Day 2: Build Your Planning Calendar

Before you dive into researching Church Management Systems (CMS), it’s critical to define your church’s specific needs. Too often, churches jump into a CMS decision after hearing a great sales pitch or seeing what a neighboring church is using. But what works for one church may not work for yours. To avoid costly mistakes and ensure you choose a system that truly supports your mission, you need to do the internal work first.

Here’s how to get started:

Identify Core Ministry Areas

Every church has a unique structure and set of ministries. Your first step is to map out the core areas of ministry that the CMS will need to support. This might include:

• Membership management: Tracking member information, attendance, and engagement.
• Small groups: Managing small group rosters, locations, and communication.
• Communication: Sending emails, texts, or push notifications to specific groups within the church.
• Giving and donations: Tracking online giving, recurring donations, and financial reports.
• Volunteer management: Scheduling volunteers, tracking availability, and recording participation.
• Events and registrations: Managing event sign-ups, payments, and attendance.

Pro Tip: Involve key staff and ministry leaders in this process. Ask them, “What tasks take the most time?” and “What processes could be improved with the right tool?”

List Your Pain Points

Once you have a clear understanding of your ministry areas, the next step is to list your current pain points. What’s not working well today? What causes the most frustration for your team?

Common examples include:

• Data scattered across multiple systems: You might have separate tools for email, giving, and volunteer management that don’t talk to each other.
• Manual processes: If staff members are spending hours doing repetitive tasks, a good CMS could automate much of that work.
• Inconsistent communication: If different ministries are using different tools to communicate, messages can become inconsistent or lost.

By identifying your pain points, you’ll have a better sense of the problems a CMS needs to solve.

Define Success

Now that you know your needs and pain points, it’s time to define what success looks like. How will you know if the CMS you choose is doing its job well?

Examples of success metrics might include:

• Increased engagement: More members attending events or participating in small groups.
• Time saved: Staff and volunteers spending less time on administrative tasks.
• Better communication: Clearer, more consistent messages reaching the right people at the right time.

Having clear success metrics will help you evaluate potential systems and measure their impact after implementation.

Create a Needs Checklist

With your core ministry areas, pain points, and success metrics defined, create a checklist of must-have features. This checklist will serve as your guide as you begin evaluating different CMS options.

Your checklist might include:

• Ability to track member data and attendance
• Integrated communication tools (email, text, push notifications)
• Online giving and donation tracking
• Event management with registration and payments
• Volunteer scheduling and management
• Customizable reporting
• User-friendly interface for non-tech-savvy staff

Distinguish between must-have and nice-to-have features. This will help you avoid getting distracted by flashy features that may not actually serve your church’s primary needs.

Involve the Right People

Finally, involve the right people in this process. Choosing a CMS isn’t just an IT decision; it’s a ministry-wide decision. Make sure to include:

• Key staff members: Those who will use the system daily.
• Ministry leaders: Those who can speak to the needs of specific ministries.
• Volunteers: Especially if you rely heavily on volunteer leaders.

Involving these stakeholders early on will help ensure buy-in when it’s time to implement the new system.

Conclusion

Defining your church’s needs is the foundational first step in choosing the right Church Management System. Skipping this step is like building a house without a blueprint—you’ll end up with something, but it may not be what you need.

By identifying your core ministry areas, listing pain points, defining success, creating a needs checklist, and involving the right people, you’ll be well-equipped to evaluate CMS options with clarity and confidence.

In the next post, we’ll dive into Step 2: Prioritize Features Based on Your Needs, where we’ll help you figure out what’s essential, what’s optional, and how to avoid getting dazzled by unnecessary bells and whistles.

If you want help walking through this process or need a second set of eyes on your needs checklist, I’m here to help. Schedule a consultation, and let’s get started.