Even if the weather is still blazing hot, back-to-school season brings a fresh breeze of excitement and chatter to your hallways. With the new school year comes the hustle and bustle of new activities within your church. We have a few ideas for ways you can use your church management software (ChMS) to prepare for a fantastic fall:
- Streamline Promotion Sunday
- New Group Types
- Use your ChMS congregational portal for Groups
- Promote outreach events
- Host a Volunteer Drive
Promotion Sunday – The weekend when you promote your kids to the next grade level is almost here. To make this day easier on you, start at the highest grade and work your way down. First promote your 12thgraders to adult class. Then, when you promote your 11th graders to 12th grade, you won’t be mixing students from different grades. That will leave 11th grade open for advancing 10th graders without mixing grades, and so on. If you start with Kindergarten and move everyone up, you will unnecessarily complicate the process.
Roll out new groups – During the summer, many churches take a break from the usual Small Group schedule with plans to start back up in the fall. As families return from summer vacation, offering new groups is one way to get adults excited about engaging in their own back-to-school ritual. What about adding to the usual affinity- or geographically-based groups with groups that focus on a topic for a specific time period? One of the best ways to figure out what these topics should be is to simply ask members and attendees what they’re interested in learning.
Encourage use of your ChMS congregational portal for Groups – Many small groups fall into a social media trap rather than use the tools available to them through their ChMS. For example, the InFellowship Groups tool offers security and privacy that third-party applications do not. It gives ownership to group leaders and a centralized communication spot for group members, while also allowing church administrators to track what’s going on with in the group. If something happens to your group leader, like an unexpected move or life obligation, it’s easier to pass on the torch. Meet with your group leaders, show them how to use the application. Email support videos and answer questions to help them get on board with using this valuable resource efficiently.
Improve promotion of new outreach events – The fall is just the beginning of one of the busiest times of year for the church. How can your ChMS help promote your events for greater outreach and engagement? Our new InFellowship Event Registration tool makes signing up for events easier than ever before. Get ready for pumpkin patch and Christmas plays by adding key events to your calendar in advance, accumulating registrants, and requesting help from volunteers. Speaking of volunteers…
Host a Volunteer Drive – You’ve planned an exciting fall lineup of programs that will require volunteers who are onboard before the events. As high school kids who’ve been active volunteers leave for college and you’re looking for help for the upcoming fall events, it’s important to cast a vision not simply for work roles that need filling but for opportunities to serve in areas that are meaningful to each individuals’ area of giftedness. Getting volunteers engaged early allows you to take care of the vital step of securing background checks, especially for roles involving children, in advance. Luckily, Fellowship One makes performing background checks automatic and secure. (You might also want to read our blogpost, 10 Ways Volunteers Spell A-P-P-R-E-C-I-A-T-E.)
Are you ready? Share your back-to-school tips in our comments section!
