Digital Ministry

It's a win-win for all involved when technology can assist organizations in working well together for a common good. Such a thing has been accomplished by Simon Solutions, a software firm in Florence, Alabama. Built to reduce and eliminate duplicating resources to people and agencies in need, both by accident or fraud, the software they created called CharityTracker enables churches, nonprofits, and relief agencies to share resources and work together online.

Bob Goff founded a law firm, wrote a New York Times best-selling book and serves as the honorary consul for the Republic of Uganda. The guy gets things done. But every Thursday he quits something. We could learn something from Bob. Maybe your church needs to quit: Quit that social media account with three followers. Quit locking up your Wi-Fi with a password. Quit pretending email isn’t important. Whatever your church is struggling with, give yourself permission to quit.

So you want to connect with your church online. It seems so easy, just about everyone is already there, and you’d really love to feel engaged with your congregation. There’s just one problem… creating and maintaining an online community can be very tricky, not to mention overwhelming. Here are a few rules for you to follow to create a thriving community that wants to engage with you:

The church bulletin is far from dead, in fact, it's alive and well at most churches. It holds treasured information including weekly announcements, budget details and attendance records, in addition to upcoming events, contact details for church staff, and maybe even a handy "new guest" tear off form or half a dozen inserts. While some churches have moved away from print-centric communication, others rely on it greatly. If you’re still creating a weekly bulletin, don’t worry, you’re not alone. Here are some ways to be strategic and ensure you have a successful church bulletin.

Leadership styles can vary greatly from person to person, depending on the organization and its structure. Churches are not exempt from the leadership styles of the senior pastor and leadership team. The best organizations smoothly guide their church staff and volunteers; the worst organizations have disgruntled pastors and leaders who aren't so happy about the leadership under which they work. Here are five leadership styles along with an insightful infographic to help educate you about leadership styles that exist:

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.

Maybe you’ve heard someone say, “People don’t give to need. They give to vision.” Well, that’s not entirely true. The truth is, people give for a variety of reasons. Just like people have different personality types, they have different motivators for being generous. Everybody in your congregations isn’t motivated by the same thing. Let’s talk about the five reasons why people make a donation to your church:

While each Christian denomination has slightly different needs, Catholic churches have unique needs that are unique to their faith and require their own specific church software to adequately handle and 'speak' the language of Catholicism well. Over the years, several Catholic-focused church software solutions have emerged to serve this branch of Christianity specifically.