How much time and effort do you spend assimilating new members? Some people need a lot of help getting involved with the Church, for they have little history. Others are ready on day 1 to teach a Church School class. How do you tell the difference?

First, you need staff that are committed to helping new members find their place to worship and serve. This can be a part time responsibility for a staff person. In lots of Churches, one of the pastors serves this role – because they have direct contact through the membership process. If you are blessed with a full time staff person, then they are probably overwhelmed. People join the Church at various times throughout the year. There probably isn’t a pattern (though it never hurts to search for one.) The point is that your full time staff person will need resources and possibly others to help this process go smoothly.

Second, you need to identify what new members need. Do they just need information about areas to serve? Everyone finds out about worship through regular channels (e.g. your website.) But most Churches don’t have a ready list for areas to serve. Someone just knows about it and needs the help. The staff person needs to be a broker to help connect the new member who wants to serve with the lay volunteer looking for help. And some new members need encouragement to take the first step in this process.

Third, you need to find a way to identify new members that didn’t get involved – i.e. grew stale. From them, you want to at least identify why they didn’t get more involved; but don’t call them up and challenge them! Perhaps they never found the right opportunity. Or perhaps they are just shy. Or perhaps they got turned off from their first attempt at service. If you can gather some information in this area, then it will help you do a better job with the next new member that comes along.

Assimilation is vital to growing congregations. When everyone has found their place to worship and serve, then they feel more satisfied with their Church. They may not volunteer for everything, but they can be involved somewhere. Stick with it, and offer them the resources that they need.

In every retail store, you’ll find people eager to help you. They are usually available to answer questions, demonstrate how to use items, and help you make a purchase. More upscale stores will have people who work on salary, rather than commission, so you know that they truly just want to help you. But do we need that kind of customer service in the Church?

Some would argue “Yes” we should be setting the example! Others would say the Church is too Spiritual for such worldly matters. The Scripture advises us to be “as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves” (MAT 10:16 NIV). So perhaps we should have an interest in how well people are treated when they walk through the doors. We all want to be a welcoming congregation, where visitors feel welcome and want to come back. And we need new members so that we can grow. Churches that aren’t growing, some have said, are Churches that are dying off slowly.

So consider how you greet visitors. Who is available to answer their questions every Sunday morning? And how do they sign up for information, be it email or paper newsletters. How hard is it for new comers (i.e. new customers) to get assimilated into your Church?

Many of the records we keep in the Church have significance in the future. Baptisms are proof of citizenship in some places. Weddings are typically recorded at a court house, but that record may be corroborated by the Church wedding service. And of course we keep copies of bulletins that have been published.

The question soon comes up, “how long should we keep these old records around?” You could conclude that we should keep them until Jesus returns. That makes sense, but God is omniscient, so He doesn’t really need our records in the future. Or you could determine that you need to keep them for as long as they are our “legal” responsibility. I have been in court houses that had records dating back over a century. But most courts today require records going back to cover the statute of limitations. So perhaps a wise answer would be to keep records for 7 seven years, and then archive and destroy them.

Fortunately, we have the means to keep archival copies of records around in electronic form. Whether we have a 100 records, or a 1,000,000, they don’t occupy any more space. We just have to organize them, so they can be retrieved easily in the future. So perhaps a better question is, how can we organize our records and make them more accessible to the congregation?

Where is technology going? And how can our Church keep up? Those are relevant questions when it comes to ministry technology. It is not enough to just add the technology to the Church. You have to plan for it to grow and develop. Many small businesses have learned the painful lesson of getting a web site, only to watch it go stale and uninviting. The Church web site can end of the same, unless you have a team involved in both the creation and the maintenance. Think of the Church web site as another communication channel for delivering information to the congregation. What’s the news this week? What is coming up soon? These are the sorts of questions that should be answered on a weekly basis, as you plan ministry in the congregation, community and around the world.

Lots of Churches take “Welcome Packets” to new members after they join. Some will event take pictures and put them up on the Church bulletin board. What about having an “easter egg” for new members on the Church web site. This would be a special one time link that you would email to the new member. They could execute the link and get a brief page of links that matched their interest and talents, as documented on their new member card. If they had an interest in children, then you could include the link to the Children’s Ministry page and the email address of the Children’s minister. If they had an interest in the Church Library, then you could include a link to the Online Catalog and the email address of the head of the Library committee. All of this would be information that they could find online – if they knew where to look on the web site. The Easter Egg just puts in in one place so they can find it quicker. The special link could then expire in 2 weeks after they had gotten used to things and made contacts in their phone. It is a way to help assimilate them faster into the life of the Church.

Last Sunday, there was a medical emergency in the balcony. It happened right during the praise time, interrupting the service. Fortunately, the man turned out to be alright. And it was amazing that there were doctors and nurses in the congregation at the time, who promptly rendered assistance. I rejoice that after the paramedics arrived, the man was able to walk to the ambulance – a good sign that he was going to be alright.

On reflection, I wonder what the best way to handle a medical emergency is. Certainly, you want to ask for medical professionals to render first aid. CPR might well save a life. Or if you have an Automatic Emergency Defibrillator (AED) handy, then get it promptly. But what should you do then? Ask everyone to be in prayer? Lead a prayer for the sick person? Play quiet music while the EMTs stabilize the patient for transport to the ER? Or just go on with the service? Seems like Churches need a response to these types of situations. What does your Church do?

What does your Church offer for children on Sunday mornings? Children’s Church? A children’s sermon or message during adult worship? A separate Children’s center with lots of hands on activities? Or just nursery and/or children’s sunday school classes? Any of these is appropriate, since they free up the parents to participate in worship. The goal of the Church is for everyone to worship and praise God. And there are many ways to do that. The Church should offer as many different ways to grow and worship as there are groups in the membership.

How does technology enter into the picture where children are concerned? If the families separate when they come in the door, then they need to be reunited when they leave. Many Churches use a checkin/checkout system to reconnect parents and children after worship. A small Church can do this on sight, since everyone knows everyone. But what about visitors? Perhaps you could provide a visitor with a brochure on Children’s Ministry and just write the child’s name on it. That way, you know that they “belong” to the parent and you get an opportunity to tell them about other activities and events.

What is the first impression that visitors get when they go to your Church website? Are they finding a fountain of useful information, or more internet clutter? You want to avoid the clutter, since it will quickly turn them away. Here are some items to watch out for:

Hit Counters – back in the early days, these were impressive; not now
Autoplaying music – the organ is great, but let users choose to hear it
Dollar signs – let users choose to explore giving; there is more to ministry than that

Be sure to get some strangers to look at your site. They will be able to give you first impressions. And listen to them when they identify pages that are confusing or overloaded.

You want to be a Church that welcomes newcomers. They are your life blood as a Church. (There is always attrition, as people retire or die. So if you’re aren’t growing, then you’re dying.) However, you don’t see any newcomers coming.

Here are some ideas of things you can do to Welcome the Stranger:

• Take time to welcome any visitors during the worship service.
• Reserve parking spots for Visitors
• Make the nursery clean, safe, sanitary and well-equipped
• Limit announcements to just the highlights

Some Churches follow the Liturgical Calendar – a 3 year cycle that takes you through the scriptures systematically. Other Churches depend on their ministry team to select scriptures appropriate to the season and current events. The Liturgical Calendar recognizes that there are patterns in worship (Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, Pentecost.) It also offers some balance in that it may cover each Gospel in turn.

For Churches that use a Liturgical Calendar, how do you include that in your web site? Here is one example, taken from one Episcopal Church. It uses the appropriate colors for each Sunday.

Woodlands Church

Perhaps you have another.

Hanging the Greens and decorating the sanctuary are always fun. Christmas Lights can be a source of joy all Advent long. It adds something special to a Christmas Eve service to turn down the lights and sing “Silent Night” with just candles. It is always special to sing the Christmas Carols as hymns during worship at Christmas Tide.

However, running all of those Christmas lights can be a challenge. What if they are high in the Sanctuary, perhaps hanging off columns? Or they may require special dimming modules to control them during videos, so they don’t outshine the screens. In a Megachurch environment, you may have a lighting desk already installed. If so, then you just need to add a few more channels and do some programming. But in a Small to Large Church environment, how do you control the lights? Of course, you can delegate the task to the ushers, to make sure they turn on all of the Christmas Lights before each service. But wouldn’t it be easier to use a master switch in the sound booth? However, to do that, you need to wire the circuits in during construction. I have seen cases where there was a separate circuit with a 110VAC outlet at every window, so you could plug in lights for the windows. With a little planning, you can make this a reality in your next Church Sanctuary.

Churches sometimes build new buildings. This is actually an opportunity to foresee the future technical needs of the Church’s ministry. Why not run some extra cables, so that future IT needs can be easily addressed? The cost of doing that at construction time is much, much less than a retrofit later on. However, it does require some foresight on the part of the building architect and trustees. How can you make the case for CAT 6 wiring at the time of construction?

Having Wi-Fi in the Church is a blessing. However, it can also be a resource to hackers. Should the Church provide Wi-Fi service at no charge to any and all who happen by? Some would say “Yes.” Others would be concerned about the security implications: What if the Church got hacked?

There are ways to secure the network in the Church behind a strong firewall. There should be a private network that only the staff uses that is rock solid and secure. If the staff needs access from home, then they should use a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to access the office. This technology is well proven in the business world. The Church can make use of it, also.

Mobile phones can be allowed access to the local Wi-Fi hotspot in the Church building. But they should be only allowed to access the Internet outside the Church building. The private, staff network would be kept private. This does present a challenge for the Church’s bandwidth. (What if half the people in worship pull out their smart phones and go get the same scripture off BibleGateway.com during the sermon?) Perhaps that should be tested to see if it would work. Perhaps it is a good idea. However, most people have the Scriptures on their phone already in their favorite translation.

If your Church branches out over the Internet, then you can say that you have an Internet Campus. The worship services in the primary sanctuary may be shared live with the Internet Campus branches. But is that really a Church? Some would say it is missing something; it isn’t real worship. Others would say that it is the best of both worlds. The small congregation at the branch gets to hear the great sermon and fantastic music at the primary sanctuary.

I have attended worship services at a wide range of Churches, including Internet branches. The technology provides a way to share the event live across many miles. It could even be used for distant lands. And the praise part of the service can be just as dynamic and glory filled. And a great sermon is just that – a great sermon – no matter where it is preached.

Which is better, a conventional lock or a keyless entry door lock on the Media Room in the Church?

Keyless Entry Lock

Volunteers need access to the Media Room. Providing that access is a challenge. (Churches may have greeters, but rarely doormen.) One approach would be to set a unique key for the door lock and assign keys to the volunteers. Only the volunteers would have access. And the keys could be tracked to make sure the Church always knows who has a key and who hasn’t.

Unfortunately, this does not always work well. Volunteers also come and go with the seasons. How do you make sure you get the key back from them? They may have a sudden move due to changes in work or living arrangements. They may simply forget to turn in the key – finding it years later and wondering, “Where did that fit again?” If you decided that you should change the lock everytime a key went missing, then you might as well hire a locksmith on staff. 🙂

A Keyless Lock would seem to be an ideal solution. There is no physical key, so there is nothing to get lost. And you just have to remember a 4 digit code to get in the door. Of course, the code becomes a well-known secret among the technical ministries team; but that may not be a bad thing.

What kind of lock, if any, does your Church have on the Media Room?

Printers are ubiquitous. They can be found everywhere. Yet, five minutes before the service starts is a bad time to try to print something. The printer is out of paper; it jams; it just takes too long. Maybe we need to avoid printing at such times. A better approach would be put the information in an email and send it to those that need to see it. Call it a quick update before the service. Get smart phone email addresses and make a mailing list called “preservice.” In the long run, that will work better.

ubiquitous

In the SW industry, projects are managed to completion. They have well thought out goals and objectives. There is a defined budget providing resources. People, equipment, and services are thus available to make the project succeed. And the project gets managed on a day to day basis.

In the Church, there might be a long term technical project – such as upgrading our Video Equipment to High Resolution. Some of the same principles can and should be applied. The differences are in terms of time scales and resource allocation. Instead of buying everything at one time, equipment may need to purchased piecemeal. Instead of hiring someone to come in and set it up, you may need to motivate your volunteers to learn how to set it up themselves. In the end, the project can succeed, but it may never be a top priority of the Administration of the Church.

The question about priorities is often confused with the issue of what comes first, technology or ministry. It is ministry that is the most important to the Church staff. The technology is there to facilitate that, not to supplant it. But that doesn’t mean that there need to be no technical priorities. The Tech Team can come up with a wish list, or a set of enhancements that they would like to see. Often times these are practical changes involving better equipment, consolidation of effort, or making it easier to do the work. There is a place for this; but where is it in the Church budget?

Some people think of mobile devices (i.e. cell phones) as an annoyance in Church. I prefer to think of them as an opportunity to extend the Word! Yes, they do tend to go off during the sermon. (Have you posted any signs or notices in the bulletin like Please mute your cell phone during worship?) But many people have the Bible on their smart phones. Why not ask them to follow along in their Bible on their smartphone or on paper? You might be surprised by how many people are already doing that!

Rather than seeing all of the technology as a hindrance to worship, look for ways to leverage it into worship. That way, people will download apps that are Biblically oriented. And that means they will be more likely to include Bible Study in their typical day. After all, who goes anywhere these days without their smart phone? One Church even makes the sermon notes available during worship for people to download, read, and take notes on their mobile device. Actually, that would mean that the preacher doesn’t have to publish their notes a week in advance; they could do it that morning, 15 minutes before the service!

Many Megachurches already have security personnel. These may be off-duty police officers who volunteer their time. Or the Church may pay them for their services. Either way, Churches have learned that they need security. I can remember a time when the Church doors were left open round the clock – just so people could go in and pray. Everyone in the community had a healthy fear of God that kept problems from occurring in the Church. Today, Church leaders have to worry about a host of security issues:

• Acts of violence directed towards the pastor or congregation
• Child abduction from Children’s Ministry by estranged parents
• Criminal trespass or vandalism

Is your Church secure? What does it take each day to keep it that way? Is there someone on duty during worship who is armed and linked to local law enforcement? Or are there simply off duty police men and women in the congregation that ensure your security?

As more and more people use their cell phones for financial transactions, it seems possible to also make a contribution that way. We already have giving kiosks; why not cell phone giving? The technology is there, but how do we take advantage of it?

Suppose a majority of the congregation wanted to give via their cell phones. Why couldn’t we announce the giving period as the offering time. Then, at the end of the offering, we could display a dynamic count of the total. This would do two things:

• People would see their gift tallied in real time, so they would know that it got there.
• The congregation could celebrate the achievement of a giving goal – e.g. for a new Habitat house.

I know some of you think this is far-fetched, but the technology is right around the corner. This is just one way to take advantage of it for the benefit of the mission of the Church. What other ways can you think of?

There are plenty of automated tools out there that can filter content. If you allow visitors to your web site to add comments, then you will need to filter them. This insures that people use wholesome language. But how do you keep the SPAM solicitations out? Well, there are tools available for that also. They will check each link to see if it matches up to a known SPAM site. If it does, or the language is inappropriate, then the tools will flag the comment as needing review. Or you can optionally just delete it. Either way, let the tools take care of the headache of trying to keep comments appropriate.

Everyone wants to be an Administrator for the Web Site. They know that the Administrator has more clout than regular users. And maybe they have a need to do something that steps just over the boundaries you have carefully set out for all users. That doesn’t mean that they are trying to cheat anyone; just that they have a need to do something irregular.

One way to handle this is to establish a role of Local Administrator. This allows individuals to act as administrators, but they don’t have the keys to every door in the system. Just give them access to handle the irregular stuff that comes up, and they’ll be happy.

Most people have good computer skills. But not everyone knows the difference between a Gigabyte and a Megabit (hint: it is not 1000). So you may find yourself supporting users that don’t have great computer skills. How can you do this with grace and love?

It takes patience to support any user. They come asking questions – a lot of questions that may seem less than intelligent. Just remember that they’re not IT Professionals who have been in the classroom learning this stuff. They don’t speak geek! Slow them down and spend some time explaining the technology. This will help them understand and rephrase their questions in more technical terms. And go the extra mile in getting them through the issue. They will bless you for it.

Thanksgiving is a great time to reflect on the things that we have to be thankful for. Here is a short list:

• God, who makes all things possible
• Resurrection, which empowers everything that we do as Christians
• Advent – a time to begin anew in search of the Babe in the manger
• Christ – who is our Lord
• Evangelists – who spread the word around the globe

What are you most thankful for? And how do you maintain your gratitude towards God?