Destiny Church is a multi-campus church established in 2008 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Pastor Terry and Tracy Jimmerson’s vision is to build a church that reaches the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ and empowers people to change Las Vegas and the world. Destiny Church was facing some challenges in mass communicating to current and future members, automating workflows, managing volunteers, and simple reporting. They needed to change their internal software and processes and do this quickly to continue their mission and grow their church.
We had the pleasure of sitting down with Tracy Jimmerson, Executive Pastor at Destiny Church, who has been using FellowshipOne Go for the past five years. We asked Tracy to share more about their journey and ultimate decision to partner with FellowshipOne Go for their church management needs.
The Challenges Destiny Church Faced
Before using FellowshipOne Go, Destiny Church was utilizing various platforms to manage different tasks at their church. “We found ourselves with a lot of siloed products that we were using,” said Tracy. While they were able to make do, they found themselves unable to track and monitor their interactions seamlessly. “We were using MailChimp for email communications, we were also using our personal emails and personal group text messages. All those things are great, but they are not integrated, and there’s no history of what was being sent and or done.”
Aside from reporting, using so many different platforms meant keeping track of more logins for each system and training their staff and volunteers to use each one. “When we had new volunteers coming on board or new staff members, it was difficult for us to train them and stay on top of all the new trends,” said Tracy. Destiny Church also lacked the means to schedule and send out social media posts and text message communications. “We even had a calendar on the wall with days we needed to send out emails or text messages.”
Destiny Church decided it was time to upgrade their church management system with the hope that they could make the move to a product that could bring everyone together in one system to serve their needs better.
The Decision to Switch
As Destiny Church sought out new church management software, they began looking at options based on the software they already had some familiarity with. “Previously, we were with FellowshipOne. We loved it and have used it for many years. However, we had a lot of staff turnover and transition, and we didn’t keep up with the training as we should have.” Having already established a good relationship with FellowshipOne, Tracy said that FellowshipOne Go was one of the first products they considered. “I quickly got on a webinar to see what they had and loved it, but I wanted to do my due diligence, so I looked at the competitors, including Planning Center Online and Church Community Builder.”
As Destiny Church was using Planning Center Online for worship planning and for some service planning, they tested their church management software first. However, Tracy states, “When you’re looking at an overall church management system, they were a little bit more modular. There were a lot of hidden fees as I was digging deeper into the product and the price bracket was a bit over what we wanted to spend at Destiny Church.” Tracy next looked at Church Community Builder but didn’t feel any integration or cohesiveness with the software when reviewing what they had to offer. “I remember there being some great things and there being some things that were questionable, nothing that stood out.”
Between the three church management software solutions, FellowshipOne Go was the product that stood out to Tracy the most, in large part due to the ability to integrate their ChMS with the other software they were using. “So, when it came down to it, I came back to FellowshipOne Go. I tested the offering and I loved the integration that FellowshipOne Go offered with the other modules and seamless look and feel. Even though you’re using a different product, everything works together and is talking to one another. There is a single sign-on that makes it easy and user-friendly. Also, the training was exceptional—the educational resources makes it super simple for when I have a volunteer that’s coming in.” Tracy was able to utilize FellowshipOne Go’s comprehensive training videos to make training volunteers faster and easier for Destiny Church. “I’ll say ‘I want you to watch these 3 videos on taking care of your small group. On Thursday, we’ll get together and talk over that, and you can ask me questions if need be.’ And that saved me so much time on training.”
For Tracy and her team, the idea of automating workflows in their software was another component in their decision to go with FellowshipOne Go. “Another big determining factor for why we moved over was automation to workflows. That saves me so much time.” The simple act of following up with someone who had filled out a connection card used to take Tracy and her team several steps to enter in their information and create specific tasks for their team to follow up through email, phone calls, postcards, etc. “Now you do one entry, put them in a specific group and everything is automated and shot out instantly.”
In the end, Tracy felt a strong connection with FellowshipOne Go from the start and saw the possibilities it had to offer to streamline their processes and communications while making life easier for staff and volunteers at Destiny Church.
The Solution, FellowshipOne Go
After a couple of months of testing different solutions, Destiny Church decided to move to FellowshipOne Go as their fully integrated complete church management software. “When you transition from any software, you’re concerned about your data,” says Tracy. Destiny Church met with team members from FellowshipOne Go, who discussed their data migration needs and provided clear expectations and dates for how and when the data would be migrated over. “It was seamless,” recalls Tracy. Even the church’s financial records were migrated without losing any of their data- everything was moved over so smoothly and so beautifully.”
Compared to the migration costs from the competition, Destiny Church was also able to save money for the data migration services with FellowshipOne Go. “Some of the other products that we were looking at were going to charge large amounts of money to transfer our data, which belonged to us, but to transfer it into their system.” FellowshipOne Go offered the most cost-effective solution for Destiny Church. “We loved that the migration was affordable and rolled up into our monthly plan.”
Efficiency with FellowshipOne Go
After dealing with multiple products to handle tasks for so many years, Destiny Church was now able to streamline their processes and identify the right areas of opportunity in their ministries, thanks in large part to the newfound metrics at their disposal. “One of the things some of our pastors have mentioned is the ease of use in reporting,” said Tracy. Many churches have to funnel their reports through a designated secretary or administrator, meaning they have to wait for someone else to share those with them and then comb through the data to find the information they need. With FellowshipOne Go, Destiny Church provided all their leaders with their own logins and customized reports to make reporting out of the box and easier to obtain. “It empowered some of our leaders to log in, get the reports that they needed on their own and look at those metrics. So, if there are gaps in metrics, now we know we don’t have a technology problem, we have a people problem.” With direct access to these reports, ministry leaders can identify when data is missing due to human error and be proactive in communicating and training their team members on how to enter that in or delegate it to someone more comfortable with using the technology.
Besides saving them time, Tracy mentioned how workflows had kept them on track with following up with visitors, even on days that are exceedingly busy or have unexpected interruptions when working in a ministry. “With those automated workflows, if you have one of those days that’s just crazy ministry, you don’t have to worry with checking up on all those checkboxes for your guests, it’s done for you. And that ease has been so valuable to our team,” she says.
FellowshipOne and Ministry Brands
In addition to the FellowshipOne Go product, Tracy also has great things to say about their experience working with their account managers and support team. “We’ve had a great relationship with customer support. At the very beginning, I had some issues setting up my printer to work with children’s check-in. I would read everything and watch the videos, and there was just one missing element I never could figure out. I called customer service, and they were always quick to get on the line with me and walk through it with me, step by step.”
Besides being helpful, Tracy knows how much the FellowshipOne Go team genuinely cares about their church’s mission and vision. “Every so many months, I may get a phone call or a text or an email,” Tracy says. The FellowshipOne Go account managers keep in touch to ensure that their software provides them with a great experience and meets their needs. “I love that they’re concerned about who we are as a church and wanting to pray for our needs, and they’re also concerned with our organization.”
“One of the other things I love about the Ministry Brands team is they do a monthly roadmap with the FellowshipOne Go product.” Tracy makes it a point to block off her schedule for an hour each month whenever the monthly roadmap webinar is scheduled. It’s an opportunity for her to learn more about what’s new each month, ask questions, and plan for future updates. “I would highly recommend that for administrators,” says Tracy. “You can see what’s coming in the pipeline so you can plan your ministry. If you do have some strategic planning, you can lean into where FellowshipOne Go is going.”
Final thoughts
For those interested in seeing the many features and benefits of FellowshipOne Go, Tracy suggests talking to an account manager and trying the product for themselves. During the free trial, Tracy created entries for their small groups, crafted workflows for first-time guests, and realized how easy it was to automate everything. “If you do those things within the trial, you will notice that it was time well spent and see the many great features a fully integrated and automated church management system can do for your ministry.”
Contact us today to test the many great features of FellowshipOne Go. Destiny Church made a move, and you can too!