more about sex before I got married (I'm still sort of a newly-wed at five years of marriage). As a man I had a million misconceptions about what sex is and isn't. The little knowledge I had came from friends at school and the Internet (obviously not the best places to gather information on the subject). My parents never really talked much about it, even though my mom is a nurse. At church, all I ever heard were comments like, "Wait until your married." or "It's something special that you will get to enjoy after you are married."
Don't get me wrong, I am extremely grateful for the boundaires set in the bible. I honestly don't think you could get even half of the full joy that comes from sex if this sacred act is performed outside of marriage. Anyways, I would have loved to have had a class or two taught about the subject so I didn't have so many misconcpetions. I'm still getting over some of them. I'm reading a book on the subject that I think is very helpful (at least for those who are married--it seems like it would be applicable for those who are getting ready to be married as well). The book is called Sexual Intimacy in Marriage by William Cutrir. He is an Ob-gyn and he is a man of faith. He uses both medical information and scriptures to talk about the subject. I'm only about 100 pages in, but so far it has been very helpful for my wife and I.
Posted in: What software works for tracking church membership information?
I've played around with quite a few of these church membership software programs. Depending on the size of your church, they may or may not be worth it yet. It's true that Excel is user-friendly, but it definitely has its limitations. One of the main limitations is that it isn't very good at preventing errors. Some studies on the topic have showed that over 90 percent of Excel spreadsheets have errors. Computer programs have internal controls that make it less-likely for these errors to occur.
This is just my opinion (and I know some people disagree) but I currently think that Servant Keeper is the best church management software program out there. I'm an accounting guy and Servant Keeper hooks up with my favorite accounting program: Quickbooks.