Announcements

• Anyone interested in proofreading River Crossings once in a while .
• Reminder that your congregations events can be posted online. Submission guidelines are online.

Church Management Software

General comments

• most individuals had no previous experience (meaning you’re not alone!)
• training is a definite plus – I am looking into the possibility/availability of classes in our area
• Techsoup.com is a source for discounted software for nonprofits. To take advantage of their services you’ll need to prove state and federal tax exempt status. You can use the ELCA churchwide 501(c)(3). Please for this information. The one warning is that TechSoup is NOT fast, it will take time. It is also difficult to get approved for churches.
• Transferring information to new software – not really possible, but may be if both can import/export to/from Microsoft Excel
• Active/inactive member status practices were discussed. Various approaches varying from not changing membership status to evaluating status at 6 months to 1 year were mentioned.
• Membership record retention – It seemed that there was some uncertainty about what was required by the churchwide office regarding the parish register, so I called the ELCA Office of the Secretary and got the scoop. Here’s what I found out:
  • The register should include the following:
    • permanent role of members
    • baptisms
    • confirmations
    • marriages
    • funerals
    • communion participation
    • pastors of the congregation
    • ELCA-rostered lay workers
    • other professional lay workers of the congregation (organists, choir directors, etc.)
    • roster of officers of the congregation
  • Their concern is having a record that will be permanent (resist the dangers of fires, floods, etc.) but will also not become obsolete due to technology. Therefore the following are offered as possibilities:
    • Maintain the traditional parish register in addition to the electronic database
    • Print out once a year, on acid free paper, the necessary reports that constitute a parish register and care for them as you would the traditional parish register
    • Have microfilm copies of your parish register made at reasonable intervals
    • Scan the parish register onto CD-ROM discs
    • Take digital photographs of the pages of the parish register
    • Of those methods, the printed copy and the microfilm copies were the most highly recommended (CDs can become obsolete, digital photos are difficult to use, the acid free paper is also very highly recommended.
  • Another concern pointed out to me is to make sure you are not deleting members from the register (it’s ok for a directory, but not the register). If they die or move that is to be noted.
  • It is also suggested that a hard copy be kept at a remote location such as a bank safe deposit box.
  • The ELCA Office of the Secretary provides more information more information or you can or the ELCA Office of the Secretary directly.
• Along those same lines, we also discussed how often to do a back-up on electronic files. Some do it every day, some do it a few times a year. Obviously more is better in this case. It is also recommended to do an off-site back-up as well. For this it is ok to do CDs as you would do new CDs if you got new equipment.

Software

• Church Membership Plus:
  • chosen for lower cost
  • technical difficulties are arising
  • not recommended
• Automated Church Systems (ACS):
  • positive feedback
  • good (but expensive) classes available
  • includes mailmerge function
  • can pull information from any category of entries
  • Produced by ACS Technologies
• Church Windows:
  • used by several congregations
  • relatively easy to use
  • recommended
  • cost is relative to church’s number of members (example: if you want space to enter up to 250 members, it costs less than if you need space for 1,000 members)
  • good training is available in the Twin Cities, two levels
  • program does allow user to pull information from any category of entries
• Microsoft Access:
  • easy and readily available
  • fewer options
• Church Helpmate:
  • no training (except in Georgia)
  • doesn’t transfer info when updated
  • requires a lot of computer knowledge
  • functions with Microsoft Access
  • not recommended
• Shepherd’s Staff:
  • no one presently uses this software
  • good feedback from what people have heard
• Other financial software:
  • Quickbooks – easy to use
  • Microsoft Money
  • Excel – spreadsheets must be created from scratch
  • Lotus
  • Peachtree – expensive, but offers a lot

Other Useful Information

• LutheransOnline provides free websites to congregations, it’s also a source for posting non-called job openings
• Kerr Resources is a good source for free bulletins. Joanne said she typically uses the Presbyterian side (they distinguish between Methodist and Presbyterian), looks to see if they go with the readings, and away she goes
• Cute PDF is a free program to “print” to PDF (it runs through the print function of your programs to convert a file to PDF)
• Coffee bars in the narthex are great!