Summary

The Potter’s House of Fort Worth was on the verge of a breakthrough. They had a rapidly growing community, but disconnected spreadsheets and manual processes were keeping them from meaningfully connecting with their members. The church found itself at a crossroads due to outdated methods and the need for a more cohesive approach to streamline operations and enhance congregation engagement. 

In addition to the challenges posed by using multiple systems, The Potter’s House of Fort Worth also needed better methods for communication and coordination in their team. With different departments working on separate systems, it became difficult for them to share important information and collaborate effectively. The breaking point was when a congressional ruling impacted texting short codes and the church found themselves asking people to memorize a 10-digit code to give.

In search of a solution, they found Pushpay, encouraged by positive experiences from a sister campus. They found the robust, user-friendly platform that the church desperately needed. Not only did it resolve the immediate challenges of organization and giving, but it also opened up new avenues for engagement and growth. The Potter’s House now enjoys a seamless solution that supports everything from event promotion and volunteer coordination to a deeper understanding of congregational engagement through detailed metrics.

Challenges

As the church community grew rapidly, their patchwork of disconnected spreadsheets and manual processes became increasingly unmanageable. Trying to keep track of finances, events, and congregation engagement through multiple systems was a daunting task that consumed valuable time and resources. 

Cedric Spencer, the church’s IT Director, recalls, “We didn’t have a ChMS platform at all. We were piecing things together piecemeal. For example, if staff hadn’t recently looked at the spreadsheets or calendars we were using, a space could get double booked and teams could be showing up with no spaces to use.” 

But their challenges extended beyond room management. With different departments using separate systems, teams found it difficult to share important information and collaborate effectively. Cedric recalled, “The frustration continued over time for volunteers, ministry leaders, and staff.” The church’s rapid expansion only magnified these issues, highlighting the urgent need for something that seamlessly connects the church’s operations and data.

An unexpected legislative change that affected the church’s text-to-give process finally forced the church to seriously consider adopting a robust church software. With short codes for texting no longer working, Cedric remembered, “We were having to ask people to memorize a 10-digit code to be able to give. That’s what really prompted us to go to the next thing, a more robust, flexible solution.”

Solutions

After testing Pushpay’s ChMS based on their sister campus’s recommendation, Cedric said, “We decided we can’t go without this anymore.” The Potter’s House of Fort Worth started using Pushpay’s ChMS in 2017, and for the first time, staff and volunteers had access to a unified, user-friendly system to streamline processes and stay organized. It brought together all the church’s data and processes for seamless communication and coordination between ministries. 

Cedric shared how impactful the ChMS has been in their efforts to connect and engage with the Fort Worth Community: “We have a monthly food drive that people register for. We have our backpack giveaways, EDUFEST, and multiple events for entrepreneurship and financial literacy. All of these require registrations, so we can see the number of people coming and what that number looks like. We tried to do some of these things before we had a platform and we weren’t successful. The tools made the difference.”

In 2020, the church added Pushpay’s giving and app solutions to their tech stack, and Cedric reflected that the new tools were “definitely a significant addition of features and services.” With Pushpay’s giving solution, The Potter’s House gave their congregation an easy, secure way to give. Additionally, the church app, with a clean and easy-to-navigate dashboard, made it easy for congregants to engage deeper within the church.  

Cedric shared, “At the end of the day, in all three areas—the management software, online giving, and the app—necessity was what pushed us to embrace these tools. But it has been one of the best things we ever did.”

Results

Since 2017, The Potter’s House of Fort Worth has seen a significant transformation in its operations and engagement with the help of Pushpay. Cedric recalled, “I’ve been here since we first opened the campus, so I know why we use it and what it was before we had Pushpay. From my perspective, it’s very much well worth it because I remember what it was like before we had the systems and processes.”

The post-COVID era has brought challenges and opportunities for churches worldwide, and The Potter’s House of Fort Worth was no exception. Cedric acknowledged, “There’s a shift and a change post-COVID for our church. And every Sunday, we’re seeing new faces. It’s remarkable. “Alongside more people and new faces each week, The Potter’s House of Fort Worth was also seeing growth in their numbers. Cedric shared, “I’ve 100% seen a change in our church’s metrics since we started using Pushpay. We leverage Pushpay to help us figure out how to do ministry more effectively, and we’re getting better because we can see what’s effective.”

After more than seven years of using Pushpay, The Potter’s House of Fort Worth continues to find value in Pushpay’s software. Cedric highlights the continuous innovation and responsiveness of the tech to the evolving needs of their church: “Our processes and our utilization of tech pre-COVID is totally different, but the way Pushpay is constantly updating the product is one of the most valuable things for this service for us. We can be assured and confident that we’re getting a product that is innovative and meets the needs of our church. It really is helping us serve our congregation well.” This enduring relationship with Pushpay has helped The Potter’s House of Fort Worth adapt, grow, and look forward with confidence, knowing they have a partner committed to their success and the growth of their community.

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Summary

In 1986, more than 150 members started Asbury United Methodist Church, with the vision for a church that would be truly open to all, give generously to its community, and grow faithful followers of Jesus Christ. Today, those principles are still being lived out by the church and its 2600+ members. But that also means the church staff has a lot of people to connect with and a need for tools and systems to keep people from falling through the cracks.

They’ve been using Pushpay’s church management software since 2017 and giving since 2020 to better connect with their members. However, with the launch of Pushpay Insights, the church’s Executive Director, David Miller, discovered how actionable data analysis could better support their church in their mission of bringing people together.

Challenges

Managing a large congregation like Asbury United Methodist Church is no small feat. With online giving and a church management system in place, Asbury had a solid foundation to manage operations and engage their community. But they needed an easier way to keep a pulse on the health of their community as a whole and, more importantly, a better way to spot people who may be disengaging so they could reach out and reconnect.

Solutions

Pushpay Insights brings Asbury United Methodist Church’s ChMS and Giving data together to create a central space to view the data and take action. The first-of-its-kind tool offers actionable insights into the church’s data to help them know and grow their church.

With Pushpay Insights, David and his team unlocked a clearer and deeper understanding of the church’s health—attendance, giving, and engagement—all in one easy-to-use view. Those metrics empower the staff at Asbury United Methodist Church to confidently plan and execute strategies for growth and engagement, enhancing their event planning and volunteer recruitment, along with nurturing relationships with donors.

Results

Leveraging Pushpay Insights along with their ChMS and Giving tools significantly improved the church’s operations and ability to connect with their congregants. It unlocked engagement and discipleship capabilities within the church, showing David and his fellow staff members that every data point is a potential life touched, every chart is a roadmap to discipleship, and every statistic is an opportunity for the spiritual growth of a community member. David mentions that the clergy, staff, and committee heads will love this new product’s data-informed and actionable insights. David adds, “Insights is going to become a major part of our weekly reporting routine here at Asbury.” 

Pushpay Insights is helping Asbury United Methodist Church better know and grow their people in every stage of their journey. David closes by saying, “Better data means better advances for our congregation and our community as a whole. As Pushpay Insights grows and develops, it’s going to mean stronger and more meaningful data that will be useful in the missions and Ministry of Asbury United Methodist Church.”

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SUMMARY

Nestled in southwest Missouri, the Christian Church of Carl Junction found themselves at a crossroads. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, they were grappling with challenges, particularly in managing donations and fostering digital connections with their congregation. The church’s existing system, Planning Center Online, was falling short and needed a new solution. As the world began to grapple with a new normal, the church was trying to find its footing as well.

CHALLENGES

Emerging from the pandemic, the Christian Church of Carl Junction faced hurdles in managing their donations and digitally connecting with their congregation. The Momentum Minister, Kenan Klein, reflects, “We were trying to figure out coming out of COVID. ‘How do we reflect donations better? And how do we do a better job digitally and meeting people where they’re at?’ And we felt like Planning Center didn’t provide us the tools we needed at the time.”

Traditional donation management methods and ways of connecting with their congregation digitally proved inadequate. Amplifying those challenges was a significant delay in receiving donations due to third-party transactions—an issue especially critical for a smaller church like theirs. Already feeling burdened by the financial strain of the pandemic, Kenan and his fellow leaders knew that quick access to funds was crucial for their recovery and continued missional operations.

SOLUTIONS

Pushpay revolutionized their operations by providing real-time donor information and eliminating the middleman in transactions.

Unlike Planning Center Online, Pushpay handles transactions in-house, leading to cleaner processes and faster time between transactions. Now, alongside real-time donor information, the church could access funds promptly, enabling them to make mission-critical decisions on the fly.

RESULTS

The switch to Pushpay sparked transformative results for the Christian Church of Carl Junction. They gained enhanced control over donation management and instant access to funds. This immediate access to funds was instrumental in their financial recovery post-COVID-19.

Kenan says, “It’s so much faster and so much cleaner, and it was able to keep us on mission.” This quick access to donations meant the church could make on-the-spot, mission-critical decisions.

The funds the Christian Church of Carl Junction received and the faster processing time through Pushpay have helped the church grow its outreach and engagement efforts. They’re using technology to meet people where they are and live out the church’s mission. Kenan notes, “Now we can make mission-critical decisions on the spur of the moment when we need to because we have the money on hand.” The church could meet people where they are digitally and effectively continue their work. The switch to Pushpay wasn’t just a platform change—it was a strategic move that empowered the Christian Church of Carl Junction to serve its congregation better and fulfill its mission through any future challenges.

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SUMMARY

The Road at Chapel Hills, a vibrant church nestled in Colorado Springs, turned to Pushpay’s technology to simplify and enhance their children’s ministry operations. With a focus on fostering connections with families and ensuring every child is seen and valued, the church found in Pushpay a partner that could help them achieve these goals more effectively.

CHALLENGES

The Road at Chapel Hills was grappling with the growing pains of their expanding children’s ministry. With a weekly attendance of 110 to 130 children, from newborns to sixth graders, keeping track of families and volunteers was becoming increasingly complex. And making sure that data was accurate was more critical than ever. This information wasn’t just for record-keeping—it helped the church understand patterns and tailor programs accordingly.

Along with data tracking, the challenge of sending mass communications and maintaining personal touchpoints with families proved to be a tall order. It wasn’t just about sending messages. They needed to be timely, relevant, and catered to each family’s experience. But Matthew Rupert, Children’s Director at The Road at Chapel Hills, and his team were keen on preserving their personal touch with each family and raising the next generation of disciples.

SOLUTIONS

Pushpay’s church management software provided a comprehensive solution for The Road at Chapel Hills to simplify and fine-tune their internal processes and improve their ability to manage their growing children’s ministry. The church diligently ensured that they had a system to track their engagement with every child and family so that no one fell through the cracks. Pushpay’s ChMS addressed this challenge head-on.

With the ability to quickly group people for mass communication, they could ensure that families and children’s ministry volunteers were always kept in the loop about upcoming events and responsibilities. This improved communication and fostered a sense of community and involvement among the church members. It also helped them track attendance and collect valuable data to keep their families connected and engaged, which is critical in helping them monitor the regularity of attendance and identify patterns over time.

Pushpay’s solution empowered The Road at Chapel Hills to manage their growing children’s ministry more efficiently and effectively. It gave them the necessary tools to maintain close connections with families, engage their congregation meaningfully, and ensure every child felt seen and valued.

RESULTS

With the support of Pushpay’s ChMS, The Road at Chapel Hills significantly improved their ability to manage their growing children’s ministry. Now, the church can stay on top of communication with families and volunteers, a crucial factor in their mission to create a God-centered environment.

The change was more than just technological—it was transformational. The Road at Chapel Hills found they could grow their children’s ministry without losing their personal touch. Matthew describes, “We can use the data from Pushpay to communicate with our families. When children are attending for the first time, we’re able to send them postcards to celebrate their first visit with us. If they’ve been absent for a few weeks, we want to be able to check in with them and be intentional in that way.”

That intentionality has paid off, and Matthew notes, “Without something as thorough as Pushpay, maintaining those relationships and checking in on families can become very difficult.”

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Change is difficult to accept in any aspect of our lives—and churches usually feel that doubt twice as strongly.

Morgan Teruel, online campus manager at Sandals Church in Riverside, California, is quick to admit her hesitancy when their ministry first leaned into hybrid worship services during the pandemic. But today, she’s part of a nimble digital team that’s created innovative methods for gauging online engagement, and their results in building discipleship have been nothing short of amazing.

Finding Sandals

Morgan’s journey began when moving to California in 2010 for her studies, where she first met her husband. She recalls, “My husband actually started going to Sandals before they even had their own building.” Morgan joined the church in 2014, initially getting involved through volunteer work before transitioning to a leadership role in 2018.

The COVID pandemic struck just two years later, testing him as he struggled to transition “over from the worship world into the digital world.”

Morgan describes that shift as a “mourning process,” but today acknowledges it’s been a blessing. “God’s been really good to me, because he’s given me the opportunity to still serve in a way in which I feel like I’m supposed to, while also [developing] digital strategies.”

Refining The Approach

Like many church leaders, Morgan was forced to grapple with the question, “Can discipleship happen digitally? And if so, how do we measure it?”

“We care about what’s behind the number,” she continues, “more than the number itself. I’m sure many churches can resonate with that.”

After years of experimentation and refinement, Sandals Church landed on a clever method for measuring digital discipleship in a way that truly informs their church. The team focused on a “funnel” concept, splitting their online audience into three categories: the crowd, the congregation, and the core.

The crowd are those who casually consume Sandals content. The congregation are committed enough to watch a full sermon online, and the core are those devoted members taking active steps to enrich their life within the church.

“We decided to be very strategic in the content that we released and the experiences we provided for each of [those segments],” shares Morgan. She also explains how they track activity in each of their categories and watch for change over time, so they can better understand how their content strategies are impacting each group.

Morgan says that their goal isn’t to grow just one segment of their church, but to grow connection and engagement across all sections. “If our congregation doesn’t move and our core doesn’t move, we are not discipling people.” In that spirit, their efforts to measure online discipleship are still evolving—highlighting the fluidity of their new hybrid model.

Content For Everyone

Sandals Church quickly realized the importance of an intentional strategy tailored to different content types; the medium must match the audience’s needs for it to be effective.

On one end of the spectrum, there are the simulated live services, which occur at the same time each weekend and provide a more traditional worship experience. “You know exactly what time you’re going,” Morgan explains, and points to the interactive possibilities with your peers. “You typically know a couple of people that are going to be there.”

On the other hand, some individuals may find their church’s content serendipitously. To accommodate those online viewers, Sandals’s YouTube sermons strip down the traditional format of a full worship service and focus on delivering a message in a compact format. The strategy has been a success–even leading to surprise connections Morgan could never have imagined. “One time we met somebody actually, he was in Italy… and popping up on the suggested videos was our pastor Matt Brown preaching. That was how he found Sandals.”

Thinking Outside The Box

During their early forays into digital content during the pandemic, Morgan and her team launched “Sandals Church Anywhere.” The initiative was developed to maintain connections and foster community while social distancing.

Their house church model—or “micro-gathering,” as Morgan describes it—was conceived out of necessity. “[People were] obviously lonely, didn’t have community, and most people couldn’t meet in a new church building.”

Today, Sandals Church Anywhere involves curating, interviewing, and aligning the right individuals to host church gatherings in their own homes. Morgan describes the program as reminiscent of, “going back to the basics of house church, like we read about in Acts.”

While each gathering follows the same spiritual roadmap, they’re inherently unique in their execution of discipleship. There’s a Sandals Church Anywhere in South Carolina, where the leaders have been performing baptisms and are raising their children within the life of their new church community. They’ve even sent individuals on mission trips.

“They’re doing it!” Morgan shares with enthusiasm. “We are honored to just support and resource them… they’re self starters, they are taking initiative, and they love the Lord and they are looking for any opportunity to lead other people to Him.”

Vigilant Tech Adoption

“The pace of change is accelerated,” Morgan points out regarding technology. “Even something like our Sandals Church Anywhere model over the last three years, we’re seeing the need for it to change even now… We’re realizing, okay, well, this isn’t 2020 anymore!”

To keep up with the times, Morgan and her team employ a variety of strategies. They actively immerse themselves in cultural trends; Morgan cites the 2022 YouTube Culture and Trends Report and the Google Year-End Summary. These insights actively affect their approach to online discipleship. “How can we capitalize on the things that are trendy? The methods that might work for other people, in other areas, [may have a place in] the Church.”

Morgan stresses the importance of a fluid mindset, of being willing to evolve and adapt—even if it means letting old methods fade away. “Every time we learn something new, we kind of look introspectively and go, might we need to change something?”.

And by being open to change, Morgan’s confident that Sandals will effectively lead and drive discipleship in the new, fast-paced era of hybrid church.

Automated Giving Statements to 12,000 Members

Summary

Christmas is a special—and busy—time of year for churches, and River City Christian Church is no exception. From hosting an event for 1000+ people to planning special services for Christmas Eve and Christmas day to organizing all the end of year giving information, Christmas is like their version of Super Bowl Sunday. By using Pushpay features, automations, and integrations, they saved days of work and protected their staff from holiday burnout.

Problem

Even before the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, River City Christian Church’s staff were busy ministering, running a dance studio, and planning their big Christmas Mall event. Add in the seasonal events and increasing demands on their time, and stress levels were bound to skyrocket. And with an outdated ChMS, church staff often had to manually comb through the system for the data they needed. 

Carolyn Melville, their Database Administrator, recalls, “It was obsolete. There were 12,000 people in the database, but we had no way of knowing who was active. Even running a report for giving statements was horrible. Most of the time I was doing it by hand.” 

River City Christian Church knew they needed a better option for streamlining their systems and cutting out the busywork to keep them from burning out.

Pushpay

By using Pushpay Forms, Process Queues, Mail Merge and Reports, they saved days of work and protected their staff from holiday burnout. “There’s no more stress from a last minute scramble,” Carolyn says. “Now I can pre-schedule reports to go to each manager, so in real time, they’re getting updates on who’s signed up to volunteer, who’s checked in for the event, and what rooms are at capacity during events.”

Result

With Pushpay’s tech supporting their ministry, River City Christian Church is gearing up for another busy Christmas season and another year of impact in their community. The report is built, and end of year Giving Statements are ready to send out with each individual’s personalized giving link, saving the team from busywork, papercuts, and postage. And as they approach their 11th year of hosting their Christmas Mall, 800 volunteers are already signed up, and the team has systems in place to ensure the day runs smoothly.

Saved 250 to 300 operational hours a year of employee time and combined three platforms into one.

Summary

Real Life Church in Covington, WA, has a passion for connecting people in their community “to the realness of God.” Everything they do—from children’s ministry to missions to worship planning to baptisms— boils down to that simple mission. To do this effectively, it takes everyone working together efficiently to make the most of the resources they have. Many in the congregation may not see the important behind-the-scenes work of the church’s accounting team, but it plays a critical part in the church’s ministry effectiveness.

Problem

Back in 2015, Real Life used three different platforms to engage givers—one for text-to-give, another for kiosk giving, and another for event registration (which was still done largely offline). Managing three platforms meant church staff had to spend time administering the different accounts and manually moving the data into Real Life’s church management system. The church staff spent 20 hours a week just manually inputting the event registration into their system. Plus, the church’s accountant spent three to five hours a week manually pulling information from the church’s different platforms and getting them into a unified location.

Pushpay

Real Life Church knew they needed a better option for engaging the community and channeling generosity into one place. As they looked at different options, church leaders focused on Pushpay because they saw the company’s passion for the local church and for creating an excellent product.

Result

By simplifying all of the church’s giving and event options into one place, staff work got easier and more productive. The church estimates they have saved at least 250 hours per year by switching to Pushpay. By saving staff time and resources through the church’s partnership with Pushpay, Real Life has been able to put more time and resources into other efforts—like investing in a new bus for a local drug and alcohol rehab center and continuing education for single moms.

Tracks the spiritual progress of more than 20,000 attendees

Summary

Growth sits at the heart of what New Life Church in Renton, Washington, is all about. Just look at the church’s mission statement: “Leading people in a growing relationship with Jesus Christ.”

But that’s not just an empty slogan for New Life. “We’re here to do one thing, and that’s really it. I know a lot of churches say that, but that is really what our focus is. For us, that means we’re developing people who will go out and share the love of Jesus. That’s what we do.”

Through that process, New Life is helping people move closer and closer into the church family. Brian Jenkins, who serves as the church’s teaching and theology pastor, describes the goal like this: “For us, that family member is helping to make ends meet, they’re in relationship with the family, and they’re helping to get the chores done.” In other words, Jenkins says, they’re part of a small group, they’re giving, and they’re serving.

Like most churches, New Life leads people to this place in their fellowship through a series of conversations, classes, and ministry opportunities.
The church is constantly looking at this process–from the moment people engage with a social media post or a church invite to the point where they are an active part of the church family. As they do, they’re trying to make the process as effective as possible.

Problem

When the church was smaller, it was easier to track this spiritual-growth process without the help of technology. Pastors could know firsthand whether a person was participating and serving in the church through their knowledge of the congregation. As the church has grown to more than 5,000 people in attendance most weekends, New Life needed a way to see where people were in their discipleship process.

Located in the Pacific Northwest, a well-known hub for technology, New Life realized they needed to be ahead of the curve when it came to engaging their community digitally. That meant finding digital tools that could help them get a clear picture of how the church community was growing and giving.

“There’s no way you can keep accurate track of those people without some kind of a platform that would be able to capture all the nitty-gritty details,” says Jennifer Smith, Pastor, Ministry Systems. “Addresses and emails and phone numbers and giving and all of the above so you can know your congregation. You just can’t do that without some kind of a system.”

Pushpay

In 2014, New Life Church became one of the first churches to partner with Pushpay as a digital-giving solution. Besides making it easier for the New Life community to give and be generous, it also gave the church a birdseye view of key metrics in its discipleship process. Today, 70 percent of the church now gives digitally through Pushpay, making it easier to see how the church community is growing in this area.

The church also kept looking for a church management system that would help them track the other elements of engagement the church values. After trying a few solutions that proved clunky and ineffective, the church started partnering with Church Community Builder in 2017.

“For me I would say Church Community Builder is what gives us that temperature with our people,” Smith said. “That’s where we log who’s been baptized, who’s been saved, who are our first- time guests, and who our first time givers are. Those are our dashboards and metrics to be able to take the temperature of the congregation. It has really just given us that ability to report in all those areas.”

Result

For New Life Church tracking increased engagement isn’t about dry statistics. It’s about people—and more effectively reaching their community through its four unique campuses spread throughout South King County, Washington. The church doesn’t only want to see people transformed by the good news but to see God change the community, as well. As part of that effort, they invest heavily in community partners.

“We are 150 percent for our community partners,” Smith said. “Vision House, Vine Maple Place, all of the food banks and shelters in our area, we want to be a part of what they’re doing. We don’t take over. We come in alongside. We provide finances, and we provide volunteers.

In 2019, the church contributed $25,000 toward Vine Maple Place, a local Christian organization that ministers to women and children who need shelter and helps break generational cycles of homelessness.

The church also mobilized 900 volunteers from throughout its four campuses to coordinate a “Night to Shine” with the Tim Tebow Foundation. The program provides a prom experience for special-needs youth. The church also cares and supports the family caregivers during this time as well, providing a special room where volunteers “spoil them rotten,” including food, prizes, and time for them just to relax.

Technology doesn’t do any of this ministry for New Life. Instead, it helps them to understand and accelerate the ministry that’s happening. Every week, Smith sends other pastors on staff with a ministry dashboard that provides them with some of the most important information about how people are growing at the church.

Smith says she looks forward to the opportunities available now with the December 2019 union of Pushpay and Church Community Builder. Together, she believes they’ll be better able to serve churches like New Life by more tightly integrating the two systems. She expects this will provide them with more in-depth data and a more complete picture of where people are in their discipleship journey.

“When you’re organized and you have a database that can be organized, it helps you focus on the mission of God,” Smith said. “It helps you focus on what’s really important and you’re not worried about it. If it’s organized and it gives you the information you need, you can focus on the true mission of God, which is to reach the lost for Christ.”

Dunwoody chose the right software system to increase engagement and connection

Summary

On October 8, 1903, Dunwoody United Methodist (initially established as Dunwoody Methodist Episcopal Church, South) was first organized in a tiny Atlanta suburb one-room church. Within a month, 31 people attended services every fourth Sunday and followed the mission to put their faith in action by becoming disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.

Since their meager beginning, DUMC has grown to be one of the largest of 800+ churches that make up the North Georgia Conference–the biggest United Methodist Conference in the United States.

Today, the multi-generational church has grown to 5,000. Ranging from young families to healthy seniors, members attend traditional and contemporary worship and programs for all ages.

However, when DUMC was faced with choosing new Church Management Software (ChMS), helpful volunteers within their church community methodically devised a four-pronged approach and six key requirements to help them determine the best solution.

Problem

In 2020, amidst the pandemic, DUMC found themselves needing to appoint a new minister. So, in July, Senior Pastor Phil Shrader arrived.

Part of Pastor Shrader’s vision for the church was to increase the percentage of DUMC’s members participating in the major activities of the church–worship, small groups, ministries, and missions. He started by personally meeting the people of DUMC through Zoom calls. He wanted to not only get to know each member of the congregation but identify people who were in leadership roles or long-time members that could give him a better grasp of how he’d achieve his vision for DUMC.

During one of his meet-ups, Pastor Shrader told a DUMC member, “We have four activities. I want metrics. I want to measure what percentage of those are currently coming to worship, ministries, missions, and small groups, and I want to increase that over the next 12 months.”

This was music to the member’s ears because they felt Pastor Shrader was asking the right questions to achieve such goals.

Pastor Shrader set the goal of meeting with 100 people in his first 100 days at DUMC. To accomplish this, Pastor Shrader would need to utilize the church’s database to reach out to congregants.

Assigning the task to a new administrative assistant, they began sifting through DUMC’s current legacy ChMS of 30 years, ACS Technologies. They quickly realized that 60-70% of the telephone numbers listed were no longer in service or connected to the right church member.

With a database of 12,000 contacts, their current ChMS required church staff to update individual contact information on a case-by-case basis., And DUMC hadn’t done much updating over the years. So the database was bare of any help to Pastor Shrader.

Getting Down to Business

When Pastor Shrader heard about the first of a few roadblocks their current ChMS was causing, he put on his Emory University’s Goizueta Business School MBA hat and went to work. Not only did the church need a system that would provide updated contact information, but also a database that would track attendance. This would help Pastor Shrader understand the percentage of people involved in the four activities that he hoped to increase within the year.

Pastor Shrader assembled a small team of volunteers with backgrounds in business, software, and database systems. Their task? Find a resolution to their ChMS problems.

Phase 1 – Diagnostics

The Research Committee interviewed DUMC clergy, department heads, and staff to assess the current state of their legacy ChMS, ACS, and what it was lacking.

They asked several questions, including:

What is your role in the church?

How do you use the current ACS membership system?

What other software do you use?

How do you use that and does it integrate with any other software?

What are the biggest problems that you have?

What do you wish existed that would help you do your job better?

What do you think we could do to have more of an impact on the church?

As the committee completed the interview process, they synthesized, prioritized, and converted the responses into requirements.

Phase 2 – Identifying Requirements

Their findings revealed the issue was not that they didn’t have enough software. In multiple cases, they had too many different software applications performing similar functions that weren’t in sync.

“From a church management standpoint, if whatever we had didn’t meet our needs, we would just go find something else,” said a Research Committee member. “And so that’s how you end up with 20 third-party software packages, none of which talk to each other.”

Their interview results and knowledge of what type of software capacity would best fit their needs helped identify what the ideal solution would require.

The committee’s belief was that good data was never going to happen if you were dependent on just church staff being able to maintain and update member information.

“For us, one of the key things that we recognized from the beginning that was most important, if nothing else works in a membership system, you need to have good data that is easy to access,” added the Research Committee member.

So ideally, they wanted a ChMS that allowed church members to maintain and update their personal information, group management that expands, engages, and connects relationships both in number and in-depth with like-minded members, a system that allowed members to view their individual giving records and annual donations, provided an online payment process, and allowed mobile, text messaging, and email integration.

Pushpay

Phase 3 – Identify Potential Solutions

With these requirements top of mind, the Research Committee was able to identify five possible software solutions suggested by staff members or friends from other churches that they had used or were currently using.

Church Community Builder (CCB) was one of the five, thanks to new arrival and committee member Associate Pastor Matt Stone, who had spent seven years at a Methodist Church in Texas where he’d had a positive experience using CCB’s ChMS.

Phase 4 – Make a decision on which solution is best

For the next three months, the committee continued to do deep-dive research into the five solutions, requested demos, and compared each solution to one another.

One of the last solutions they reviewed was CCB. As Pushpay customers for the last two years, DUMC’s Research Committee found the most recent partnership between the two companies fascinating and wanted to learn more.

By mid-December, they had gone through the five solutions, checked all references and customer reviews, and selected the two they thought were the best to meet their needs–Planning Center Online and Church Community Builder.

“We reengaged with the Leadership Team after the new year and said, ‘We have these five software solutions, the shortlist is two [PCO and CCB]. Here’s the detailed information on all five and why we eliminated three of them,” a Research Committee member added.

The Leadership Team based their decision on six high priority requirements–user-maintained data, email integration, access to the workflow process, manageable payment process and records, HTML support, and mobile integration. If any of the proposed solutions was missing one of the requirements, they were eliminated.

Avoiding a drawn-out democratic process, they turned to a Selection Committee made up of DUMC’s Senior Pastor Phil Shrader, COO Roger Young, and Associate Pastor Matt Stone to make the final decision between the two solutions.

By the end of January, after two full demos of each solution, the Selection Committee, joined by the Research Committee, unanimously chose CCB.

“Of the six things, Planning Center (Online) was great in one of the requirements but CCB was better in two or three of the requirements,” said a Research Committee member.

But what stood out most, and helped make DUMC’s decision between the two solutions, was CCB’s integration.

“CCB is much more integrated, member-oriented, analytical, and comprehensive in terms of setting up statistics, metrics, and attendance measures. And what really made the difference was CCB integrated with Pushpay.”

Result

Phase 5 – Implementation

Since their final decision at the end of January, DUMC has been in communication with Pushpay to implement CCB’s ChMS to their system.

“The day after we signed the deal, we put out an email from the Senior Pastor that said, ‘We just signed a deal. We selected a software package named CCB. It’s integrated with Pushpay and that’s a plus,’” explained a Research Committee member.

With an Implementation Team and trained staff already in place, DUMC has been blessed in finding the volunteers who have become the true overall leadership of the team. But they’re also grateful for the vision Pastor Phil Shrader had to kickstart the project.

Believing in the CCB mission, DUMC feels certain their implementation will be a success, thanks to the engagement of senior and top-level staff and members. These are the people who have the drive to make things happen, and the determination to see the process through to the end.

“I hope when another church reads this, they’ll understand we had a new senior pastor who came in, did his homework in terms of what he wanted to do, and was willing to step out on a limb and make changes,” said a Research Committee member.

In the end, DUMC learned just how important it is to have a project team made up of committed volunteers, staff, and an engaged leader who knows what they’re doing. If you have that in place, anything is possible.