by Travis | Church Resources, Other
One of the many benefits of today’s technology is being able to a central location for the files you need to collaborate on. It’s no longer easy to just share files back and forth, but to have ongoing edits made on the same document without having to worry about which is the master file. Although I’m a huge Apple fan and I enjoy their products, we do use Google Drive for many of our collaboration needs. It’s simple to use, it’s FREE and you can access the information from anywhere. In addition, as I’ve written before, one of my favorite programs for nonprofits is Google for Nonprofits which gives you free branded Google accounts and that includes Google Drive and their office suite.
I think it’s a pretty great option for collaboration. Here are five ways we use it:- Kid sign in sheets
- Followup contact information
- Volunteer information - We primarily use Planning Center, but we use this as an ongoing backup
- Storage Sheet - Our church has to setup and teardown every week so this is an ongoing list of what is in which bin and as a checklist for when we need to buy more supplies
- Volunteer Questionnaire - Google Forms is a very underused section of Google Drive. We use it as a way to learn where new volunteers would like to serve, learn more about their gifting and the type of serving they thrive in and enjoy.
Do you use Google Drive or another collaboration option? I’d love to hear about it in the comments below! 
by Travis | Church Resources, Other
Easter is almost here! It’s a wonderful celebration of Jesus’ death and resurrection. It’s one of the most attended days of the year for churches.
But how do you plan on following up with all of the first time guests?
Here’s Five guidelines for planning your church's guest followup procedure. One of church’s greatest faults in followup is not getting information to begin with. If you plan on giving every visitor a phone call, or card in the mail, you first have to get this information from them. The second greatest fault in followup is asking for information that you never use. If you ask people to give you their address, phone number, and email, and then only give them a phone call, you make people wonder what you ever did with their address or email. Did you sell the information? You obviously didn’t use it. You simply wasted their time by having them give you information you didn’t even use. So let’s make sure that this Easter, we only ask for information we plan on utilizing.3. Thank them for coming
Nothing is more off-putting then an unloving, unthankful church. We are excited when people choose to take time to seek God, and we should make sure that we tell them we are. This helps lower their guard as most people think of churches as looking down on them for not coming every week, when we’re actually celebrating that they came at all.4. Give them a next step
As I’ve written about before regarding your website’s call to action, it’s extremely important to ask for a specific response from people, and this includes your church's followup procedure. This could be made easy by having them check a box if they’re interested in joining a midweek study, or serving, or another church group as they give their information so you have a specific thing to tell them about. Otherwise, you need to decide what your default is going to be. Will you be encouraging people to come back next Sunday, to join a group, or something else within your church? If you leave your followup open ended, most people will let the conversation drop off there and you’ll never hear from them again. However, this is your opportunity to help guide them to what their next step should be.5. Reach out more than once
Whether they gave you one piece of information, or five, you should make sure you contact them multiple times (over a period of time, you don’t want to overwhelm people). Overtime, you’ll be able to see how they respond and focus on a specific communication channel (such as phone call, email, or text).
I hope many of you have great opportunities to reach out to new people this Easter! Do you have any ideas you’d like to add for followup procedure guidelines? I’d love to hear them in the comments below!
