Communication

We all know that volunteers are the lifeblood of any church. If churches had to pay each of their children's ministry teachers, small group leaders, women's and men's ministry leaders, and vacation bible school teachers, they'd be up a creek, fast. Some churches keep their staff incredibly lean and rely predominantly on volunteers while other churches have more robust staff members and fewer volunteers; either way, volunteers need to be screened, training, and thanked. Below are five resources aimed at helping your church lean in to the volunteer management process.

It's increasingly hard to keep track of all the social media trends. For churches, keeping ahead of trends isn't perhaps the number one goal; however, keeping a pulse on what's going on in the world of social media can be helpful both to connect with church members through the most popular networks as well as keep current in overall church communication. While most still think of social media in terms of Facebook, Twitter, and all the other networks, the infographic below delves into other technologies that are easily leveraged by social media.

When I launched the first video-based satellite campus of Willow Creek in 2001 the primary question was, “Can this work?” Hundreds of multisite churches later, the question has shifted to, “Should my church go multisite?” What started out as a “Band-Aid” for space and zoning problems of megachurches has developed into a viable option for every local church regardless of size. Multisite is no longer a question of feasibility for a church, but more of a question of strategy, “Is it right for my church?”

Getting ready to run a vacation bible school, or VBS, is no small task. There are many steps involved in pulling together a successful program that reaches kids effectively. While there are many tasks involved in pulling together volunteers, designing curriculum, and setting up music and activities, it's equally important to have a system in place for managing the technology side: registration and payments. It’s a necessary evil for hosting a successful VBS, and when done correctly, can help make the whole process simple, straightforward, and headache-free.

The future of online schools is exciting. Technology growth and internet speed has made it easier then ever to trade the traditional classroom for a virtual one. No longer confined by location, you can obtain a degree from the school of your choice in almost any topic. This opens great possibilities of continued education for church staff and volunteers. As you look over the following infographic, consider how far education has come. Note the trends toward interactive education and how the church could approach ministry with this type of focus.

"Holy Week" is the historical name given to the last week of Lent and the final days of Jesus' earthly life. Involving a large number of events and people, the period between Palm Sunday and Easter can be difficult to imagine. BibleGateway has created an infographic to help.

Planting a church is hard work. In the early stages, a small group of people handles the brunt of the workload. Sunday set-up, child care, budgets, communications, you name it. Resources may be low, but solutions are still necessary. Thankfully, technology can help ease some of the burdens.

Over the last week, we've had fun reading through the survey results that were submitted for our first ever church technology reader survey. While only 58 church leaders responded, the sizes of churches range from 15 people to 15,000 giving us a really great bird's eye view of ministry at every level from small to mega. The range of job roles by responders also covers every aspect of ministry from attender, to volunteer, to support staff, to pastor giving us a pretty well-rounded view of churches. We've included some stats via graphics below to unpack what technology tools churches are using.