Church Technology Overview

One of the most often overlooked and least understood aspects of Church Management is the technology used in churches. Relatively inexpensive costs have allowed many of today's churches to have broadband internet access, email, a church web site, PDAs to keep track of meetings and church management software to help them keep track of their ever growing and changing flock. Ministry positions are often created to administer the church computers, network, website & email and a good size budget set aside for this effort each year. The problem most church leaders face is what / how to implement technologies that will be effective for building The Kingdom and also good stewardship of the resources they have been provided with.

Matthew 25-21
“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’ ”

Church technology can become overwhelming & expensive very quickly. The real question is what technologies will make your church management more effective? Without a solid understanding of what you need and what is out there to meet your needs, it is easy to spend an exorbitant amount of your budget on technology and not get what you need.

What Today's Churches Need

If you are here reading this blog, you probably don't need to be convinced that technology can be extremely useful in church management. The following is a list of computer related technologies that will help your church stay relevant and connected in today's technology age.

Workstation PCs
- Windows (XP/Vista) or Mac OSX based computer (purchased within the past 4 years)
- At least 2GB of RAM memory
- Backup drive

 

Internet Access & Network
- Broadband Internet Access
- Router with built in switch

Software
- Anti-Virus (AVG Free Edition)
- Office Application Suite (OpenOffice)
- Church Management Software (Church Membership Online)
- Internet Browser (Internet Explorer 7 or Firefox)

Internet Presence
- Website
- Email

I have provided some quick links for some of the items above. For everything else, check back in the future as I will be posting more about specific inexpensive & easy to implement solutions for each of these technology needs. In the meantime, please check out the collection of free internet resources we have compiled.
http://www.churchofficeonline.com/FreeResources/FreeResources.aspx

- Aaron
Church Office Online
http://www.churchofficeonline.com/

This video will give you an overview of managing & using custom fields in your Church Membership Online account.

(Double click the video to view it in Full Screen Mode.)

Church Membership Online has been updated with a huge amount of new features & enhancements. As always, the updates & enhancements are free and available immediately for all of our churches.

Custom Fields

"Custom Fields" have been added to Church Membership Online, allowing you to add an unlimited number of custom data fields to track your church specific information about individuals & households in Church Membership Online. You may have noticed a new Custom Fields Tab in your individuals and Households page. To input your own "Custom" text, date or value field, simply go to the Admin" page (Administrative access only) and look for the "Custom Fields" feature. The directions are simple and allows you to individualize the type of data you want to collect for your church.

Households Directory

A new Households Directory feature has been added to Church Membership Online allowing you to quickly view and search the households in your congregation.

Households Directory Website Plug In

The new Households Directory is available as a website plug in, allowing you to publish your church directory directly on your website. This enables your congregation to view and search your up to date directory online and eliminates the need for you to publish periodic paper directories. Individuals can also save your households directory to PDF format should they wish to save or print it.

Session Timeout Notification

A new session timeout notification feature has been added. When using Church Membership Online you will now be notified of your session ending five minutes before it expires. If you do not respond to the notification you will be automatically logged out of your current session for security purposes.

Enhancements & Fixes

• Birthdays report now shows birthdays with a year of 0001
• Progress bars added for login and congregation map creation to improve user interaction
• All website plug ins now feature a "PlugIn Preview" allowing you to preview each plug in
• Contributions by Date Range Report can be categorized by Contribution Category now

Aaron
Church Office Online
http://www.churchofficeonline.com

Software can be really expensive and add up quickly. If you want to be legal and licensed (and you do, you are a church after all :) the different licenses & upgrades can add up quickly and become a multi-thousand dollar per year expenditure for even small churches. There is a lot of free software available that can cut down on your software costs by thousands of dollars per year while at the same time providing the same ease of use as their expensive counterparts.

Average Software & Expenses

Below is a list of software that seems to be standard in most churches today.

• Microsoft Office Professional (Word, Excel, Powerpoint) ~$300
• Microsoft Outlook (Email, included in Microsoft Office Pro)
• Norton Security Suite (Anti-Virus, Firewall, Anti-Spyware) ~$100
• Bible reference program ~$100 

Total Expenses Per Computer: ~$500

 

Alternative Software & Expenses

How here is a list of alternative software that will do the exact same thing as the above mentioned applications.

• OpenOffice (Word, Excel, Powerpoint) - $0.00
• Mozilla Thunderbird (Email) - $.0.00
• AVG Free (Anti-Virus), Windows XP SP2 (Firewall), Windows Defender (Anti-Spyware) - $0.00
• E-Sword Bible Reference - $0.00

Total Expenses Per Computer: $0

List of free software resources for churches: http://www.churchofficeonline.com/FreeResources/FreeResources.aspx

Aaron
Church Office Online
http://www.churchofficeonline.com

Church Membership Online has been updated with a huge amount of new features & enhancements. As always, the updates & enhancements are live immediately for all of our churches.

New Features

• Anniversary Tracking
  You can now track anniversaries for individuals. Anniversary Date has been added to each Individual record as well as new Anniversaries Dashboard information, an Anniversaries Website Plug-In and Anniversaries reporting.

• Dashboard Graphs
  The Dashboard now presents incredibly valuable information about your congregation member types, age categories and trending graphs for attendance & contributions.

• Dashboard Congregation Map
  Using Microsoft Virtual Earth technology, the Dashboard can now show you a visual display of where your regularly attending congregation lives, helping you identify the areas which you are reaching successfully.

• Contributions Quick Entry
  We have received feedback that a feature was needed to make entry of contributions from multiple dates easier. You asked and we answered with the great new "Contributions Quick Entry" feature. Using this new feature you can quickly and easily input multiple contributions for any individuals in your congregation for any date!

Enhancements

• Individual Preview Bug
  A bug has been fixed where the mobile number was being displayed incorrectly in the Individual Preview popup.
• Spiritual Development Delete Bug
  A bug has been fixed where a spiritual development category could not be deleted if it had been assigned to any individuals.
• UI Inconsistencies
  A few pages have been updated to maintain consistency across the CMO user interface.

As always, please leave any comments or thoughts about the new features & enhancements, or suggest more new features that you would like to see in Church Membership Online.

Aaron
Church Office Online

We are excited to launch the Church Office Online Blog. Weblogs (blogs) give us a rich platform to bring you constant updates about Church Membership Online, articles on church management techniques, the latest information on church technology and much more. Another benefit of having a blog dedicated to Church Office Online is the ability for you, our users, to comment on the updates, articles & information we share with you. Your opinion is our most important resource and we are excited to share the weblog platform with you.

Thanks for reading our first post. If you would like to keep up with the latest posts on this blog please check out http://reader.google.com, which is a great RSS reader that will help you keep informed about any new blog posts. 

Please feel free to leave comments on what kind of information you would like to see in this blog.

Thanks!

Aaron
Church Office Online

New Features & Enhancements

 

New Features & Enhancements

• Redesigned user interface
• New Website Plug-Ins feature
• Various Improvements & Fixes

The following is an archived list of all major updates made to Church Membership Online between 2/13/2006 and 12/09/2007.

12/9/2007

• Church Membership Online New Features
• New International Support
• New Data Export Feature
• Various Improvements & Fixes

10/1/2007

• Church Membership Online Updates
• New Birthday Report Features
• New State Choices
• Various Improvements & Fixes

6/01/2007

Contributions By Date Range Report

• Added required field validation for date range

Members Directory

• Enhanced the phone, mobile & email addresses formatting

Edit Households

• Added the ability to apply contact information edits to all Household Members

Event & Meeting Attendance

• Applied standard filter options to the Individual lists for Event & Meeting Attendance

4/20/2007

1/23/2007

12/8/2006

12/8/2006

9/22/2006

8/1/2006

7/07/2006

5/26/2006

4/17/2006

3/27/2006

3/22/2006

3/10/2006

2/21/2006

2/20/2006

2/16/2006

2/13/2006

This video will show you how to perform a data export in your Church Membership Online account and then use the exported data to make a custom report.

(Double click the video to view it in Full Screen Mode.)