Category Archives: Technology

Searching for a Church Management System

In spring of 2009, I wrote the following:

When I first began to look at ChMSes [Church Management Systems] back in Fall 2008 I thought I would be overwhelmed by the plethora of options. I would soon find, however, that there were very, very few ChMSes that supported my two main requirements: web-based and supporting Chinese characters.

We settled on a ChMS that met these two main criteria and was robust and simple. However, without notice, development on this ChMS stopped in fall of 2010. Thankfully, we were able to export our data before the site shutdown a few years later, but I was left leery of small and closed source ChMSes.

CiviCRM

In a pendulum-like swing, we moved to the impressive open source CiviCRM in 2013. As open source software, CiviCRM was less likely to suffer the same demise as our ill-fated first ChMS (along with many other ChMSes that have stopped development). However, while also powerful, CiviCRM did take a significant amount of customization to achieve (now) basic functions like tracking attendance and accepting credit card payments for events. In addition, using CiviCRM was not as intuitive as emerging ChMSes.

Breeze

I had discovered Breeze in 2014 and thought it was too basic.

Giving it a second look in 2015, I found it to be fast and easy to use. While Breeze couldn’t do all that I thought we needed, it could do the main things – and do them well. Further, I was wrong about some of the components I thought were critical.

That said, I was still concerned about their financial solvency. Having had one ChMS disappear on us in the past, I wanted to avoid another rude awakening. Related, how could they survive if they only charged all churches $50 / month?

Thankfully, my concerns have been allayed as Breeze has grown from 435 churches in October 2015 to over 7,000 in September 2020 – including us in 2015.

Breeze’s Strengths

  • Easy to use – While ChMSes have come a long way since the early 2000s where some web-based offerings were little more than a crude interface to a database, not all are easy to use. Breeze’s focus on serving small to medium-sized churches gives them freedom to limit their interface and abilities – much to everyone’s gain.
  • Pricing – The pricing is easy to understand as well. Everything is included for $50 / month. No per record charge. No per module charge. No extra support charge.

Tip: Do not underestimate how many records you’ll accumulate over the years. For example, even though our church is around 400, we currently have over 3,000 records. Therefore, finding a ChMS that doesn’t charge per record is helpful.

  • Support – Accessible, fast, and helpful. What else could you want?
  • Continuous improvement – Despite their growth, they continue to thoughtfully add and refine their product.
  • Demo – While evaluating, it was particularly helpful to test a long-term demo by myself and with some other church members. This gave me time to experiment key tasks that I envisioned our church using.

A Caveat

When we first started to use Breeze, I remember feeling a little constrained. Breeze could not do some things that other ChMSes could do (such as highlight the group leader in a small group list).

All software has opinions, and Breeze is no exception.

However, the “cost” was worth it in light of the strengths (above) and, frankly, some of my desires weren’t all that wise. 🙂

How We Use Breeze

We use all of the features except for giving (for that we use RebelGive).

Tip: Beyond choosing a ChMS, it is critical that you set-up your database well. That is, what custom fields will you add – and in what format will those fields be? For example, if you have multiple congregations, should the “Congregation” be a text field, radio buttons, or multiple choice? (I’d suggest multiple choice in case someone is part of multiple congregations.)

Choosing a ChMS

Choosing a ChMS is something you don’t want to do often.

Therefore, after finding possible ChMSes …

  • List (and optionally weight) the top five features that are critical for your church. Be shrewd here and eliminate those features which you will honestly rarely or never use.
  • Rate how well each candidate fares in each desired feature.
  • Calculate which ChMS would (theoretically) be the best fit.
  • Test your top contenders with real church members.

Other ChMSes

Following are a few others ChMSes that I considered:

  • Elvanto – Founded in Australia, I see they merged with Tithe.ly in 2018 and now require new customers to use the Tithe.ly giving product.
  • EasyJethro – Also from Australia, EasyJethro is the hosted version of the free Jethro PMM. (Note: I just tried adding Chinese to a a custom field, and it returned an error. Not sure if this is just a temporary glitch.)
  • ChurchInfo – Started in 2004, ChurchInfo doesn’t have a lot of recent development (last update is from 2017), but may be sufficient for churches able to maintain this free software. (Note: You’ll need to test the integrity of Chinese upon PDF export; I had trouble with this back in 2013.)
  • ChurchTools – Begun (I believe) in Germany, this software has a strong focus on Europe since their app is available in English, German, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch and French.
  • ChurchSuite – From the UK, ChurchSuite (like ChurchTools) has a number of modules which seek to manage almost every area of church life.
  • Planning Center – Born out of Planning Center Online, Planning Center was just getting started as we concluded our search.

Here is a massive list (and reviews) of ChMSes.

Social Networking and Churches

Nearly two years ago I tweeted about three sites which sought to connect people in order to meet needs: worldwideopen.org, roov.com, thecommon.org.  All seemed to be quite similar in filling such a niche.

I had the same feeling when I heard of tableproject.org today.  It reminds me of mychurch.org, onthecity.org, beonebody.com, and some aspects of churchcommunitybuilder.com and other ChMSes.

No doubt there are differences between those listed above, but it will be interesting to watch how churches respond to all of these choices.

[update: related post on some of the above and another]

Timebridge vs. Tungle

Scheduling a meeting is difficult because syncing schedules is difficult.

Enter Timebridge.com and Tungle.me.

No doubt many others have compared these (cf. this one), but here is my personal review.

Timebridge.com

+Like the ability to plan the agenda

+Like the ability to assign action items

+Like the easy-to-use response piece:

Timebridge Response

Timebridge Response

+Like the informative meeting reminder email (with Agenda and Action Items included) automatically sent to attendees.  Very clean and professional looking.  In addition, I find the simple “Download to Calendar” piece more pleasing than Tungle.me’s implementation (which works well in Gmail, but not so well in Yahoo! Mail):

Timebridge's "Download to Calendar"

Timebridge's "Download to Calendar"

-Don’t like the fact that I have to invite attendees through the Timebridge.com interface.  Why don’t they give me a unique URL to which I can personally point potential attendees (ala Tungle.me)?   The good news is that when they send it, the email appears to come for your primary email address.

-Don’t like the fact that invited users might feel they need to register after responding to an invitation:

Timebridge Registration

-Don’t like the fact that pleas to upgrade abound

Tungle.com

+Like the custom URL that I can personally send out to invited attendees

-Don’t like the fact that no reminder emails are sent out

Summary

Although my review of Timebridge is shorter, Tungle is a solid service and the custom URL could be a tipping point.

The Three Strengths of DevonThink

It was early 2005, and I was researching free form databases when I came across this article by Steven Berlin Johnson extolling the virtues of DevonThink.  I was sold. The surprising usefulness of DevonThink’s artificial intelligence set it apart from all the other products.

Nearly five years later, I still find myself leveraging DevonThink for research and work.  Specifically, here are the three strengths of  DevonThink that keep me using it:

  1. Stores various filetypes
  2. Data preserved in original format
  3. Internal wiki-like linking

    These strengths conformed to how I worked.  For example, I basically use DevonThink for two purposes:

    1. Data collection – Web clippings, PDFs, mp3s, etc. are all accepted and preserved in their original format
    2. Project planning – I’ll create a master document for a project I’m working on and internally link it to web clippings, PDFs, mp3s, etc. that I’ve collected.

    There are plenty of applications (such as Evernote, Yojimbo, or a plethora of web-based apps) that could be used for something similar to this, but none of them offer all three strengths highlighted above.

    That said, DevonThink isn’t perfect.  Two critiques are:

    1. Weak tagging support — Although a form of this is coming in 2.0, DevonThink seems to rely more on folder than tags (contra delicious and Evernote, for example).  However, after experimenting with Evernote, I find this to be an advantage because my tagging is wildly inconsistent as I usually forget my taxonomy paradigm.  Folders, on the other hand, are more controlled as there are far less folders.  In other words, the flexibility of tags was not as helpful to me as the rigidity of folders.  (But to be fair, DevonThink allows you to replicate a file in various folders which overcomes the one-file-to-one-folder barrier of folders.)
    2. No online backup (ala Evernote) — Guilty as charged.  However, to partially overcome this, I use Mozy to back-up my DevonThink database.   But my DevonThink information is still not accessible from all my computers — much less via the Internet.

    In conclusion, while I’e looked at a variety of applications, DevonThink has the right combination of sets for my current workflow.

    PS – Here are three links which detail specific use cases:

    PPS – I realize I am only using a fraction of the features in DevonThink.

    Be a Computer Ninja!

    ninja

    photo by R'eyes'


    If you are a knowledge worker who spends most of the day at a computer, you need be a computer ninja and develop a strategy for subduing your ever-increasing workload.  Here are four tips and my current strategy:

    1. Use as few apps as possible. The more apps, the more that can go wrong.
    2. Related, opt for web-based apps like Google Docs.  Your data is backed-up, accessible from anywhere (that there is Internet), sharing is a breeze, and you just need to use one app (your browser) to access them.
    3. Learn keyboard shortcuts. Mice and trackpads are for non-ninjas.
    4. Subscribe to your apps’ blogs.  Good apps are always evolving.  Stay current about time-saving enhancements by reading their blog.

    My current strategy:

    3 Reasons I Don’t Use Linux

    I still remember when I first read about Linux.  It was an article in the New York times in the Spring of 1999.  “A free operating system with low requirements?!  Amazing!” were my thoughts.

    As a result I gathered some old Pentium 75s and ordered my first distro of Linux.  While everything didn’t really work out that well–even a simple GUI needs a little more horsepower than a P75, I was hooked on the idea.  [btw, here are some resources for lightweight Linuxes: one, two]

    Over the years I’ve enjoyed watching the maturation of Linux, and I feel that for most people Linux is a very viable choice.  However, there are three reasons I don’t use Linux (and, trust me, I’ve tried).

    1. DevonThink – I use this information manager to plan series and archive resources.  I like the fact that I can throw everything from documents to movies in it.  I wasn’t able to find anything similar on Linux (and, yes, I did look at LinuxAppFinder.com)
    2. Accordance – I know  about the Sword project, but there is no way copyrighted materials (like good commentaries) will ever be free.  Also, I know I could run a good Windows Bible program in Linux, but I’d rather keep everything in one OS to keep things simple.
    3. Keynote – I present one to three times a week and like to use multimedia.  As of yet, I haven’t found the OpenOffice suite to be as equipped to handle such multimedia.

    I’m open to switching, but just can’t find suitable alternatives for these cornerstone programs.  But for regular web/email/word processing, I’d heartily recommend Linux.

    Google Spreadsheet to coordinate schedules

    I’ve become a big fan of Google Apps over the last year.

    One of the ways I use the Google Form/Spreadsheet application is to coordinate schedules.

    1. Create a form with name and potential meeting times (as checkboxes)
    2. Embed and email the form to participants
    3. After they respond, go to Form -> Summary.  Where there is 100% agreement is when you can meet.

    googlespreadsheetrsvp

    Google Spreadsheets vs. Wufoo vs. EventBrite

    We have a number of retreats each year which require attendees to register and pay.  Back in the day forms and checks were the way to go.  However, recently I’ve been exploring online registration and payment.

    Here are my thoughts on three services I’ve explored.

    Google Spreadsheet is a great way to collect information; I only wish it could send an email confirmation once the form is completed as well as easily redirect to Google Checkout for online payment.

    Wufoo can do all of that at their entry-level plan ($10/month); if one upgrades to the second-tier plan ($25/month), one can make it even slicker as payment is integrated directly into Wufoo (however, there is no way to registrants to pay by check).

    EventBrite is slickest of all with a complete event site (complete with calendar and map integration) and timed tickets (for example, and early bird tickets which is only available until 10 days before the event).  In addition, because everything is integrated, it keeps track of how much everyone has paid.  IOW, all of their information is kept together.  However, EventBrite would be the most costly of the three surveyed here.

    In sum, here are my requirements and wants:

    Requirements

    • Gather custom information from registrant
    • Allow registrant to pay by credit card (via Google Checkout) or check (offline)

    Wants

    • Timed tickets which expire (e.g. – “early bird”)
    • Email confirmation sent to registrant
    • Graphs of data (like grade or payment vehicle)
    • Free or inexpensive

    On that last note, if we have ~50 people, here is the cost breakdown (per person) of the registration system (not counting Google fees):

    • Google Spreadsheet and Checkout: $0.00
    • Wufoo entry-level: $0.40
    • EventBrite: ~$2.50

    Currently, I’m thinking of staying with the Google Spreadsheet and Checkout route, but we’ve used Wufoo in the past with good success.

    5/29/2012 Update: We’re now using Smart Events for our retreats. Made especially for these types of gatherings.

    Epistles, email, and courtesy.

    IIRC, I recall once reading an article arguing that Paul’s grace as evidenced in his letters ought to be the model for how we write emails.  

    Now I am all for graciousness and surely could improve on that count.  But I wonder if that argument confuses genres?  That is, an epistle is not an email anymore than a novel is a text message.  I used to think short emails were curt–how dare they get straight to the point?

    But now that I am increasingly overloaded with information and responsibilities, I find myself appreciating such emails.  Indeed, I begun putting the following in my signature:

    Q: Why is this email 5 sentences or less?
    A: http://five.sentenc.es

    [ht: pastorhacks]

    So please don’t be offended if I write you a short email; it’s me–not you–really!  🙂

    Cool Find Friday: Drop.io


    Drop.io is a simple and private file sharing site that is under-appreciated, IMHO.

    For no charge, one can upload a 100 MB worth of files and then share them via a URL (which you can specify). But that is just the tip of the iceberg, your new site can be password protected, others can add to and collaborate on the drop (e.g. – each drop is given a phone number which can be used for conference calls; in addition, people can leave voicemails via another number), and it will automatically expire in a period of time that you determine.

    Usage #1: You need to send hi-res photos to Susan which are too big to email. Use drop.io.

    Usage #2: You are in a class which relies heavily on commentary work–of which there are only 1 or 2 copies each in the library. A classmate graciously agrees to scan the applicable commentaries and post them on drop.io. Voila! A file sharing website makes everybody happy.