christian computing magazine - april 2014

2April 2014Christian Computing® Magazine

Founder & Editor-in-ChiefSteve Hewitt - [email protected]

Managing EditorKevin Cross - [email protected]

Contributing EditorsYvon Prehn Nick Nicholaou Kevin A. Purcell Russ McGuireMichael L White

Copy EditorsGina HewittMagen Cross

Corporate Home Office

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© Copyright 2014 by Christian Computing®, Inc.

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Christian Computing® is a registered trademark of Christian Computing, Inc. Written materials submitted to Christian Computing® Magazine become the property of Christian Computing®, Inc. upon receipt and may not necessarily be re-turned. Christian Computing® Magazine reserves the right to make any changes to materials sub-mitted for publication that are deemed necessary for editorial purposes. The content of this publi-cation may not be copied in any way, shape or form without the express permission of Christian Computing®, Inc. Views expressed in the articles and reviews printed within are not necessarily the views of the editor, publisher, or employees of Christian Computing® Magazine, or Christian Computing, Inc.

Articles that are highlighed are provided by our partners

www.ccmag.com/2007_03/2007_03editorial.pdf

Applying Tomorrow’s Technology to Today’s MinistryVolume 26 April 2014 No. 4

4 cover storyHaloPayssimPle Payment Processing For cHristian organizations! By steve Hewitt

3 editorial CCMag Readers Are THE Best! Steve Hewitt - [email protected] 7 Protected witH PurPose Heartbleed and Windows XP End-of-Life; What you need to know By: Steven Sundermeier10 ministry leadersHiP Keeping Accurate Data and why it’s Important By: Kelli Brennen12 cHurcH windows soFtware Antivirus versus Firewall Software By: Mike Wygant 14 tHe Browser Two Useful Cloud-based Project Management Tools By: Susan Codone

17 sPecial Feature CCMag’s Product of the Year - One Call Now By:Steve Hewitt20 HigHer Power witH Kevin What’s New in Bible Software 2.0 Kevin A. Purcell – [email protected] tHe Power and tHe danger Bitcoin By: Russ McGuire - [email protected] 25 digital evangelism Digital Evangelism for Websites - Our Content Is the King By: Michael White28 ministry communication Post-Easter Communication Evaluation Tips to Help Your Church Grow Yvon Prehn - [email protected] nicK at cHurcH Technologically Taking Attendance in Churches Nick Nicholaou - [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]





April 2014Christian Computing® Magazine 3

Steve Hewitt - [email protected]

disagree with in the magazine. Even though they are few in number, one can begin to wonder about what is going on when the magazine goes out! How great to hear from hundreds of you in such a short time, sharing your appreciation for CCMag and that our ministry is blessing yours. This is why I have been doing this for almost half of my life, and while I would like to think I don’t need such affirmation, it was indeed very nice!

Thank you again!Also, for those that responded to my email about

our goal of purchasing land for a Pastor Retreat Cen-ter, I again want to offer my thanks. Some couldn’t make a donation, but let us know we would be in their prayers. We are SO grateful for prayers. And, for those readers that made a donation, thank you. You helped to put us over the top so that we could put $50,000 down and close the deal to purchase the property. We still have almost $60,000 to go to pay it off, but at least we have a mortgage on the prop-erty and can begin work. Thank you for your help. For more information, and to see those that helped donate, visit http://www.gofundme.com/7bmi28

Together We Serve Him,

Steve [email protected]

editorial

CCMag Readers Are THE Best!

I do not want to rehash the Noah movie issue again. It is obvious that the Christian community was divided on the response to such a Hollywood rendition of a Biblical story. When I first received a dozen emails from readers about our marketing the Noah movie, it was discouraging. I felt I should of-fer an explanation, which I did. I didn’t expect any response, but hoped it would at least explain things a bit better.

I was pleasantly shocked at the response from my explanation letter! Your emails began to flood in. Many simply thanked me for my explanation and wished to inform me that they weren’t offended. Many more of you took time to write very encour-aging words, sharing what our ministry has meant to you. Some shared specifically how CCMag has helped them in the past. How many emails did I re-ceive? I received over 500 emails that were support-ive and encouraging. Frankly, I believe it was one of the biggest responses I have received since I started the magazine 25 years ago!

I received a total of 25 emails from readers who were disappointed with our association with market-ing the Noah movie; however, most of them did it in a kind way.

I want to be honest with you, the response really helped restore my faith in the Christian community. It seems that we normally only hear from those that wish to complain, throw stones or announce they are unsubscribing from our publications because I am not a Christian, or, as one of the recent disgruntled emails stated, “I am under attack from Satan”. We don’t get many of these, but one or two a month nor-mally come through my email over something they



http://www.gofundme.com/7bmi28



I first met Jax Carroll, President of HaloPays, four years ago at a church conference. He shared with me his passion to help churches increase their funding for ministry! Halo is still doing what they do

best, and they have continued to develop their services and add exciting new features. Here is an interview with Mr. Carroll. I hope you will enjoy learning more about what they have to offer!

HaloPaysSimple Payment Processing for Christian Organizations!

By Steve Hewitt

You’ve created a new way for software companies to sell more donation software, right?

That’s probably the way your readers would see it, yes! In reality, 95% of churches and other faith-based organizations don’t qualify for great rates with the usual pricing structures in our industry, and they don’t want to pay transaction fees, monthly fees or annual fees.

We put in a lot of hard work to become a spe-cific type of credit card processor called a Payment Service Provider or PSP . This PSP model lets us get rid of all of those fees and set a single, flat rate that’s always 1% for e-checks/ACH and never more than 3% for credit and debit cards. It opens up a whole new world of potential clients for us who don’t want

cover story

First off, tell our readers what it is that HaloPays does.

Sure. HaloPays provides payment processing for Christian organizations to take donations. We pro-vide a merchant gateway for credit cards, debit cards, bank accounts… pretty much every way people donate in these modern times, we facilitate.

If someone wants to give to a church, ministry, faith-based charity, business, or non-profit, we’re go-ing to make sure they get as much of that money as possible. We work directly with websites, apps, and kiosks. We’ve taken in more than $1 billion in dona-tions, and we’ve doubled our customer intake every year, for all six years we’ve been around. So we’re really happy with our growth.



complicated processes, and it exponentially opens up the field for our software partners.

We want to partner with every software provider and web designer possible, so reach out and talk to us today.

Are most of your competitors actually PSP’s, like you?

No, most are acting as a third party to the real processor, so they’re sales offices for credit card processers. And even most processors aren’t PSP’s, so the entire process was really challenging, but it’s allowed for a whole new pricing structure for this industry. We’re shaking things up!

As a PSP, we can sign people up with no monthly or annual fees, and same-day approval. It just sim-plifies the whole process. We have complete control over everything: the application, the gateway, the un-derwriting, the settlement and distribution of funds, and we control the pricing.

If you’re a mega church, you’re getting incredible volume, so you’re getting great rates. But about 95% of our clients didn’t have the volume to get the low-est rates we were allowed, so we cut out the middle-man and took control.

Is that connected to your new offering, HaloOne?Exactly. With HaloOne, we charge 1% for ACH/

e-checks and a maximum of 3% for all debit and credit cards.

Each customer pays one flat percentage rate we agree on that’s never higher than 3%, and that’s it. Zero additional processing fees. We got rid of all monthly and annual fees, the PCI charge, the pro-cessing fee, the transaction fee. It’s a big deal in this industry. These are things we can charge for, but not charging them serves our goals as a company more than our financial goals.

If a software company or a customer wanted to add HaloPays, how long would that take?

We’re super-fast. With a new software partner, within two weeks they’d be up and running, integrated

to our gateway. We’ve written our own API, and we work closely with our partners on integration.

But after we’re set up with a software partner, we

approve new ac-counts for custom-ers same-day.

Bigger picture, what does Halo-Pays do differ-ently?

We’ve always had the best reten-tion rate I’ve ever heard of in our industry – we’ve been at 96% over 6 years, and the average is 80%, and we hear it’s our support, training, and our straightforward approach. We’d rather be totally clear about what you’ll be charged from day 1, rather than sweet talk you into thinking you have some unrealistically great rate that you re-ally don’t.

The majority of the time, people in charge of payment management don’t really know what they’re paying. And I think that’s a real shame. Long-term relationships are a lot more important to us than a quick buck.

We usually get customers who have been using PayPal and wanted something just as cut-and-dried, or after they realize they were misled by some other provider. Usually an organization is pitched to, then they sign, then they’re abandoned, given only cryptic reports.

We do free statement evaluations for organiza-tions who aren’t working with us yet, to make sure they know what they’re actually paying as a total per-centage. The difference between what they thought they were promised and what has actually come out is often incredible. And not incredible in a good way.

How do people get so confused?Typical industry pricing is very tricky. With most

providers, there are a ton of different fees and a num-ber of tiers; pricing depends on the type of card you take and how you take it. We scrapped that whole system last year.


Just last week we had someone using another merchant services provider who thought they were paying 1.5% actually have zero transactions going through at that rate. And their next tier was 2.5%, but they had zero transactions going through on that rate. It turns out 100% of their transactions were going through a 6.5% rate, and they hadn’t looked at that in years. In a few hours, we were able to save them $1,500/month. That’s a lot of money, and we have hundreds of stories like that.

We’re not just slapping the name “Halo” on our business and in our logo. This is my calling in life, and everyone on our team is just as passionate about serving Christ as I am. We know we could boost revenue by charging more than we need to, but we never have and never will, and that’s why we have a 96% retention rate.

Why do you lose anyone? What’s happening with that 4%?

Some organizations cease to exist… and we’re pretty sure that’s not our fault! Others move to soft-ware providers that aren’t using our services as one of their processing solutions. We hope with the new zero fee, flat-rate model, all software providers in

the faith based industry will offer us as a choice to their churches and ministries.

To our knowledge, we’ve never – in six years – lost a customer to another faith-based merchant service provider. We honestly have very happy, dedicated customers.

What’s next for HaloPays? What’s the next goal?We just want to keep building relationships with

online donation software providers, website build-ers, and keep connecting with Christian organiza-tions.

It’s our mission to make sure they are keeping as much of each donation as possible, and we want to make it easy for organizations who thought it was financially out of reach to take donations.

And we want to get retention up to 97%... now you’re making me feel bad about 96%!

To contact HaloPays, email Jax at [email protected] or call 877-769-HALO.

mailto:jax@halopays

mailto:jax@halopays

http://halopays.com


Heartbleed and Windows XP End-of-Life; What You Need to Know

By: Steven Sundermeier

protected with purpose

While I thrived throughout the earliest years of raising my two boys, I am beginning to understand what my parents and other elders have said all along about daughters being different. This

past fall, my daughter turned three and she is now at the stage where she likes to ask “Why Daddy?” or “What?” after everything we say to her. Just today as I was driving her to dance class (or “Creative Movements” as it is officially titled), I told her that that when we get there we’ll need to hurry up and get her ballerina shoes on. Her response: “Why Daddy”? I explained that we were running late, and to that explanation I got another, “Why Daddy?” We ended up making it in plenty of time; however as soon as she got into her class I was bombarded by other parents asking me computer related questions. It soon dawned on me that all of these “who”, “what”, and “why” questions from my daughter and fellow parents were actually cues for my next article.

I’d like to come at you from a different direc-tion this month. Because currently there are many hot-topic questions in the technical arena, (and also as a tribute to my 3-year old little girl’s inquisitive stage) I’d like to chat with you in a question and an-swer format. We’ll focus on today’s hottest security topics: Heartbleed and Windows XP End-of-Life. I realize we have touched on Windows XP before, but with public confusion and uncertainty (and the

barrage of questions concerning these topics I got today), I think it’s also worth revisiting.

Heartbleed

Question: What is Heartbleed? Answer: Heartbleed is a security flaw that af-

fects servers that use OpenSSL, a popular data encryption standard.


Question: Why should I be concerned? Answer: The Heartbleed bug provides a seri-

ous threat to the public because it provides hackers with the ability to steal large amounts of personal data (including username and passwords, credit card information, etc.) from secured servers, such as those used by social networking sites, banking institutions, online retailers, etc. Initial estimates show that Heartbleed has affected an estimated 500,000 servers across the world. If you’ve used or created accounts on Yahoo Mail, Google, Gmail, Facebook, Dropbox, Amazon, Instagram, Pinterest, Netflix and Flickr to name a few, there is a good chance your account information may have been compromised.

Question: What can I do? Answer: Most of the responsibility for dealing

with this bug falls on the shoulders of the network administrators who own and operate the affected websites. However, one preventive step you can take is to change all the passwords you are cur-rently using online. Even if a website that you’ve created an account on claims they are unaffected, change the password at any rate because often times we’re using the same login credentials for multiple sites and cybercriminals are aware of this. The practice of changing passwords is a good one anyway, and make sure when changing these passwords to create them unique and strong (at least 8 characters with a blend of numbers, letters and special characters). If you change your pass-word from “password” to “123456”, you’re prob-ably not helping the situation. Another word of advice would be to stay alert for phishing emails. Given the severity and broad scope of the Heart-bleed bug, in combination with the influx of email warnings by corporations suggesting immediate password resets, as well as the panic-postings that are currently flooding the Internet: we can expect virus writers and hackers to capitalize on this gold-en ticket opportunity. Users are going to be expect-ing and waiting on these emails from their service providers and cybercriminals know that as well.

Windows XP End-of-Life

Question: What was Microsoft’s announcement regarding its Windows XP Operating System?

Answer: Microsoft announced that after April

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8, 2014, it will no longer provide security updates or technical support for Windows XP. Without critical Windows XP security updates, PC’s may become vulnerable to harmful viruses, spyware, and other malicious software that can steal or dam-age your data and information.

Question: Does that mean that after April 8th, 2014 I can no longer use my Windows XP com-puter?

Answer. No. The Windows XP Operating sys-tem isn’t going to suddenly remove itself or lock your system. Your computer will continue to work indefinitely. What are expiring are the security updates and critical patches.

Question: Why hasn’t my church or school al-ready upgraded all their systems from Windows XP to Window 7 or the latest Windows 8.1 plat-forms?

Answer: There are many different reasons but here are a few:

Financial Investment- it can cost anywhere 1. from $85.00 to $135.00 to upgrade each system network-wideTime Investment - it is extremely tedious 2. and time consuming to upgrade each sys-tem running Windows XP to a later version of Windows, as it requires a complete rein-stallation of the operating system and all of the installed software programs. Resources to do such a conversation may not be avail-able.Network-wide Compatibility and Stabil-3. ity- in many cases older systems still run-ning Windows XP do not have the system specifications required to install newer versions of Windows. (memory, hard drive space, etc.). Additionally, some software programs installed throughout the network and still being actively utilized may not yet be compatible with Windows 8.1. Newer versions of the software program may need to be purchased (adding to reason #1 & reason #2) in order to gain Windows 8.1 functionality.

Question: What if I or my church can’t financially afford upgrading our computers at this time?

Answer: While no 3rd party program can guarantee 100% protection, here are a few things that can minimize your exposure to the future risks associated with running no longer supported Win-dows XP systems.

Install an aggressive antivirus application 1. and keep it up-to-date. May I suggest Thir-tyseven4 Antivirus? (www.thirtyseven4.com)Maintain a gateway security solution that 2. contains a firewall, content filtering, etc. There are also good client-side applications available if a new gateway solution isn’t possible. For example, the latest Thirty-seven4 Endpoint Security solution is client-side but does offer full firewall, applica-tion control, device control, web security, intrusion detection and prevention and much more. At the least, make sure that the firewall option is turned on in the Windows XP operating systemOn your Windows XP systems switch from 3. Internet Explorer and Outlook to alternate web browsers and e-mail programs that will be patched after April, such as Google’s Chrome, Firefox, Gmail, etc.Regularly backup locally created and stored 4. documents to an external hard drive or net-work share.Use common sense.5.

Heartbleed and the Windows XP situation leave a lot of us asking as many “why’s” as my 3 year-old. And in similarity to my answers for her: some are black and white, and some of those answers are much trickier to arrive at. Both topics require cau-tion, however, and I encourage you to update pass-words often and be ever vigilant about what you click to open. As a national virus expert, I know that so much is lurking beyond what we “see” in a URL or a pop-up. Being on the offensive with strong antivirus protection is a great place to start. And just as in parenting: I encourage you to be patient and thorough on your machines, and your vigilance will pay off.




By: Kelli Brennen

In today’s world of technology, churches and organizations have access to many valuable tools to help them interact with their members, record contributions, and share information on the go. In

ACS OnDemand and Realm, you have all of these capabilities and many more. However, in order to get the most out of valuable resources such as these, you must maintain accurate data. Let’s take a look at a few examples of why this is so important.

Keeping Accurate Data and Why it’s Important

Searches and ReportsLet’s say that in a few weeks your church is

going to have a special event for the young mar-ried couples who attend, and you want to send out invitations or announcements to these couples. In order to find out who these people are, you need to run a search or query. If you use ACS or Realm and your data is up-to-date, you can search on marital status and age range, then send out a mass email or print out mailing labels to send out a letter about the event. If any of your young married couples don’t have a date of birth or marital status listed on their record, they will be omitted from the search results.

In another scenario, you may want to run a re-port to view statistical information on the individu-als that make up your congregation. In ACS People Reports, there is a Census Report that displays age, marital status, and gender statistics among other information. This report is great if you have up-to-date and accurate information on your members. However, if you find that you are missing birth

dates, martial statuses, member statuses, and other fields from your member records, this report will be skewed.

Contact InformationIn addition to searches and reports, contact

information is also key. If email addresses, phone numbers, and mailing addresses are not correct, your members will not receive contribution state-ments, newsletters, phone calls, and other commu-nication sent out from the church.

Filling in the holesThe first question you probably have is, “How

do I found out which records have missing informa-tion?” Just as you can use searches and queries to find out which records have certain information, you can use them to find out who doesn’t have cer-tain information on their record. For example, you can process a search in ACS or a query in Realm on birth dates, member statuses, email addresses and

ministry leadership


many other fields that are blank, to see which individuals have miss-ing information on their records or profiles.

The next question you need to answer is “Now that I know who these people are, what is the best way to get their missing informa-tion?” The method you use to ob-tain missing information will de-pend on what software you use and what type of information is miss-ing. In ACS People, if you process a search for those missing birth dates, and the majority of these individuals have email addresses, you may want to send out a mass email requesting this information, then follow up with the others via a phone call or a letter. However, if the search you run is for those who don’t have email addresses on their record, you may want to send out letters or put an announce-ment in the bulletin requesting that members contact the church to update and verify their informa-tion. In Realm, if you process a search on those who don’t have a phone number on their profile, you can also send out a mass email requesting your members to update this information. You can also set up an announcement asking your members to update any missing or out-of-date information on their profiles.

When you have up-to-date in-formation on your members, your searches and reports will return accurate results, and you can rest assured that your members are receiving the communication you send out.

Kelli is a Technical Writer who began her career at ACS Technolo-gies as a support representative.

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Antivirus Versus Firewall Software

A firewall is a “filtering” device. This filtering can be either built in or user de-fined. It controls incoming traffic usually by “rules” created by you or the firewall ad-ministrator to prevent invasive probing and attacks to the servers, PCs and other devices on your local or wide area network. It can also control or regulate the outward bound traffic from your internal network to sites outside and prevent access to sites not con-sidered appropriate by the network manage-ment decision makers. It also has the ability to trap and record attempts which may vio-

late the rules set up on the particular fire-wall and provide reporting for these types of infractions.

Anti-virus software works by using “defi-nitions”. These are images of viruses that are used during a scan to find an infection. As an anti-virus program scans your machine it searches every file and checks the file against the definitions. If there is a match, in other words it finds a file containing a virus with a exact match to the definition, then it will appear as a virus on the scanner and inform you in the report at the end. The anti-

church windows softwareCHU

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It’s common knowledge that bad things exist on the internet. To prevent others from maliciously getting to data on your computer, it is important to take the precautionary measure of installing anti-

virus software, a firewall, or both. So what’s the difference between the two and what does each of them do?

By: Mike Wygant



virus will then either delete the file (recommended) or “quarantine” it, meaning it will be stored in a folder totally isolated from the rest of the computer. People use this function if they need to send the virus to an antivi-rus company (like Mcafee or Avg), so they can inves-tigate. Usually, deleting the virus is still the best course of action. Some anti-virus programs will delete the in-fection during the scan, and some will wait until the end of the scan before offering you to delete them.

All anti-virus programs update automatically, so that they always have the lat-est definitions. You should never turn off the auto up-date function in the anti-virus as this would put your machine at risk. The virus definitions are constantly be-ing updated.

Many users worry about antivirus protection, but “spyware” and “malware”, which can track what you do and even what you type, can be just as dangerous. Most antivirus programs include the mechanisms needed to remove these threats as well.

So basically, a firewall stops bad things from getting onto your computer, or you going to a dangerous site. An anti-virus program deletes anything that gets through, using current known defini-tions of threats that are out there, and keeps your com-puter free of threats.

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Two Useful Cloud-based Project Management Tools

By: Susan Codone

the browser

Working in ministry and church work often require team input, and for multi-site campuses, often those team members are physically separated. Project management and

collaboration tools are wonderful resources for anyone working in teams or working while separated from each other. I’d like to profile two current applications that are both popular and used frequently. There are many applications, like Google Docs for content creation and Dropbox for file storage that allow group collaboration, but there are two applications I like which offer collaborative project management services in addition to the integration of common collaborative content creation and file storage tools.

BasecampBasecamp has been my go-to project manage-

ment tool for several years. I use it in my classes as a platform for my students to collaborate in small groups. Currently, Basecamp is used by almost 300,000 companies and is clearly the industry leader. As soon as you create a project in Base-camp, you can define tasks, invite team members,

host discussions, upload files, and create project calendars with events, deadlines, and reminders. Every morning, Basecamp sends you an email with an executive summary of all activity in your project. As a teacher supervising student teams, Basecamp is invaluable. When I login, I really ap-preciate how their projects line up on my account page and how easily I can view their progress.



For any organization using any sort of team arrangement to tackle projects, Basecamp is ideal. With iOS and Android mobile apps and email integration, your project and your information can go anywhere you do -- or anywhere your team members go. Basecamp was cre-ated by 37Signals and after fifteen years and a few other products, the company decided this year to focus solely on the Basecamp platform, which is good news for users. You can use a trial version of Basecamp for sixty days -- just go to http://www.basecamp.com.

After your sixty day trial, Basecamp offers a tiered pric-ing structure. With no contract required, you can manage up to ten projects with three gigabytes of space for $20 a month. The next tier goes to $50 monthly for forty projects and fifteen gigabytes, then to $100 monthly and further to $150 with unlim-ited projects. For large organi-zations who want an enterprise solution, Basecamp offers an annual plan for $3,000 with un-limited projects, 500 gigabytes of space, and premium techni-cal support. What I like about Basecamp’s pricing strategy is that the $20 monthly plan fits most small organizations and payment is month-to-month; if a church or other organiza-tions stops paying, their files don’t disappear; the projects are simply suspended until payment begins again.

RedboothA major competitor to Base-

camp is Redbooth -- formerly Teambox. I used the product when it was branded as Team-box, and it is similar to Base-camp in many ways. Teambox Technologies was founded in

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2008 and offered commercial and free hosting for Teambox. On January 21, 2014, after gaining over half a million users, Teambox rebranded itself as Redbooth. Their service offerings are similar to Basecamp, although it is my perception that Base-camp is more comprehensive.

Redbooth offers task planning and manage-ment, task reporting, file and content management including integration with Google docs, Google Drive, Dropbox, and Box. Redbooth also offers discussions, HD video conferencing, screen shar-

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ing, and group chat. I believe the video conferenc-ing sets Redbooth apart from Basecamp, although I maintain that Basecamp is easier to use, at least from my perspective. Like Basecamp, Redbooth offers mobile apps for iOS and Android. In addi-tion, Redbook offers language support for English, French, German, Catalan, Spanish, Portuguese, Simplified Chinese, and Japanese -- another differ-ence from Basecamp.

The pricing structure is similar to Basecamp. It appears you can pay month-to-month, although

Redbooth offers a discount if you purchase an annual subscription. Otherwise, Redbooth offers a free level with up to five users, five gigabytes of storage, and Google Drive integration. Their Pro level is $5 per month for five users with unlimited storage and integration with Dropbox, Box and Google Drive Inte-gration Group chat HD Video Conferencing Priority support. The highest tier is the On Prem-ise plan, which is $15 per user per month and offers unlimited project services and premium support. You can find Redbooth at http://www.redbooth.com.

I’ve used both Basecamp and Redbooth. Based on my experiences alone, I recommend Basecamp. For any church or organization using teams, work-ing in the cloud with an estab-lished project management tool is a great way to become more efficient and productive. If you’d like to discuss either tool, send me a message.

Happy browsing!

Susan is an associate profes-sor at Mercer University. In Mer-cer’s Technical Communication undergraduate degree, students can specialize in Ministry Media & Technology. Contact Susan anytime for more information at [email protected].

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CCMag’s Product of the Year One Call Now

By: Steve Hewitt

As you probably know by now, 2014 has been a year for me to examine church communications. Like most Christian leaders, I have tried keeping up with all of the new methods of

communication, including all of the new social media solutions. If you read the Special Issue we released a few weeks ago (http://www.ccmag.com/specialissue/ccmagspecialissue.pdf) you know that I have concluded that most social media solutions are NOT designed for the church. They certainly are not designed to get your message out to your membership or prospects. YET, I realized why social media was growing in our society. It is because it presents your information and communication in a way that is personal!

Institutional communication is boring, dull, and not trusted by people these days. They assume that anything coming from a church, business or politi-cal organization is “spin” and is either trying to sell us something or persuade us to do something for the sender. People like communications from friends and family, and they like it to arrive before their eyes in a way that is personal, not in an envelope with a printed label and a metered stamp.

This is why I have decided that THE best way for a church to communicate their message to their mem-bership and prospects is through texting! It arrives directly to their cell or smart phone, it is right in front of their eyes and must be seen even if a person wishes to discard it. And, it is personal. A person reading a text about a prayer request, or an announcement, etc., has no idea if the text was sent to thousands or just to them!

The second best way for a church to communicate their message to their membership is through phone! And a reliable, easy to use voice message delivery system is perfect!

So, it should be no surprise that I am in love with One Call Now. They provide both of these services to churches and ministries. Their service is easy to use, full of cool features, and gets the job done. I have used them in the past, and I highly recommend them now. With that in mind, I thought some of our readers might enjoy more information. So, I gave Bob Wolfe a call and asked him a few questions. Bob is Senior Marketing Manager for the Religious/Non-Profit Markets. Enjoy!

Tell our readership a little about One Call Now; what you provide for churches, and some of your history.

special feature


http://www.ccmag.com/specialissue/ccmagspecialissue.pdf

http://www.ccmag.com/specialissue/ccmagspecialissue.pdf


One Call Now has a long history with working with churches, non-profit groups, and sports teams. We offer a reliable, easy and budget-friendly way to communi-cate with their members.

As technology has improved, and the needs of churches have changed over the years, One Call Now has increased its role as a one-stop solution for com-munication that serves congregants according to their technological comfort and preference. In this way, nobody within a community is marginalized because of the lack of a particular technology or skill level. The OCN system is designed to be a simple and easy to use, offering multiple methods for getting timely important messages to congregants, i.e. Phone calls, emails, text messages, social media messages, polling/responsive messages, etc. Even language is no longer a barrier, as One Call Now features a multi-lingual capability.

Why do you believe texting and voice message deliv-ery works so well?

We believe that texting and voice messaging are effective for a variety of reasons: One reason is simply that phone usage is commonplace. Whether someone owns a full-featured smartphone or a simpler

mobile or home device (or system), these devices have become central to the way we live and communicate with the people who are important to us. As the cost of technology comes down and the functionality of devices increases, more and more people find that they are conducting all kinds of communication and transaction activity on these devices, including check-ing email, banking, shopping, interacting social media, etc. What makes our solutions so important, then, is the way we can help our clients insert important mes-sages into that daily flow of activity. One Call Now reaches congregants on the go or at home through what has become arguably THE most indispens-able device. Moreover, calls and texts have a way of “dominating” a device…that is, they typically require interaction (answering, responding) or, at the very least, acknowledgement and “disposition” for a later response (screening a call and forwarding to voice-mail, clearing a screen of a singular text message). For churches, this puts messaging out in front.

How hard is it to send out a specific text or voice message to a group within my church?

Sending messages to specific groups within the

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church is easy. You can create as many groups (we call them subgroups) as you need: (Youth, prayer team, church board, choir, etc.) Simply record the voice mes-sage or type the email or text message, and send that message to that specific group.

Does One Call Now work with my ChMS?The One Call Now system is designed to work with

nearly all ChMS systems. We offer multiple was to integrate church data into One Call Now, from a simple upload of an Excel or CSV file, to more advanced methods of automated data-synching.

Can one just deliver a message, or can you request a response?

The One Call Now system will allow you to get instant, real time responses from your members. If you need to get a quick head count of who will be attend-ing a meeting, or if you need to gather information from your members, just record your message in a question and ask your people to respond by pressing a corresponding number on their keypad (i.e., “1” for “Yes,” “2” for “No,” and so forth), and get the results instantly. And even aside from this polling feature, One Call Now features a convenient message report func-tionality, which lets church leaders know who received a message and when that message was received. Bul-letins, newsletters and even email struggle to have that kind of measured effectiveness.

Is there a limit to how many messages or texts I can send?

Our most popular plan for churches is the unlimited messaging plans. This plan is designed to allow you to send as many messages as you need. For churches that only send the occasional message once or twice a year, then we can offer a plan for that too.

Do I have to be in front of my computer at my desk to use this service?

No. You can send a message from any standard phone as well as all cell phones, tablets, and smart devices.

Would I have to start creating a new contact list from scratch?

If you already have a roster of names in a database or excel file, you can simply import that file into your OCN account, and with just a few clicks of the mouse, have your contact list completed.

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Kevin A. Purcell - [email protected]

What’s New in Bible Software 2.0

higher power with kevin

Last month we took a look at some new things coming down the pipe in Bible software and just after the article went live at our website, a few new developments surfaced. The most interest-

ing comes from LifeChurch.tv, the publishers of the YouVersion Bible app for most platforms including iPhone, iPad, Android phone and tablet. Here’s what’s new in the simple Bible reader. Then we’ll look at a couple of other updates.

YouVersion Bible AppThe app offers a

useful menu that users access by tapping the menu button in the upper left corner of the app.

On the new menu Bible readers can quickly access their reading plans at the bottom of the menu where the app shows the plan progress. It also shows up under the Plans menu item.

People who like to highlight verses or passages can now see all their highlights as a list by tapping the Highlights item on the new menu.

The new Bible home screen got an update as well. It shows the Verse of the Day, which many people like to read and then share to social networks. There’s also a “stream of Bible activity” which will include things like friend updates, highlights the user adds and things that a user’s friends post or highlight. The app also shows friend requests and acceptance.

When a friend highlights something in the Bible app, the user can tap on one of the three icons be-low that notification on the new home screen. The heart button is like hitting Like on Facebook. The quote balloon lets the user make a comment on their friend’s highlight and the Bible icon will open the


verse highlighted. This makes reading the Bible more social.

When using the Bible app for read-ing one of the many available reading plans, users can choose to make this reading public so their friends can see it. This might help with a group of readers keeping each other accountable for their daily reading. The user controls whether this content becomes public or stays private.

PocketBible for Mac and iOSOne highly anticipated releases comes from Craig

Rairdin and Laridian (http://www.laridian.com), the makers of one of the first mobile Bible apps – Pock-etBible. Their Kickstarter campaign (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1268870794/pocketbible-for-mac-os) raised enough money to make developing their great Bible app for the Mac.

A recent Kickstarter update showed off a pretty mature interface and the new methods the app will use for doing a “look up” of both search topics and Bible verses. I’m really looking forward to finally getting my hands on this app and the way things look in the video Rairdin posted on Kickstarter makes it look like things are getting close.

Follow the the progress for yourself at the Larid-ian Blog.

The company also updated their iOS app to ver-sion 3.1. (http://blog.laridian.com/?p=2426) In this update, users who upgraded to the Ad-vanced Feature Set, a few extras that make the app more useful, can now change the behavior of the “touch zones” – the nine box grid that PocketBible uses for quickly switching between verses, chapters and books of the Bible as well as open Bibles or user owned books.

The notes editor comes with buttons for formatting the font of

a user’s notes. The app adds a few other features, bug fixes and usability improvements.

Logos Bible AppBy the time readers see this, Logos should now

include the awesome Exegetical Guide in their mo-bile app. Logos includes other guides which show up in the computer version, but only a couple of which show up on the mobile app. Here’s the list of guides, what they do and whether they’re available on mobile or just desktop.

Passage Guide• – searches whole library for content related to a passage and shows up on both computer and mobile appsExegetical Guide• – searches for grammar and language study tools like dictionaries for all the major words in a passage as well as content in Greek or Hebrew grammars for the passage. It’s now in both computer and mobile apps.Topic Guide• – searches the library for books that contain content related to a topic, like grace. Only in the computer versions.Bible Word Study Guide• – searches for a specific word in English, Greek or Hebrew and finds content and data about that word. It’s in both the computer and mobile apps.Sermon Starter Guide• – a new guide that finds content to help a pastor get started with research related to a sermon or Bible study and it only shows up in the computer version.

Until now users could only use the Exegetical Guide on their computers. A beta that now includes the incredibly useful Exegetical Guide will likely see full release by the time this edition of CCMag hits computers.

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https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1268870794/pocketbible-for-mac-os



http://blog.laridian.com/?p=2426

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Last month the IRS ruled that bitcoin should be treated as property for tax reporting purposes, to some extent validating the cybercur-rency’s legitimacy, while China moved in the opposite direction,

banning Chinese banks from trading in bitcoin. Is bitcoin the next great way of exchanging cash, and should churches set up to accept bitcoin tithes and offerings?

Bitcoin

By Russ McGuire - [email protected]

What is bitcoin?According to Wikipedia “Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer

payment system and digital currency introduced as open source software in 2009. This money-like infor-mational commodity is often called a cryptocurrency because it uses cryptography to control the creation and transfer of money.”

There are two distinct elements - Bitcoin (capital-ized) is the technology and network that enable the creation and transfer of money, while bitcoin (not capitalized) is the currency itself.

While all currencies are managed and transferred electronically today, traditional currencies (like the dollar) exist primarily in physical form. New dollars are printed (or minted), so while transactions can be electronically represented, eventually the physical currency must change hands. In contrast, bitcoin only exists electronically. This increases the efficien-cy of transactions. Somewhat surprisingly, because all transactions are very securely authenticated, as an electronic currency, bitcoin appears less susceptible to fraud and counterfeiting than physical currencies.

the power and the danger


One of the main attractions for bitcoin has been its anonymity. Unlike the vast majority of online payment mechanisms, there is no linkage between the form of payment and the payer or even the payee. It is like a cash transaction. Another attraction is that the currency is global - it is not tied to any country and easily crosses borders.

What does it take to accept bitcoins?Bitcoin payments are peer to peer transactions -

there’s no bank or credit card processing company required. You simply install an open source Bit-coin client. You then provide your address and the other party sends a bitcoin payment to your address. Bitcoin.org has more information about how to use Bitcoin software for sending and receiving payments.

Most bitcoin users are very concerned with their privacy. One aspect of the security of the Bitcoin network is that every single transaction is published all across the Internet. That means that anyone could easily find out all the money ever sent to any given address. For this reason, most bitcoin users get a unique address to use for each transaction, keeping their activities private. For churches, this probably isn’t a concern. In fact, one church has placed a plaque in their sanctuary with a QR code that mobile Bitcoin clients can use to automatically populate the church’s address to simplify making a payment.

An increasing number of web-site shopping cart packages also support bitcoin payments. If your website already uses shopping cart software, you should check with your vendor to see if accepting bit-coins is already an option.

Why might your church want to accept bitcoin?

Some churches prioritize being on the leading edge of technology and staying relevant to sophisticated church goers. I imagine there was a time when checks in the offer-ing plate were considered cutting edge - today checks have become the preferred payment method in churches. Many churches have adopted e-commerce as a means for collecting online tithes and offer-

ings. Accepting bitcoin payments may simply be the next step for these churches.

Additionally, bitcoin’s anonymity may also ap-peal to parishioners who take to heart Jesus’ admon-ishment in Matthew 6 “But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, that your charitable deed may be in se-cret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly.” By accepting bitcoin payments, churches can make it easy for those that want to anonymously give.

What is dangerous about bitcoin?While the Bitcoin system is focused on security,

that doesn’t mean bitcoins are always safe. There have been multiple cases of computer hacking attacks resulting in the theft of millions of dollars worth of the cybercurrency. Most famously, earlier this year, the Mt. Gox bitcoin exchange shutdown and filed for bankruptcy after apparently losing 800,000 of their customers’ bitcoins (worth $450M) to a hacker. In April 2013, Mt. Gox handled 70% of all bitcoin transactions, making it the dominant bitcoin ex-change. Other exchanges have had similar, although smaller, problems.The immaturity of the bitcoin

Is Facebook safefor your family?Is Facebook safefor your family?

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industry represents meaningful risk to those with significant portions of their income or assets in the cybercurrency.

Perhaps more troubling for churches is the problem of associa-tion. As one article put it “unless you want to buy something illegal, there isn’t a need to use Bitcoin at all.” The anonymity of bitcoin appeals strongly to a wide variety of illicit activities.

1 Corinthian 5:11 warns us “But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner—not even to eat with such a person.” Later in the same letter, Paul says “Do not be deceived: ‘Evil company corrupts good habits.’” (15:33). Similarly, the first verse in Proverbs tells us that “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, Nor stands in the path of sinners, Nor sits in the seat of the scornful.”

Bottom line - churches should carefully consider whether they want to associate with the criminals who are so strongly drawn to the Bitcoin network.

It is my hope and prayer that these articles on the power and danger of technology will encourage you in your daily walk with Christ. Whether it is the printing press, radio, television, personal computers, the Internet, the Cloud, smartphones, or cybercurrency, new technologies continue to advance our ability to know God and to serve Him, wherever we go.

Russ McGuire is an executive for a Fortune 100 company and the found-er/co-founder of three technology start-ups. His latest entrepreneurial venture is CXfriends (https://cxfriends.com), a social network for Christian families.

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Aside from understanding that the content we include on our Christian digital evangelism Websites should focus on, well, Christian digital evangelism, just how should we go about doing

this? What sort of content should we include that furthers the cause of the Kingdom of Christ? That’s what I want to write about in this month’s article on digital evangelism.

Michael L White - [email protected]

Digital Evangelism for Websites

digital evangelism

The number one priority of any truly Christian evangelistic site (as compared with the concept of evangelism about virtually any other subject) must be Jesus Christ and the Good News about the glorious benefits of placing one’s faith in Him alone for eternal life. Yes, the word evangelism (which is derived from the Greek word euaggelizo – pronounced yoo-ahng-ghel-ID-zo – and literally means “good message”) has been applied in recent years to practically everything from selling prod-ucts to selling ideas. In our so-called post-modern society, Christianity can no longer claim a monop-oly on the terms evangelist and evangelism, so we must be careful with both our understanding and our application of them, especially when attempt-ing to convey the good news about Jesus Christ.

A few years ago the statement, “Content is king,” was at the forefront of most webmasters’

minds when developing and maintaining their sites for public consumption. It partially meant that nobody was going to return to a site without good content. We don’t hear that statement as often today, but I think it is still true and particularly apropos for us as Christian digital evangelists. In fact, the content of our digital evangelism sites is the King – the King of kings, that is. Thus, our primary focus must be upon the Good News of Jesus Christ, Who He is, and what He is offering to a lost and dying world. As wonderful as it is to do mission work by feeding the hungry, cloth-ing the naked, sheltering the homeless, caring for the sick, visiting the imprisoned, or any number of other very worthwhile ministries, if we fail to share why we’re doing these things – which is in the name of Jesus for the sake of saving their lost souls – then all we’ve done is make them a little

Our Content Is the King


more comfortable on their way to Hell. Of course, if they reject Christ that may be the best we can do for them anyway, but for those who will accept Christ if we will just give them the opportunity, what lasting good have we done if we don’t help them understand why choosing Jesus as their Lord and Savior is absolutely essential for the salvation of their souls?

So, what sort of content should our digital evangelism Websites contain? Well, for starters we must include a biblically apt descrip-tion of Who Jesus is and what He came into the world to do. I use the term “biblically apt” because no other source besides the Bible aptly or accurately describes Who Jesus is and what His purpose is for the world. He’s not just an-other great teacher with a grand philosophy of doing good to our fellow human beings, being kind to animals, and taking care of the environment. Though He certainly supports those ideas within the context of the divine order, He’s so much more than a great teacher with a grand philosophy. The Bible says that Jesus is true God of true God, as we sometimes affirm from the Nicene Creed (John 1:1 & 14; 8:47-59; & 14:7-9), the only begotten Son of God (John 1:14 & 3:16), the creator of the universe (John 1:1-3 & Colossians 1:15-17), and the King of kings and Lord of lords (Revelation 19:11-16), just to name a few. In fact, Jesus wasn’t crucified because He was a victim of circumstances, but it was specifically because He claimed to be God that He was condemned to death by the Sanhedrin (Matthew 26:62-66; Mark 14:60-64; & John 10:14-39).

The rest of the world will likely agree with us, for the most part, that Jesus was a great teacher

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with a grand philosophy, but as soon as we begin saying He is God with a Plan of Salvation for us and a claim upon our souls, we quickly lose their support. So long as they can pick and choose what to believe and whether to believe anything at all about Jesus, they will usually join with us in ac-knowledging Jesus as a great man. Therefore, we need to make our position clear and make Jesus’ claims clear to all who visit our websites so that if they choose to accept Jesus with all His claims, then they will be doing so with a clear understand-ing of what they’re doing and why, and they can be truly saved. Otherwise, we’re just wasting everybody’s time, including our Lord’s.

Having a clear understanding of Who Jesus is and what His purpose is for the world is absolutely essential to the salvation of one’s soul, and sharing that truth is the very purpose of conducting Chris-tian evangelism, whether digital or otherwise. Fur-thermore, believing this information about Jesus will necessarily regenerate us from the inside out and cause a noticeable change in both our thinking and our behavior, according to the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Corinthians (2 Corinthians 5:17).

I’ve been working on a new book to address this very subject, which I’ve titled simply, The Salvation of the LORD, where I attempt to out-line what it means to be “saved”, how to be saved, and how we can know we are saved. If you’d like to know when it is released, I’ll announce it on my blog, my author’s Website, most of my social media accounts (LinkedIn, Google+, Twitter, Pinterest, and Facebook, in particular), and my email lists. I hope to be able to release it by the summer of 2014.

In order to follow my own advice about clarifying Who Jesus is and what His purpose is for the entire world, I’ve added a new page to my personal Website expounding on these points. You can browse it at www.parsonplace.com/jesus.html at your leisure. Furthermore, I intend to link to it from one of the external Java script pages on my site so that the link will display on every page of

my site, as well as embed a link to it into the tex-tual content on my most popular pages. Hopefully, this will further maximize its impact. I encourage you to develop a similar page of your own on your blog and/or Website and announce it to all of your contacts and social media accounts. It truly could make an eternal difference for everyone who visits there. Given the holy season of celebrating Jesus’ resurrection which we will enter once again this month, what could be more appropriate than help-ing others find a new life in Christ?

Happy Resurrection Day! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!

Michael L. White is the founder and Manag-ing Editor of Parson Place Press, an independent Christian publishing house in Mobile, Alabama. His book Digital Evangelism: You Can Do It, Too! (Parson Place Press, 2011) is available wherever books are sold. Visit his Website at books.parson-place.com for a list of his other books and articles.

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Post-Easter Communication Evaluation Tips to Help Your Church Grow

Yvon Prehn - [email protected]

Easter is over and you’ve taken some time to rest, but before you put the Easter out of mind, take some time to evaluate the communica-tions you created, the response you had, and how you can be more

effective in future church celebrations and seasonal events to help your church grow. Post-event evaluation is essential for us to learn how we can best serve our people. It’s never about us, but about doing our best for our Lord and our effectiveness as we communicate the words of eternal life.

Beyond the numbers, what was the spiritual re-sponse?

You probably had a large turn-out for Easter—most churches do. However, though objective numbers are im-portant, in our analysis of the effectiveness of our church communications and marketing, the most important evaluations go beyond numbers to looking at how people respond spiritually.

In the Great Commission, Jesus did not tell us to go into all the world and hold successful church events. He commanded we make disciples. No event we hold, action we take, or ministry we launch is ultimately successful unless it contributes in some way (however tiny the step) to the goal of introducing people to Jesus and helping them grow to mature disciples.

Following are some suggestions for discussion in your upcoming staff meetings to help you make your church celebrations and seasonal events more effective in

fully fulfilling the Great Commission.

Count and classify attendeesHow many people attended, but more than that, •and this is where it gets challenging:How many attendees were regular church mem-•bers?Sporadic church attenders (maybe not members •but show up once or twice a month?)New people or visitors?•

Notes: If you don’t know, the first question you need to ask yourself is why not? Did you have a connection card, prayer card or visitor card? Did you intentionally focus on it and encourage people to fill it out? Did you collect it efficiently and in a non-threatening way?

If you need more information on how to effectively use connection cards for seasonal events and all through

ministry communication


the year to grow your church, check out the many re-sources (including a free ebook) at this link: http://www.effectivechurchcom.com/category/church-communi-cations/church-connection-cards/

If you didn’t collect Connection Cards or didn’t get accurate numbers from them, estimate the percentage of members, sporadic attendees, and visitors and then. . . .

Evaluate your audienceDon’t just hold an event and dash to the next one. As

difficult as it might be, take time to discuss the results. YOU MUST be brutally honest with yourself here. If you had a big turnout and everybody had a great time, that is wonderful, but it isn’t enough. Here are some topics you need to discuss:

If your numbers were mostly church members—you need to find out why more didn’t invite friends. Did you have invitations for them? Did you motivate them enough so they wanted to invite their friends? Did your congregation realize that outreach is everyone’s job, not just something the staff buys, as in an expensive postcard mailing?

If you had some sporadic attenders—you need to track if they come back the following week. Did you do anything to strengthen your connection with them, offer anything such as a challenging sermon series, small group discussion or Q&A time that would draw them back?

If you have lots of new faces obviously visiting as member guests—Congratulations! Ask members what made it easy for people to bring friends; find out what appealed to people outside the church. Be sure you have follow-up communications in place in print, social media and sermon series, small group discussion or Q&A time (Latte with the pastor and other opportunities).

See for more follow-up ideas: https://www.ef-fectivechurchcom.com/2010/11/follow-up-after-a-church-holiday-outreach-event-speed-dating-or-rela-tionship-building/

http://www.effectivechurchcom.com/2011/04/easter-follow-up-postcards-email-messages-and-latte-with-the-pastor/

Two more areas to evaluate:

1. What did you give attendees at your event? If it was only a program, no matter how glorious the

colored printing, that may be a serious problem. This is because event communications is a key reason why many church events have little lasting impact on the growth of the church.

For example consider a typical Easter service: Of-

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interest them or a seeker study that helps them find more about Jesus; nor do most programs contain website links to reasons why Jesus is the reason for the season or an invitation email to dialog anonymously about spiritual questions. And all of this is left out when you have a huge audience of people who never darken the door of the church at any other time, but are there to please family members or to make a neighbor happy.

2. What is on your website and social media?Do you expect visitors, people new to the church, and

sporadic attenders who may have forgotten what is going on at the church to look at your websites and social media?

They will. The important thing is do you have material for them? Have you taken care to make sure your website is up-to-date and that there are links for more informa-tion?

Don’t be discouraged—there is always the next celebration!

Truth be told, any church staff that is honest with post-event evaluation will have a number of areas where improvements can be made.

For post-Easter evaluation—Mother’s Day is coming up quickly and this is the BEST evangelistic opportunity time in the church because of all the unchurched husbands and kids who will attend to make mom happy. For lots more about this, check out: https://www.effectivechurchcom.com/category/seasonal/mothers-day/

Don’t dwell on short-com-ings—press ahead to do better with upcoming opportunities! God gives us many times to celebrate, let’s use them all to invite people into the eternal joy of a relationship with Jesus!

Or lots more on how to make the most of church celebrations and other topics related to church com-munications, please go to: http://www.effectivechurchcom.com

ten it is a big production: sets, music, special lighting, candles, beautiful church decorations, sometimes goodies afterwards—all very nice and special. However, I have looked at the programs of Easter services and few of them tell you anything about why the church is doing what it is doing, anything substantive about Jesus, what else the church does, and why anybody should care.

Many churches do not have any take-home material that explains why the death and resurrection of Jesus is important and why he is the unique Savior of the world. Very few Easter programs contain sections that invite people back next week for a sermon series that might

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While at a meeting of church business administrators of very large churches recently the topic of taking attendance came up. This common topic challenges most in church

management. In this particular meeting, however, someone shared a technological solution they’re using that is bringing good results!

Nick Nicholaou - [email protected]

Technologically Taking Attendance in Churches

nick at church

The ChallengeMost churches take attendance of some sort. At

one end of the spectrum some want to know each attendee at each service or event, and at the other end of the spectrum some just want head counts. In fact, some events require knowing each attendee because of potential legal liabilities. Camps and board meetings are a couple of obvious examples. But most churches just want to track worship at-

tendance statistics that will help them gauge the direction of their ministry.

There are various ways churches gather wor-ship attendance data. When more specific informa-tion is requested (names, contact info, etc), it is harder to collect. Many congregants are resistant to completing cards and giving their info. Others don’t take the time to complete cards because they think we should already know they were there!


They figure we can rely on:Seeing that they gave during the offering if •they used an envelope or check,Seeing that their kids were in Sunday •School, orA staff member seeing them at church or •even talking with them!

Common Methods – The Usual SuspectsUsually in these church business administrator meetings the following solutions are what most rely on:

Ushers and/ or greeters do head counts in the •sanctuary and in classrooms, either counting people or empty seats.Clipboards are passed down pews in the •sanctuary and at entrances to classrooms.Some count the cars in the parking lot and •use a proven multiplier of approximately 2.1 people per car.Some ask all attendees to complete an in-•formation card. My church does this, and in membership meetings where the core of the church is attending, members are reminded

that when they complete their cards every week they are also encouraging visitors to complete a card.

These all work to some de-gree, but each of these methods has weaknesses.

New Technological SolutionAt this recent church busi-

ness administrator meeting one of the attendees from Grace Family Church in Tampa Bay, FL (http://gfconline.com) said something I hadn’t heard of be-ing used at a church before. They had installed thermal image and video scanners at each entrance that can discern whether some-one is entering or exiting, and provides an exact head count for them! The company whose product they use is SenSource Inc. in Youngstown, OH (www.sensourceinc.com).

When asked for details, he said they have it set to begin counting fifteen minutes be-fore a service begins until forty minutes after it started. And because it can discern those who are entering vs those who are exiting, it’s able to give them a consistently accurate headcount. The system also recognizes if a person is standing in its scan area and only counts them one

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time, eliminating doorway meetings from skewing the count.

Why This May MatterSome criticize the use of metrics in churches,

accurately stating that there is no real way to ac-curately identify the impact a church is having in a community or in the lives of those attending. While that may be true, there are indications that can be objectively tracked. When those indica-tions are tracked consistently and accurately— and that’s the primary benefit of this kind of system, the data can help leadership sense how The Lord is working through them and in what ways— and even to which age groups since the sensors can discern children vs adults— they are effective. Programs and methods can be adjusted and honed to help reach the segment of the community the church is called to reach with increased impact.

One of those metrics is attendance. Attendance alone won’t tell all of the story. But coupled with the number of first-time decisions, recommitments, baptisms, volunteerism, and tithe trends, it helps! Each of those other metrics is easier to quantify than is attendance, and the use of technology to

help track attendance is wise if it is cost effective.I asked the church administrator at GFC what

the system cost was. They installed it about three years ago using two thermal imagers in the two main entrances to their 2500 seat sanctuary and a video scanner in the upstairs entrance late arrivers are directed through. The cost was about $4000. The primary benefit, he said, was that the numbers are consistent, and thus more reliable for track-ing trends. And its ease of use is key! Before the service is even over, they get an email when it’s done counting (forty minutes into the service) with the attendance!

Nick Nicholaou is president of MBS, an IT consulting firm specializing in church and ministry computer networks, VoIP, and private cloud hosted services. You can reach Nick at [email protected], and may want to check out his firm’s website (www.mbsinc.com) and his blog at http://ministry-it.blogspot.com.

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“. . . freeing those in ministry from business distractions.”Phone: 714.840.5900 • www.mbsinc.com • [email protected] “. . . freeing those in ministry from business distractions.”Phone: 714.840.5900 • www.mbsinc.com • [email protected]

mailto:nick@mbsinc

http://ministry-it.blogspot.com

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christian computing magazine - april 2014

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