The Church IT Network (formerly the Church IT Roundtable) grew out of a need for a peer-learning community for church and ministry IT professionals worldwide and is designed for anyone – staff or volunteer – with responsibility for Information Technology in a ministry setting.

The three-day event kicks off with a full day of training workshops covering a broad array of topics, including network infrastructure, exchange servers and unified communications.

This is followed by two days of keynote speakers and roundtable breakout sessions designed to help IT professionals connect, share and learn from one another. Last year’s event included over 200 participants from all over the country.

This year’s gathering has expanded to include designated discussions for web developers and developers of church membership systems (ChMS). Some of the topics will include: social media, buy vs build, web and ChMS integrations, cloud vs local host, and more.

For more information about the Church IT Network, including information and registration details for the Spring 2012 Church IT Roundtable Event, visit the organization’s website at www.churchitnetwork.com.

• 02/11 – Active Network acquires Fellowship Technologies
• 07/11 – Active Network acquires Connection Power
• 10/11 – Active Network acquires ServiceU

While this latest move isn’t surprising, it is significant nonetheless. If you are not familiar with Active Network, please read up on my previous post and you will understand why. What is even more interesting is since their entry into the church market in February, Active Network has become a publicly traded company on the New Your Stock Exchange under the symbol ‘ACTV.’ Though their stock has performed commensurate with the rest of the market (see comparison), they did earn a record net income of 5.5 million in Q2 of this year:

Flash Player 9 or higher is required to view the chart
Click here to download Flash Player now

With the acquisition of ServiceU, Active Network gains a VISA/Mastercard certified level 1 service provider and adds 2,400+ clients (though many likely overlap with the client base of Fellowship Technologies and Connection Power). ServiceU is no lightweight. There are plenty of case studies by Dell, AMD, and Microsoft that attest to the maturity and infrastructure that lies beneath the ServiceU platform. Allen Ratta, CEO of ConnectionPower has already made it clear what all of this means: “Over time, the unique ministry features of ConnectionPower will be incorporated into Fellowship Technologies’ solutions into a branded suite of products called ActiveWorks | Faith.” ServiceU is another addition to this suite of products. This move makes complete sense for two reasons: (1) Fellowship Technologies and ServiceU had already formed a partnership a year ago this month (prior to both their acquisitions). And (2) ServiceU falls in line with Active Network’s core business…event management.

Given AN’s history, one might ask, “Who’s next?”

• SoChurch? After all, SoChurch formed partnerships with both Fellowship Technologies and ServiceU less than a year ago. Though it is unclear if the integration between SoChurch and F1 was ever completed.
• Table Project? The integration exists with F1 but it is a direct competitor with SoChurch (in my opinion). Table Project appears to have more momentum than SoChurch.
• Monvee? Now this is a great tool and has some real potential for facilitating spiritual formation in the local church, but it doesn’t scale well unless it is integrated with your ChMS. Their partnership with ACS has resulted in a universal API, but it is unclear if that same partnership would exclude them from any considerations by AN.
• I could go on but the landscape is littered with numerous smaller, niched applications.

In the end, I am pleased to hear the good news….knowing that in time churches will benefit from a fuller featured and integrated suite of products from Active Network. In the interim, we need to continue to pray for the leadership at Active Network:

• Pray that AN’s senior leadership will maintain a clear mission, vision, and corporate identity given their long history of acquisitions.
• Pray that AN’s senior leadership will always remember that their greatest asset is their own people.
• Pray for the Tim Whitehorn and ServiceU’s employees as they begin this transition.
• Pray for Jeff Hook to discern wisely how best to merge these teams together and to discern rightly the next steps in the product road map.

• We are not businesses.
• We don’t have competitors. In fact, we are just the opposite. We intentionally share ideas, resources, and sometimes even pool resources to accomplish goals for our respective organizations.
• We do not sell products. We serve people.
• We don’t have customers or clients….we have members and guests.
• If you price your products based on user or usage….you will likely eliminate churches as a market since we often use technology for our church members not just our staff. We consider every member of our church an ‘employee’ in accomplishing the mission of our church….they just don’t get a paycheck.
• We do not engage in fundraising. We teach stewardship.
• Our profit is not money. It’s changed lives.
• We don’t make decisions based on ROI. We evaluate solutions based on ROM (return on ministry). We ask the question, “How will a solution impact our ability to increase the speed at which we do ministry and effect changed lives?”
• Don’t underestimate the church. The technologies we employ are often highly visible to our church members….giving you as a technology provider greater exposure to other potential consumers.
• Listen before you speak.
• Ask questions before you suggest solutions.
• We aren’t religious. We can share with you why, but just know that we just don’t respond well to that term.
• Non-profit pricing says to us that you understand our needs and challenges or that you value the impact we make on our community and culture.

For more information and to register online, visit the CITRT website.

ABOUT CITRT:

The Church IT Roundtable (CITRT) is a peer learning community of Church and ministry IT people not only across the US, but around the globe.  Very much like NACBA and other organizations that involve church administration and church technology, there has been a growing interest among Church IT people to find ways to connect with each other.  And thus the Church IT RoundTable was born in Fall of 2006.  Over 500 church staff and volunteers have been involved with CITRT in one way or another and we look forward to watching how God continues to expand our community.

1. Nick Nicholaou with Ministry Business Services, Inc. publishes an annual comparison chart. (34 Solutions Compared; Date: 11/13/2009 )
2. Christian Computing Magazine: Note original chart appears to be no longer available, but this cached version is preserved on Digital @ Leadership Network’s blog. (27 Solutions Compared; Date: 12/15/2008)
3. CCIS publishes a comparison guide between its software and other ChMS providers. Though biased, it may give you some insight by looking at each of their comparisons together. (10 Solutions Compared; Date: Unknown)
4. Capterra doesn’t provide a comparison chart per se, but they do have a directory of ChMS solutions that can be filtered based on platform, features, and other criteria. It is a great tool to narrow down solutions based on your specific needs. (180 Solutions Listed; Date: Unknown).

Here are some of my recommendations before you start shopping:

1. Ask someone from senior leadership to sponsor the project…ensuring buy in from the very top and preparing the way for maximum involvement of all church staff.
2. Meet with key staff from every department/ministry and document their ‘business processes‘. Invest in a LiveScribe Pulse smart pen to capture both your notes and the audio of your meetings (you won’t regret it!). Keep a separate list for (1) reports, (2) processes that are inefficient and need to change, (3) issues or decisions requiring resolution or approval from senior leadership. (Here is a sample doc to provide staff in prep for your meetings).
3. Compile your notes into one master document, organized by department and then by task.
4. Have each department review their section to ensure that you documented their processes and needs accurately.
5. Recruit the legitimizers within your church staff to assist you with product selection.
6. Begin shopping, pick your top 2 solutions and get very thorough demos….evaluating each product based on how well it will accomplish the needs of your staff. Keep in mind, everyone will say, “Yes, our software does that!” However, the real question is how efficient does their software handle your needs (i.e. one step or ten?).
7. As you meet with each vendor, make a list of gap items…items that the software does not handle.
8. Weigh your options carefully and involve both senior leadership and key legitimizers in the final decision.

By the way, a computerized child check-in solution is a great example. Every solution providers touts that its check-in system improves the security of your facility. I laugh when I read this…because the security of your facility is not in its technology, but in its processes. By processes, I mean those steps that you require to check-in children, whether by paper or by computer. If computerized check-in increases the security of your facility it is because your processes have changed, not because it is computerized.

2. Don’t Get Wooed by the Wow
We all get a case of gadget envy from time to time, but if technology decisions are driven by the ‘wow’ factor, your church will pay greatly for it. Good technology decisions should not be driven by what other churches have, but by the specific needs of your church. Diverting time and money to create an iPhone App when you need a new ChMS may not be a wise choice.

3. Don’t Take a Trinitarian View of the Project Triangle
Fully Featured, Cheap and Quick cannot coexist in one project. If a senior pastor or IT leader wants a project and its team to succeed, they should choose two and provide executive sponsorship for the project…ensuring buy-in from all levels of staff.

4. Standardizing Hardware and Software is Good Stewardship
Standardization of hardware allows for quick replacement or substitution of failed hardware. It also provides predictability and stability for how specific software will perform. Likewise, standardization of software reduces training costs and compatibility of files shared among staff. By standardizing on both, churches are able to leverage greater discounts though bulk purchasing. All of these reasons are why donated computer equipment can actually cost the church more money.

5. Standardizing Ministry Processes is Good Leadership
Ministry processes is the church equivalent to business processes. A ministry process is a collection of related, structured activities or tasks that produce a specific service for a particular member or prospect. It often can be visualized with a flowchart as a sequence of activities. Examples of a ministry process would include: follow-up with a church prospect, staff’s response to an emergency hospitalization, process for joining the church. I have known many churches who have not defined these processes. As a result, new church employees are inadequately trained for their job and usually change the process to fit their skills or personality. In the case of a multi-site church, this problem is made much worse when each location’s processes don’t mirror each other.  Inconsistent processes result in inconsistent reporting, data quality, and inadequate use of the technologies the church has invested in.

1. Prayer Pagers: We have a supply of prayer pagers for those in the midst of a health crisis. We publish the names and the numbers of the pagers on our church intranet and our church website. One of our first recipients of a prayer pager, Rebekah Tauber, received such a following that the chain emails detailing her situation became an urban legend and earned an entry on snopes.com. Her prayer pager was a highly personalized reminder that people were praying for her. The pagers we use are through USA Mobility.
2. Social Security Death Index: We occasionally receive late death notices of church members or regular attenders. As part of our pastoral care, our senior pastor sends personal letters to family members on the 1 year anniversary of the loss of their loved one. It is important that we have correct information if it was not included in the death notice to the church. To verify our church records, we have used the Social Security Administration’s death index. If you need to verify a large number of records, I recommend CDYNE who provides a tool to search against a list of names. Otherwise, Ancestry.com underwrites the cost of a free search tool for single searches at RootsWeb.com. It is impressive how much information is returned in this simple search tool.
3. Task Centre by Orbis Software: Task Centre is a great 3rd party tool to use with any ChMS that monitors changes in your database and kicks off any defined stored procedure, task, or notification. Using this tool, you can setup email or SMS reminders to staff at the anniversary date of a birth or  loss in your church family, or a follow-up notification after a church member has not attended after a certain number of weeks, or schedule a weekly hospitalization report to be auto-generated and sent to your senior leadership. For us, it has been a very valuable tool!
4. Google Voice: Before you setup a designated prayer line, consider using Google Voice to give you even greater flexibility in managing calls for prayer. With Google Voice, you can have your prayer line ring several phone numbers concurrently ensuring that you don’t miss a call. You can also have the voice mails transcribed and sent to you by email or text. You can even forward calls on a schedule…allowing calls at night or on weekends to be routed to an alternate number.
5. Care Calendar: CareCalendar is a web based system to organize meals and other help for families during a time of illness or life changing event, such as the birth of a baby or death of a family member. Although it is cannot be integrated with your church’s membership database, it is still very much a worthwhile tool to recommend to your church family.
6. Caring Bridge: CaringBridge.org provides free websites that connect family and friends during a serious health event, care and recovery. It is similar to a blog but more defined in function and easier to use for the non-technical. There are other sites similar to Caring Bridge such as CareFlash and CarePages. Each of these organizations are very open to creating a branded account with your church as a service to your church members. I have not seen a comparison chart for these, so do your homework before deciding on the preferred provider for your church family.
7. The Funeral Negotiator: This isn’t a necessarily a technology or a software, but a great online resource. As a pastor, I have used the funeral negotiator before and he is the real deal. If you have someone in your church family that is overwhelmed with funeral costs (and who isn’t??), then I definitely recommend they contact the Funeral negotiator. He will save a grieving family a lot of money.
8. iPrayerWorks: iPrayerWorks.com is a hosted prayer management software that helps track and disseminate prayer requests, hospitalizations, and homebounds. It is a very much needed software and is one of very few that even exist.
9. Prepare-Enrich Marriage Preparation: Prepare-Enrich is a marriage prep program that includes an online couple assessment. Pastors can login to retrieve the assessment scores and access any number of relationship building exercises to include in the marriage preparation process. We have used this tool as a part of our Marriage Prep ministry for several years. While it is not a Bible based or Christian based tool, it is a very valuable tool and can be used well when facilitated by a pastor.
10. Legacy.com: Legacy.com provides tools for families to create websites in memory of lost loved ones. It also provides a service to post obituaries with an optional guest book for people to sign. It does cost money and probably could be just as easily accomplished through a free blog software, but I thought it worthy of mention.

1. Rules without a Relationship Leads to Rebellion- If you have rules or policies, but little relational investment in the people you support, you are headed for trouble. Develop relationships with the people you serve. Befriend them. In those relationships, you will have a better understanding of their needs and goals. This helps you be proactive and find solutions for problems before they are even communicated to you or your team. Once you have built up a few ‘wins’, you can then afford to take a relational hit when you have to stand by your rules.
2. No is Never the First Response- Buy time and find alternative solutions if you are unable to accommodate one’s request or need.
3. Error on the Side of Empowerment- Wow! The corporate world would say just the opposite. But this is the difference between a corporation and a church. When you are confronted with an issue that poses equal amount of liabilities with the benefits of empowerment. Go with empowerment. God will bless it. If you discover later that you made a bad decision, then look at it as an opportunity to establish and educate the need for boundaries and policies.
4. Accept Exceptions – It in inevitable, but make sure you can explain why. Here are some of the reasons for exceptions that I have used: staff position (executive staff, etc.), training (has a person been trained), job descriptions, employment status (full time, part time, contract, etc).
5. In Person not InBox – If policies and people are at odds, deal with it in person. Don’t use email! Remember, you’re about relationships not rules.

Second Baptist’s Social Media Policy – DOC | PDF

If you are developing a social media policy for your church or organization, be sure and check out SocialMediaGovernance.com which has an online library of 100+ social media policies from various companies and non-profits. Of all of the policies I reviewed, Kodak’s policy was extremely helpful…the best one I have found to date.

If your church has not done something like this, let me highly encourage it. We found a great partner in Tim Krauss at NeedsMet. NeedMet is a customized web application that connects employers and job seekers inside your church. It is a valuable tool to help church members find meaningful employment, connect church employers with job seekers, and help churches reduce unemployment.

They did a great job customizing our instance of their software to match our website (see before and after). They also back filled our account with job openings from Houston area companies…giving our church family immediate opportunities to pursue. I highly recommend them. Best of all, they are priced right for churches and deliver a great product in a short amount of time.