Connect Guests & Reach Givers
Sharing the collective experience of our churches along with his own insight and wisdom, Jeff Pelletier, the director of sales for Fellowship Technologies, was interviewed by Casey Graham, owner of GivingRocket.com, during a webinar hosting more than 120 church leaders. The purpose of the webinar was to train the leaders how to connect with guests and reach donors.
We love when our staff get a chance to pour into church leaders, so we captured some of Jeff's great quotes for you:
"If you know more, you can care more."
"Don't make people act unnaturally in how they interact with your church. Meet them where they are and how they communicate."
"Empowering your volunteers allows them to grow as they serve; they serve because they're growing."
"Automation trumps determination."
Attendees peppered Jeff with questions and he gave some insightful answers:
Q: "How do you keep technology from creating an impersonal ministry environment?"
A: "Don't hide behind technology; utilize it. Use technology that's transparent to the congregation."
Q: "What is the most common reason people visit a church?"
A: "Seventy percent of visitors come through personal invitation. Train your staff to train people to make a simple invite and make it easy for them."
Q: "What is the most common reason visitors don't come back?"
A: "Unmet expectations. They don't feel like the church can or will meet their needs, which has nothing to do with the church size, but instead is about the people, processes and technology the church has in place to meet expectations. Also, be consistent! Continutity is contagious."
acoppedgeF1 Staff
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Comments (3)
I think if technology within the church is extended out to the congregation making it transparent to a large extent, then the whole church would function as one single "body" rather than a segregation of "church" and "staff". Isn't His church supposed to be "one body"....an "organism"? This is why community sites like facebook, twitter are so successful. Technology should facilitate church, not control and manage church.
I mean...not "just" control and manage church
Santosh, I love the Kingdom-minded thinking! As it is, church staff are facilitators of the rest of the body given our cultural norms. As such, the tools to help connect people into the life of the local church are becoming better - and they extend well beyond ChMS (like Fellowship One). Our software is a part of the solution in that if a church values connecting, engaging and equipping people, then our tool provides ministry tools and processes to do just that. One of our goals is to continually develop our tool to include both staff-facing and member/attendee-facing tools to allow for the self-management that is prevalent (your examples of Facebook & Twitter are great examples, as is online banking and purchasing). The combination provides a holistic solution to scale the reach and efficiency of the staff by involving the members into the process. No single system does everything, nor is the a 'best-fit' tool for every kind of congregation. However, by doing our best to minimize administration and maximize ministry, we are leveraging technology on the behalf of the local church that values this kind of methodology. Blessings, Anthony