Launching Your Church Community Builder Site

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1 Launching Your Church Community Builder Site How do you stay connected......with the members of your church and with those you want to reach outside your church? Church Community Builder is a web-based system designed from the ground up to help your church engage, empower, and encourage. It offers an extensive system for tracking members and guests, plus online tools to build community and make it easy to connect into the life of your church. Leaders have the tools they need to manage their ministries, and people are able to interact, find ways to serve, and communicate within their small groups. People stay at a church when they find how they fit and where they belong. Your Church Community Builder online community contains relationship-building tools to connect your members with your ministry and with each other to help them become fully integrated into the church. Here are steps to introduce your new Church Community Builder site to your church, from the first introduction to your staff to the full launch for everyone. Engage Pastors and Administrative Staff Your Church Community Builder site is the centralized place for managing data and building community within your church. It enables your pastoral and administrative staff to keep track of your church membership and guests, manage your resources and calendar, track attendance and giving, and report on the information all from the church office, home, or anywhere there s an internet connection. Staff ministers can creatively utilize its various tools for each specific ministry situation. Implementation Overview 1

2 Introduce them to an overview of the site Suggest they watch the video tours, which can be accessed from your site by clicking Help > Videos. These four short videos will provide an introduction to the many features available. Help them understand what the software can do for their particular ministry areas Choose a task or function that is needed or performed in your church. Think about the way Church Community Builder tools could meet that ministry need. Then, help the staff see ways to utilize those tools within their own scope of responsibilities. Provide training for the site and its features Work with each staff member or as a group to transfer your knowledge to them. You might use part of the weekly or monthly staff meetings for quick training. There are help topics available at our Help Desk, and you can suggest staff members watch specific training videos available at Help > Videos. Or you might consider scheduling On-site or Virtual On-site Training for your staff. You can request more information or schedule an On-site Training at training@churchcommunitybuilder.com. Review and evaluate use Prepare a written review plan with set dates. Use it to evaluate the staff s use of the site and generate new plans to get everyone on board. Engage Volunteer Ministry Leaders Your Church Community Builder site is a great tool for enhancing ministry-wide communication by giving your leaders practical tools to more effectively communicate, track, inform, and promote fellowship within their spheres of influence. Implementation Overview 2

3 Introduce them to the site Plan a Church Community Builder overview session for ministry leaders to get them excited about all of their new tools. Depending on the size of your church, you might break it down into two sessions: one for ministry team leaders (e.g., worship, children s, youth), and one for small group leaders and/or class teachers. Give a basic overview of their capabilities as Basic Users, including how to update their passwords and profiles, search for families and individuals, and send . Free training tools and videos are available in the Help Desk. Train them on group homepages Train leaders on the tools available on a group s homepage. These include the group calendar, event invites, attendance, the participants list, volunteer opportunities (positions), file uploads, needs, reports, and easy communication tools including messaging and mail merges. Create a timeline for each leader to implement Church Community Builder for their ministry/group Here s an example of a timeline you might adopt: 14 Days: Each leader updates their personal profile. 45 Days: Each leader adds their groups descriptions and photos, adds participants, auto-generates logins, communicates using tools, and uploads files. Leaders motivate participants to log in and update profiles, giving demonstrations at group meetings if possible. 60 Days: Each leader adds events to the group calendar, tracks attendance, and utilizes group reports and other features as needed. Review each ministry s use and create a plan to improve it A ministry implementing Church Community Builder should have a written review plan with dates, not just for staff members, but for volunteer leaders as well. This will help the ministry effectively review all leaders' use of the site and create a plan to get everyone on board. Implementation Overview 3

4 Engage Members Your Church Community Builder site is a communication hub which enables members to interact and encourage one another as well as keep up to date with the latest happenings in their groups and the church body. Members can interactively join groups, register for events, express interest in service opportunities, sign up for needs, communicate with other members, and view their own personalized calendars. Create a list of what the software can do for your average active member Share a list like the following example with your staff and volunteer ministry leaders. Through your Church Community Builder site, members can: Communicate with staff and others Grow closer to other members by sharing information about themselves through profiles View photos of groups and families Share up-to-date contact information with leaders and friends Download giving statements (if enabled by church) Easily track group activities and responsibilities from one central location Ask your staff, ministry leaders, and support staff to lead by example Having your ministry leaders involved is the best way to encourage your members to get involved too! Leaders should: Update every area of their profiles Open access to their key information to the congregation (through the privacy settings for their profiles) Use the communication tools inside of the Church Community Builder site Use the tools on the group homepages for the groups they lead Implementation Overview 4

5 Talk about the benefits of using the site to the people they influence Plan a promotion program to introduce the site to your members Use items from the list you compiled earlier to show the personal benefits of using the online community. The promotion should encourage members to go to the login page and request a login and password. Consider naming your online community to better engage your members. The following are possible promotional avenues: Public website (The login page link or login box should be easy to see and accessible. Welcome text and instructions would be helpful. Weblinks for login, calendar, group search, and forms are available at Settings > Web Tools.) In-service announcements Brochures Church-wide s Drama skits Public endorsements from the senior pastor or other church leaders Personal messages from a member about how the online community benefited them Small group leaders promoting to their groups New members sent a login and password with information about the benefits Church newsletters or bulletins Consider using quick facts to highlight features You might include Church Community Builder quick facts in an unobtrusive place like the bottom of the weekly announcements. This has been a useful tool for New Life Bible Church: We highlighted some of the neat features in CCB, plus we felt like it kept the app top of mind as we were encouraging folks to get in and fill out their profiles. The following are samples they sent to us: You can log in to the Church Community Builder site from any computer connected to the internet. (Include instructions for where to log in.) Implementation Overview 5

6 Your login is secure. The information you enter is available only to others with a login, and logins are only granted to members and friends of our church. You can control what pieces of your profile other members see. Go to your profile and click the Update Privacy link on the right. Log in regularly. Check the message boards for all your groups and share burdens, praises, and prayer requests. You can post a comment using the link in the you receive when a message or comment is posted. See your giving record online. It is, of course, completely private, but you ll be able to log in and print your own giving report. We use the site as our church directory, so make sure your contact information (phone, address, ) is always up to date. To change contact information, go to your profile, click the Edit profile link, and then click on the Basic tab for phone and or the Address tab for address. There s a video in the Help Desk showing you how to edit your profile. From time to time, we ll be posting online surveys asking for input on future class offerings, church activities, and ministry opportunities. When you get the , please use the link to let us know what you think. Did you know Church Community Builder customizes your calendar based on your group membership? Your My calendar shows events you ve registered for, your groups events, and needs you ve chosen to provide. The more complete your profile, the more we can identify opportunities for you to serve in the body. The Church Community Builder site provides tools for surveys and event registration. If your group needs one of these tools, ask one of the church administrators how to create them. The Church Community Builder site provides attendance tracking. If your group or class needs attendance tracking, contact one of the church administrators. Engage Guests When you use the public website tools available with your Church Community Builder site, visitors to your public website are able to view public calendar events and even request to join a group and begin connecting in the life of your church. Church Community Builder has public website links that allow you to quickly and easily publish a calendar, form, or small group and ministry lookup to your website. Another great plus is that, if you choose, guests may request a login. We suggest you only give guests limited access to your site. As a Limited Access User, a person is not able to see personal information of members, but is able to send through the site to members of the groups they join without seeing their addresses. Implementation Overview 6

7 This is one channel that can enable guests to get to know members of your church and thus enhance your outreach. Create Church Community Builder links on your public website so guests can view public information (Settings > Web Tools). Encourage Group Leaders to connect with guests who request to join a group. Set up forms so guests can register online for events, seminars, concerts, VBS, or any type of outreach event. Follow up with guests using saved mail merge s and letters, and add them into the guest membership Process Queue to track and delegate steps needed for them to become integrated members of your church body. Implementation Overview 7