Five Guidelines to Align Your Staff on Church Management Software

Is your church staff working in harmony, or is your data spread across several data silos?

In the early days of church tech, churches typically bought specific software to solve specific problems. The result? The Youth Pastor had one list, the Worship Leader had another, and the Financial Admin had a third. This siloed approach makes it nearly impossible to see a full and accurate picture of the people you are ministering to.

Modern Church Management Software (ChMS) like Churchteams was built to prevent those silos. But software only works if your team is aligned. To move from “using software” to “executing a ministry strategy,” your team needs a shared playbook.

Here are five essential guidelines to help your staff get on the same page.

Learn the Language.

Every software has a language based on why and how it was built. Here are some words and definitions that will help you use Churchteams.   

• People Attributes:  General information on a person’s profile.  (e.g., email, gender, “Date Joined”)
• Registration Fields:  Specific form or event registration information unique to that form or event.  (Ex. payments, roommate preferences, food selection)
• Notes:  A digital journal for pastoral care and follow-up tasks.
• Church Member Type: Defines a person’s relationship with the church.  Generally, this is Guest, Regular Attender, Member, Inactive, or Deceased.  You can customize these options for your church.
• Group Profile:  Think of these as categories or an organizing structure for your groups or events. This includes, but is not limited to: (1) Bible studies, (2) classes, (3) home groups, (4) volunteer teams, (5) leadership committees, (6) events with payments, and (7) forms. 

Be a Team Player.

If a staff member keeps a separate spreadsheet, sign-up app, or a physical notebook, that data is “dark”—it can’t help the rest of the team. Being a team player means putting information where others can use it.

• Centralize Communication: Use the ChMS to schedule volunteers and send emails.
• Go Digital for Events: Use integrated forms for registrations and payments so the data automatically syncs to the member’s profile.
• Don’t Gatekeep. (Empower Leaders): Use the app to give your key volunteers the info they need to provide better care and relay information back to staff more efficiently.

Get in the Game.

Learning something new is hard, especially if you have done something similar but in a different way for a long time.  Your willingness to learn something new for the sake of collaboration honors your team and your church’s mission.  We encourage staff to move from “spectator” to “player” by using these resources:

• The Help Icon (?): Your gateway to the Churchteams Knowledge Base, Support Team, Academy Webinars, and the Facebook Forum.
• Watch: Each Churchteams subscription includes personalized onboarding via Zoom. This is typically done with your church admin or admin team. We also provide you with recordings of these sessions. Ask your admin to show you what we showed them. You can also hop on Zoom to screen share with our Support Team.
• The “Try” Method: Search for your own profile, make an edit, and save. Email or text yourself, and try using an email template. Browse “Groups & Events” to see what the data architecture actually looks like. Create a group and set up a registration as a test case. Add automated communications for that group and test on yourself or a co-worker so that you both learn.

Don’t Litter. (Maintain Good Data Hygiene)

One of the biggest challenges with databases is that they can get really messy over time.  We have even developed a process to help churches clean up their database.  It’s really that bad.  So, as you use the database, be considerate of others.  Here are some of the common ways staff make their data messy.

• Search First: Always search for a person thoroughly before creating a new profile to avoid duplicates.
• Recycle, Don’t Recreate: For annual events, don’t create a brand-new group. Empty the previous attendees, inactivate them, and reactivate them next year to keep a clean history.
• Correct on Sight: If you see a duplicate or a typo, fix it immediately or notify your database admin.
• Use the System: Churchteams has built-in tools and reports to help you identify duplicates, inactive people, and missing information. We recommend doing a system cleanup every 6 months using this process to keep clutter at bay.

Join the Huddle.

The best-run churches don’t just set it and forget it. They talk about their processes.

Schedule quarterly “Lunch and Learns” or dedicate 10 minutes of your staff meeting to discuss how the software is working or a new tool. Use this time to refine your workflows and ensure your technology is actually serving your ministry strategy, rather than the other way around.

Boyd Pelley