Over the past decades, technology has continued to lap itself yearly — but trendy tech seems to come and go. With all these advancements it can be difficult to tell what your church needs and what’s just a fad. In this checklist, you’ll find the top 5 technologies your church needs to be successful in 2019. We’ll cover everything from a functional website to a church management solution. This church tech checklist is designed not only to save you and your team time but also increase engagement with your community.
A FUNCTIONAL CHURCH WEBSITE
WHY: This seems like a no-brainer but you’d be surprised how many churches have a website built before Facebook came into existence. In this day and age, a competent website is crucial to your church’s success. Think about how often you check out a new store, restaurant, tire shop, or hotel website before physically going to the location: what makes you think churchgoers are any different? Roughly nine out of [10] people do their research online before making a purchase or visiting a store in person. Your website is the new front door of your church, and if it doesn’t work well or accurately represent your message, you will be missing out on all those people before they ever set foot in your church. Utilizing resources like Word Press makes it incredibly easy to have a beautiful functional website at a very reasonable price. Check out our own website grader and see how yours stacks up!
ONLINE & MOBILE GIVING
WHY: Capitol One recently reported that 1 in 4 Americans rarely-to-never carry cash, and when they do, the average is less than [$25]. With Millennials that ratio increases to [one] in [three]. Carrying cash is becoming more and more inconvenient. So when the offering bucket goes by, it’s not that people don’t want to give, it’s that the method available is inconvenient for a large portion of people! Having alternative methods of giving is extremely important to continue growing your church. With various online and mobile giving solutions, your congregation can set up recurring giving, which provides your church consistent revenue that allows you to plan for the future. This is a must-have for your church to be successful in 2019.
CHURCH MANAGEMENT SOLUTION
WHY: You probably have a church management solution in place to keep up with your congregation’s addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses. While this is valuable, some Church management solutions now have the ability to do so much more! Church management solutions now have congregation-facing tools that allow your members to sign up for events, give to the church, track their volunteering, and more. When you have all these interactions stored on one comprehensive member profile, you can more fully understand your congregation’s interests. Even further, advanced church management solutions have easy-to-use reporting and insights so you can identify when someone’s engagement seems to be slowing down. A once-regular volunteer hasn’t been to service in a month? Time to give them a call, let them know you miss them and see if they need your support.
