An SYCM Church Management Software Partner

Fellowship One -F1, Community Church Builder – CCB, People Driven Software – PDS, Church Windows – CW, and Logos CMS all have one thing in common!  What is that?  I have worked with each of these Church Management Software Solutions during the past quarter century as Lead Pastor of New Hope Community Church.  And one of the reasons we worked with so many is that while each of the above had their positives, we also discovered that each had aspects that were not as positive as we would have liked.  Here is a quick overview of our journey over the years with various ChMS products.

• In the 90’s during the infancy stage of computers and ChMS, we began using Logos CMS.  This was a MS-DOS based ChMS so you can see how far back we really do go with CMS.  But please know, it was cutting edge in those days!

• Next for us came Church Windows CMS.  Moving to a Windows product from MS-DOS was a joy!  But there were certainly limitations as well with the first Windows products, the biggest being having this software located on only one workstation.

• When People Driven Software came on the market a few years later we found the price very attractive along with the network capabilities offered it offered.  For the first time our staff was able be a part of using our CMS from their own office and their own computer as long as it was hard-wired to our network.

• Next for us came Fellowship One.  As cloud-based CMS became the wave of the future, we moved to F1 to be able to use our ChMS from any computer from any location as long as we had WiFi.  We desired the capability that F1 offered.

Perhaps your journey has been similar.  If it has you have probably experienced some of the same stark realities we have. I sum those up with the following statements:

• There are some ChMS solutions that are very expensive with lots of features, but they tend to “lock” you in to their service.  And there are some ChMS solutions that are very inexpensive and very “open” but carry with them far less features.

• There are some ChMS solutions that can do everything you could ever imagine needing them to do, but their complexity greatly limits your ability to figure out how to do them.  And there are some ChMS solutions that are very simple to use but they are missing so many features that you are sure your church could benefit from.

• There are some ChMS solutions that handle online giving very well with multiple options, but their fees and percentages are very substantial as you learn each month when you view the reports.  And there are some ChMS solutions that provide far lower fees and percentages, but there are again limitations as to how your church can utilize them.

Well, this week we welcome Church Teams to the Save Your Church Money Network!  ChurchTeams has been a popular service for churches across the country for many years but primarily as a software solution for church small groups.  ChurchTeams started with small groups as a focus and quickly became the leader for church small group software solutions.  In recent years ChurchTeams has taken the same principles that made them so popular with small groups and expanded those to provide a full ChMS solution.  The result is that ChurchTeams has literally become a “best of both” solution for churches.  First they provide full church management software features and capabilities that are easy to use.  But second they do so at a fraction of the cost that others charge for this same capability!

I encourage you to take a look at ChurchTeams!  I know that if I was still in my Lead Pastor position, I would welcome the chance to save my church thousands of dollars annually, transition to a system that is far easier to use, and save on all of our online giving fees and percentages on an ongoing basis.  My guess is you will too!