How to Engage Church Members [Using Your Church Management Software] 

Picture of someone using their mobile device.

3 min read

This statement won’t take any ministry leaders by surprise, but it’s more complicated than ever to connect and engage church members. The events of the past few years have created an environment in which people attend church less and have more things grabbing their attention. Learning how to better engage church members is crucial for the future of ministry. 

So how do we accomplish this? Most don’t have an overflow of time or money to use. How can we use the tools at our disposal (namely your church management software) to better engage and communicate with people?  

Three Ways to Engage Church Members

Direct communication 

Studies have shown that people are more likely to take action when they receive personalized communication. Use your chMS to send specific and timely communication to your people. Some examples of how you can apply this:  

  • -Text an invite to first-time attenders to join your newcomer’s class. 
  • -Email the people who recently attended a class and invite them to start serving. 
  • -Text parents of youth inviting them to sign their child up for an upcoming event. 
  • -Connect with people who have stopped attending or stopped giving. 

Using your software to understand this information and act on it provides ample opportunities to engage church members. 

Create an Assimilation Process 

Can you clearly articulate the process of going from a stranger to a fully invested member? Does this process have clear benchmarks and next steps?  

While some may have a general idea of this process, most don’t create systems to support the process. Furthermore, we often treat assimilation processes with a “set it and forget it” mentality. This results in stagnant systems that lose their effectiveness.  

Are you monitoring & evaluating the effectiveness of the process? This is crucial in how to increase engagement and communication with people. 

Use Automated Workflows 

Software should work for you, not against you. One of the most powerful ways for this to happen is automated workflows. “Automated what?!” you may ask. 

Let’s see how this can work:  

Josh attends your church for the first time and fills out a connect card.  

  • -When he hits “submit”, he’s automatically added to the “first-time guest” group in your chMS.  
  • -There’s also an interaction assigned for your Connections Pastor to call him.  
  • -After one week, Josh has another interaction assigned for your Senior Pastor to send him an email.  
  • -After another week, Josh is automatically sent an email with next steps he can take.  
  • -He’s also moved into the “New Attenders” group in your chMS. 

All of this happens without one minute of manual work. 

This is just the beginning of the ways you can use automated workflows to engage church members. There are endless possibilities that allow you to reduce time and increase effective communication. 

Next Steps

While it’s become more difficult to thoroughly engage church members, the good news is there have never been better tools available to help with this.  

Need help with this? We’d love to help find ways to engage church members better using the best tools available. Let’s get in touch and see how we can help.