Discover how youth ministry attendance tracking can increase your productivity and effectiveness. By using youth ministry management tools, you’ll spend less time on administrative tasks and more time on relationship-building.
You’ll never have enough time to do everything you want in youth ministry. I hear youth pastors say repeatedly: “I’m just in a busy season. When it’s done, I’ll have time to _________.”
Assuming you’re a full-time youth worker, you have only 40 hours a week. In this field, time will easily escape you.
Youth ministry is all about relationships, which take time. You need to focus on building relationships with students, leaders, and parents.
Youth Ministry Time-Wasters
- doing data entry and database management
- writing talks that most students will never remember
- developing and maintaining budgets
- youth ministry attendance tracking
- creating expense reports
- searching and engaging social media platforms
- writing and returning emails
- creating creative elements (series graphics, newsletter templates, ministry logos, funny videos, etc.)
These are only a few time-wasters in student ministry. My hope is to get youth pastors to spend more time on what really matters: BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS. Save time by automating. Youth ministry management tools let you spend more time doing what really matters.
I’m a big advocate of finding areas you can automate. Automating doesn’t mean you’re lazy. It means you’re smart.
Automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. —Bill Gates
Let’s explore different areas and ways to automate. These tools go well beyond youth ministry attendance tracking!
Youth Ministry Attendance Tracking & Other Youth Ministry Management Tools
Here’s a list of eight ways youth pastors can save time with online tools:
1. Email marketing
Emailing parents and leaders about ministry news is vital. One way to automate emails is by creating auto responders. These are sent out automatically in a sequence you determine. My favorite email marketing online tool is Mail Chimp.
2. Social-media management
How do you possibly manage all your social-media profiles? And how do you know who to engage and respond to? My favorite social-media management tool is Hootsuite. You can access all your social media in one place. Then select which “streams” you view. That can even include keywords you’d like to track. Plus, you can schedule multiple posts on multiple platforms.
