One of the more exciting developments on the internet recently has been the development of new web designs and features targeted to helping churches and ministries. With more attention being directed towards the unique requirements and needs of churches, many website developers have worked diligently to re-think what church members, visitors, and prospective visitors want to do on a church website. Focusing on broader needs for all nonprofits could include anything from hospitals to political organizations, and only recently have church websites received the attention they deserve.

Churches are all about social interactions. The whole purpose and role churches in their communities fit perfectly with the current expansion of online social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. The roll of church websites is expanding far beyond just a place to get information about church activities. Some of the more creative uses that are emerging for church websites today are:

• The ability to establish blogs through a church website makes it easy for members to have active input into church projects, goals, and other organizational issues within the church. Blogs on your church website are a great way to get feedback from those church members that may not otherwise participate directly on boards or committees, or take a more active role in weekly church activities.
• The ability to setup a newsletter page through your church website allows your church members to access the news, current events, and other information related to your church and the weekly messages shared by leadership, teachers, and small group leaders. Distribution of the newsletter can be expanded by email, and will serve as a gentle reminder that your church website is an active place that needs the participation of its members to be successful.
• With the new video recording abilities on the mobile phones of most church members, the capability of posting video services on church websites for your shit-ins, prospective visitors, and members that have moved out of town is possible. Many churches are reaching out to others in new ways through the church website with live and archived web fees in ways that were not possible or easy just a few years ago.
• By setting up the ability to accept donations online through their church websites, many churches are seeing a significant increase in new donations from members and supporters that may not be able to attend. Churches also have seen a significant increase from their members generosity. With online giving on a church website, members are able to setup and meet their giving commitment with recurring online tithes and offerings. This feature has allowed churches to meet their own commitments for growth and have a greater impact on their community for the cause of Jesus Christ.

Churches can benefit by adopting some of the new approaches being used on the church websites today. Church websites are becoming a lot more than just a bulletin board, like they used to be. They are becoming an active resource for church members to discuss ideas, come together to support important church initiatives, and better display for the whole community the impact of their faith.

By using these kinds of new capabilities on their church websites, churches can begin to grow in number and in faith, and better reach their local community. With many search engines taking a new focus on providing results at the local level, a church with a well-designed website is in an excellent position to reach-out and impact their community, and engage their members like never before.

As a leader, pastor or elder in your church, the growth of your church is probably a topic that keeps you up at night. Monitoring church growth is only as effective as a church’s ability to track where you have been and where you are going next. Tracking your growth not only serves the purposes of growth metrics, but it also tells the story of your church. This story is often a connecting point for members and regular attendees. We have found that churches grow by giving members a variety of ways to engage and making communication easy.

It’s no secret that tracking growth by attendance and generosity numbers is a time-honored tradition. Do you remember the church attendance board that was updated every week? Maybe your church still has one, but there is more to the growth story than what’s on that board every week. An accurate count of how many people are attending church each weekend is important, because reporting these numbers regularly shows transparency, but there is more to consider when it comes to growth. It is even more significant to know who is sitting in your seats every single week. Knowing the who behind an attendance number allows church leaders to be aware of the people who make up their church community.

Tracking who is in your church community, their level of involvement, contact information, family members, and giving history is not easy. There has to be a better way to track growth metrics that give more accurate indication of people’s involvement. Thankfully it’s 2017, and the world is at our fingertips with smartphones. As the world has grown to adopt technological solutions for everyday problems, your church should be no exception to this trend.

In fact, your church members and attendees are adopting their faith and the way they live it out in the technological age. Consider these facts:

• 38% of people increased their Bible readership last year by downloading a Bible app or by listening to religious podcasts and streaming services.
• In the past 30 days, about 21.5 million adults will have visited the website of their own place of worship.
• 42% of churches now have online giving.

As these statistics show, technology is integrated into how people engage with the church. Working with many churches over the years, we have been able to identify a few ways that technology solutions have successfully helped churches build engagement, and as a result, experience significant growth.

Here are 5 ways your church can grow through technology:

The Guest Experience

It only takes seven minutes for a guest to form a first impression of your church. Why not engage them not only in your physical building, but also through technology. Have your church app, your church website, social media channels and next points of engagement advertised around your campus (at the guest center, through your volunteers, and the announcements, etc.). With all the opportunities to connect, people are likely to engage in all these ways, and they will notice that you value a connection with your audience beyond the first interaction.

Train and Coordinate Volunteers

Volunteers who understand the importance of their role and are equipped and essential for effective ministry in your church. Technology not only helps you train volunteers with video’s and interactive tools, it helps you manage and communicate with volunteers more effectively. Utilizing specific chat features or group pages that are all within the same platform makes it convenient for volunteers to find information easily.

Track Members, Regular Attenders, and First Time Guests

With an integrated and actively updated database, each person who sets foot in your church can have a profile by volunteering minimal personal information. Information can be captured through church online giving and saved to a profile, and through an online interactive form that can be accessed through a church app or through a link sent via a text message. Whatever you do, gathering information about who is in your church is vital. Technology ensures you will not lose track of people by putting the information you gathered into one place.

Improve Follow-Up with Guests and Communication

You can record a first-time guest’s personal communication preferences on an online form and follow up in a way that’s most appealing to them (email, phone call, text message). Online forms can also help your regular attendees and members easily submit prayer requests, concerns, or praise reports anonymously to church staff during the week without feeling like they are “bothering” them with a phone call or lengthy text message.

Technology Supports the Goal of Growth

Technology improves engagement and retention by making it easier for everyone to find and get involved with a group or connect with your church. Once someone has established relationships with others in your community, technology helps guide them toward taking responsibility for their own spiritual development and for a portion of one of the ministries within the church.

Your church is growing beyond numbers on a Sunday morning attendance board. All it takes is adjusting the medium and mindset of what growth actually looks like. Plus, growth is vital to reaching the lost about the Gospel or good news of Jesus. If we have growing, healthy, and thriving churches, then the message of Christ has no limit. With technology here to stay, it’s invaluable to know how your church has grown in the past and where it’s currently growing. Embracing what church mobile apps, church websites, church online giving, and mobile technologies have to offer can grow our churches and the message of Jesus.

What is Church Tech?

Church tech can be defined as the use of methods, processes or knowledge to further the goals and mission of the church.

Below are the misconceptions many church leaders have about church tech:

 

1.“The church does not use Technology.”

One of the greatest uses of technology was the application of the printing press to mass produce copies of the Holy Bible. Johannes Gutenberg, who was considered the inventor of the printing press, used technology to mass produce books and quickly spread knowledge in the 15^th century Europe. The Gutenburg Bible is an early use of church tech to spread the gospel. Today, churches tech is used to assist with worship, sermons are delivered with church tech like powerpoints and broadcast online, most visitors find a church through a website or social media site, and people that give to church online consistently give more.

2. “Older congregants will not embrace technology”

This is a commonly held belief based largely on basic assumptions about church tech and older members. Not only is this not true, but a study by Dunham and Company showed that online giving among those over 65 was equal to members from younger generations. Senior Americans have traditionally been late adopters of technology. But according to the Pew Research Center, seniors are embracing technology at a surprising rate. In 2013, 59% were internet users.

3. “Technology is a problem, not a solution.”

Technology itself is not bad, but it also is not foolproof. It’s all in how it is applied. The problem comes when church tech becomes a substitute for human interaction. People and churches require a physical connection and human interaction for survival. Church tech should encourage and enhance, but not replace, the human part of the church experience.

4. “It doesn’t cost anything.”

Because of open source technology, an increasing number of tools and apps are available free or at a very low cost. While the value can be high, this does not mean that there is not cost involved. It can take labor and testing involved with applying any new technology, along with support and updates.

5. “All technologies are created equal.”

Just because you pay more for something doesn’t guarantee it will be better. In the church tech industry, it’s often exactly the opposite.

Price does not always indicate worth. Custom church websites that typically cost $3,500 can be bested by ones that are less than one-fourth the cost. Church mobile apps that cost $400 to design and $50 – $100 per month to maintain can be found for just $25 a month – and these apps are faster to create and easier to maintain and update. Church online giving can be custom-designed to perfectly match your church website, but only by one provider, MORE Blessed.

MORE Blessed is a ministry founded by a Pastor and businessman, run by technology industry veterans, and provides better and more secure technology at half the cost of anyone else. Their only goal is to increase your church’s ability to use technology and grow the Kingdom. With MORE Blessed, you can overcome the five common misconceptions about church tech. MORE Blessed offers custom designed church online giving pages, church apps, and church websites.