by Patrick Bradley: Ever notice that your church management software asks for your people’s mobile number and their carrier? Here’s why they do that and how you can look up mobile carriers to get past the roadblock.

Has this happened to you? You build your guest followup system in your church management software. It includes emailing or texting people a welcome message or a invitation to come back the next Sunday. You’re all set. Then you get the stack of connection cards after the service and discover that some of your guests gave you a mobile number but no email address.

Now you can’t email them or text them. I suppose you could pull out your phone and start texting them one at a time. But you can’t otherwise send them a message. Why won’t the church management software work without knowing the carrier?

It’s a Simple Hack

That’s because the app isn’t actually texting your people – it’s using a free email-to-SMS hack. It’s actually pretty cool – I just tried it by sending an email to my kid’s mobile number and I got a quick reply.

Every US mobile carrier has a way to convert a brief email into an SMS message. For instance, if your guest’s mobile number is (123) 456-7890, then you just email your message to some version of 1234567890@mobilecarrierbrand[dot]com.

But there’s the rub. If you don’t have their carrier’s name and configuration, your message will never get delivered.

Now You Can Look Up Mobile Carriers

I’ve found various lookup sites, but my favorite so far is freecarrierlookup.com. Not only do they give you the carrier, but they give you the email configuration for that carrier so that you can use the email-to-sms hack right from your own inbox.

But what about the stalker factor? My bottom line is that if they offered their mobile number on a connection card, that’s at least implicit permission to text them. And knowing someone’s carrier doesn’t violate their privacy or put them at risk.

So if you’re using one of the many church software apps that require knowing the person’s carrier, now you can quickly look up mobile carriers to get through to them.

The post How to Look Up Mobile Carriers so Your Church Software Works appeared first on Church Planting Tactics.

Source: How to Look Up Mobile Carriers so Your Church Software Works

The post How to Look Up Mobile Carriers so Your Church Software Works appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by Patrick Bradley: Measuring a few important things on a church metrics scorecard will help you in a few important ways. Not the least of which is keeping you from making myth-based decisions.

Years ago on a plane ride, I watched a documentary about the invention of the M16 rifle. I thought it was a completely random time-filler, but the lesson keeps coming back to me:

The Legend of the American Marksman

The documentary recounted the place of the marksman in our cultural psyche. Our national stories and heroes include the likes of Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett and Alvin York, the WWI marksman that captured 132 German soldiers almost single handed.

Through WWII and the Korean Conflict, our standard issue rifles were the high-powered M1 Garand. It was basically designed for distance marksmanship.

But then someone during the Kennedy era was tasked with compiling and analyzing the data from all of the army’s field reports and records. Turns out, there was almost no data confirming the M1’s long-distance effectiveness. The research only confirmed its being used at shorter ranges.

The army’s initial response was, “Our M1s are the only rifle worth using.” They were in love with the idea of the American marksman, but the data showed that the real need was for something that fired faster and was effective at closer ranges. Enter the M16, which was very quickly adopted across our military.

Willow Creek’s Reveal Study

This was essentially the bottom line of the brave research Willow Creek did all those years ago. So much of the Church in the US was operating on the assumption, “Active church members = maturing disciples.” So we grew ministries and filled our church calendars with activities to keep everyone engaged. With the best of intentions.

But the study revealed little to no correlation between staying busy at church and personal spiritual growth.

What I Learned about Myth-Based Decisions

Here are some takeaways:

Decisions of this kind are based on myths, not lies – there are good ideas and even incomplete data involved (the M1s worked, but not nearly as well as the M16)
Designing a solution for a problem that doesn’t really exist is a very real possibility
It’s easy as a visionary or idealistic leader to mentally negate data that confronts your particular myth – especially if the current solution is your brainchild
When you’re piloting a new idea or initiative, there may not be any data immediately – all the more important to measure as you go so you can make pivots and keep getting better

How is your church doing at making disciples? Are the processes, programs and staff you’re pouring resources into actually making a difference?

As you decide what to include in your church metrics, consider both micro and macro health measurements. And please measure more than just attendance and offerings. Measuring what’s important will let you make informed decisions and avoid holding out for a good idea that isn’t working well.

The post Church Metrics will Help You Avoid this Mistake appeared first on Church Planting Tactics.

Source: Church Metrics will Help You Avoid this Mistake

The post Church Metrics will Help You Avoid this Mistake appeared first on Passion for Planting.

Church sub-calendars are a great way to keep everything organized at your church. Setting them up is relatively easy and it solves the following 3 problems.

Whether or not you’re a program-driven church, there are things that happen in the life of your church each year. Keeping them all straight is important.

If you use your church management software for the master church calendar, you’ll probably accomplish creating church sub-calendars by using different admin groups.

If you use a Google calendar, simply click the dropdown arrow next to My calendars in the left-hand column and choose create new calendar for each one of the church sub-calendars below.

Other calendar systems typically have similar functionality.

Consider Your Audience

The main reason for creating church sub-calendars is to ‘control’ who sees what. A church admin or senior leader needs to see everything, but that can be totally overwhelming for someone checking out the website.

Or seeing everything could be totally inappropriate – the date & time of the next staff performance review for your worship leader isn’t really everybody’s business.

Create these 12 church sub-calendars so that every church event rolls up into one master church calendar:

Prayer Team: prayer events; reminders to send updates
Fundraising: appointments; desserts or other events; reminders to send thank yous, etc
Finances & Governance: annual budget preparation season; quarterly and annual Board meetings; annual report filing deadlines
Discipleship/Small Groups: dates & times of small group meetings; leader training events
Networking: appointments with civic leaders; reminders to follow up
Community Service: events; planning meetings
Marketing & Outreach: events/festivals; design & publication deadlines; online campaign run dates; etc
Staffing: performance reviews; job interview dates
Leadership & Training: retreats; leadership meetings; conferences
Communications (Internal): newsletters; social media posts;  serving schedule publication dates
Preaching & Creative Team: sermon calendar; production deadlines; planning meetings
Assimilation & Membership: discovery classes; membership classes; etc

As your people create each calendar event, they just have to decide which church sub-calendar it belongs to.

You as the leader should be able to turn the sub-calendars on or off in your master calendar view so that you can see one, some or all of the sub-calendars at once. That way you can focus on just one, or see them all so you can…

Prevent Double-Booking

Once your church is up and running, it’s crazy how many times different teams will book events at the exact same time. It’s tough for a guitar-playing dad to be at band practice and the youth group parent meeting at the same time.

This becomes even more important for churches that have a 24/7 facility and have to manage who’s using which room which night.

Having sub-calendars roll up to one master calendar also helps you…

Prevent Over-Booking

Maybe you think you haven’t created an event-driven church. But once you overlay all the church sub-calendars above, what does that tell you about how busy you’re asking people to be? Setting a reasonable pace for your leaders and your congregation is easier if you have the raw data in front of you.

Use church sub-calendars as a handy tool to keep the goings-on at your church well-organized and available to the right audience.

The post 12 Church Sub-Calendars You Need Today appeared first on Church Planting Tactics.

Source: 12 Church Sub-Calendars You Need Today

The post 12 Church Sub-Calendars You Need Today appeared first on Passion for Planting.