Why Rock?

As ministry leaders seeking to further God's kingdom work, evaluating the tools your church uses is essential. This evaluation should include your church management system. You will need to determine if each tool is hindering your church's mission, is it impacting your church's mission at all, or is it helping your church accomplish its unique mission. Can you identify with any of the examples below?

How can a church management system hurt your church's mission?

Some churches use a system of spreadsheets, word documents, paper, and filing cabinets to keep all of their records. They track families on a yearly spreadsheet, baptisms were recorded in a record book and filed away. They stored family contact information in a spreadsheet on the church's office computer. Separate people kept everything, and only select few people could bring it together in a meaningful way if they ever had the time to do so. This system hurts the church's mission because the information is locked away, inaccessible by the ministry leaders. With the information spread among multiple documents, it is impossible to spot trends that can inform the church's decisions and plans. It was also hurting the church's mission because there may not be

Other churches have software designed for church management installed on a local machine or network only accessible while on campus. Staff can access the software, and information is often dutifully entered. Pastors and administrative assistants can run reports, create mail merge documents, and send letters. A step up from information spread across multiple devices owned by different people. This software certainly makes the end of year reports easier, but in the day to day work of the church's ministry, most volunteer leaders do not have access, meaning that it doesn't impact the church's ministry very much . 

The Benefits of Your Current System

Before deciding on any church management system for your church, you need to take stock of what you are using and what it is doing for your church. After all, even the spreadsheet system above provides some benefit to the church. Ministry leaders had access to the information they collected and kept over the years, and the finance person knew how to generate statements and keep track of the gifts. The on-site software helped in the administration, reporting, and mailed communication of the church. Any system you would want to move to will have to accomplish the same tasks as your current system and add benefits.

Potential Friction Points of Your Current System

If you are thinking about using a new system to manage your church's people and information, your ministries are likely experiencing friction points in the way you are doing things now. Here are a few examples:

• Your finance team is having a hard time managing the increasing number of people giving online.
• Your administrative assistants are having a hard time managing all of the changing information as new people come to your church.
• Your ministry leaders are working in silos, and you can't tell if a family is getting more involved because you don't know what they are participating in, and people are falling through the cracks.
• Your current system is rigid, and you would like to do more, but it doesn't do what you want.

If any of the above situations sound familiar or are hitting other friction points not listed, Rock may be the solution you need.

Why Rock?

• Rock ties together online giving, on-site giving, and financial administration and streamlines your finance department's work.
• Pastors, Staff, Volunteers, and individuals have access to member information wherever they are to update, communicate, and report helping to ensure that information remains up to date.
• With the correct security settings, people across the organization have access to the information they need to make ministry decisions, including membership, giving trends, attendance, and contact information. You can find out if people are getting more involved or less involved, and even use the data to help people take the next step in their spiritual journey moving.
• Rock is customizable with custom reports, pages, configurations, or plugins to add the functionality you need to empower your ministry.  

Ultimately, there are many church management systems out there that have the potential to help your ministry. If you need help deciding if Rock is the right system for your church, BEMA can help through discovery and consulting.