5 Cool Church Tools

Kent Shaffer —  November 3, 2008

It is nice living in an age with innovative, cool tools being created every week. In case you have missed them, here are 5 new church tools that you should know about.

  1. ChurchMetrics
    Just released from beta testing, this new free web-based application helps you keep tabs on attendance, giving, salvations, and baptisms at your church.
  2. Donor Tools
    Donor Tools is simple, inexpensive, and online donor management software for non-profits.
  3. Jarbyco
    Jarbyco is a customizable mobile application built around text messaging that lets your church (1) quiz, poll, and survey the congregation, (2) message people, (3) create audience interaction, (4) leverage your website, and even more.
  4. Unifyer
    Unifyer is a web-based application that unites online communication, online networking, and dynamic media content for your church community. In other words, it is like having a custom social network for your church.
  5. AspireOne Media Player
    Granger Community Church (Granger, IN) and AspireOne teamed up to offer a very innovate church website media player.

What are some new cool church tools that you would add to the list?

Kent Shaffer

Posts

24 responses to 5 Cool Church Tools

  1. Is there anything that allows me to track people, attendance, addresses, and generate lists of who is missing, who is new, and things like this?

  2. @Josh

    I recommend Fellowship One church management software.

    See: http://www.fellowshiptech.com

  3. I will have to give Jarbyco a look, we have been looking at methods of being able to:

    * txt “hello” to “12345″ if you are here today… and then tie that into fellowshipone… (for the fellowship one guys listening in)

    * txt in prayer requests

    * txt out prayer request to our prayer team

  4. Planning Center ha ayudado mucho en mi iglesia… es gratis…

    http://www.planningcenteronline.com/

  5. @Dan Lacher – interesting idea and a good test project for our new restful API we are working on. Ideally this would feed into our contact system?

    -”Fellowship One guy listening”

  6. Thanks for the link to Donor Tools!

    If you’d like to take it for a spin, go to https://demo.donortools.com/admin, and use the username “demo” and password “demo”.

  7. Another notable project is Church Director, a project by a friend of mine: http://www.churchdirector.com/

  8. If you are really interested in finding out who is missing from groups and want to have a good method of followup, then ConnectionPower would be a good choice. They can be found at http://www.connectionpower.com

  9. thanks – good stuff – posted it at http://www.newchurchreport.com – along with a bunch of other helpful stuff

  10. Wow.. see two important SaaS apps missing from this list…

    1. SermonPlayer.com (FREE online media player for churches). To see it in action, go to http://www.bethelipc.org/sermons. Not only can you stream audio/video/pdf, but it also allows download/podcasting. It also has it’s own Bible (3+ versions available) and embeddable audio/video mini players for those occasions you don’t want to display the entire player in once place on the site. Stats rock too!!!

    2. ChurchCommunityBuilder.com – While FellowshipOne is a nice app, I’ve found CCB to be better in many ways. First, the UI is fantastic and easy to navigate (imagine Facebook for your members). Embeddable group-specific calendars via javascript is nice, too. Don’t make a decision on a CMS until you’ve truly looked into them.

  11. We just started using CCB (Church Community Builder.) So far so good. REALLY liking it!
    Good stuff: Thanks for the post.
    KC

  12. If you want to track and followup with visitors in your church, and also members within particular church ministries and groups, I would go with ConnectionPower.
    They offer a plethora of features, along with web, giving, and a great kiosk check-in system.
    They are also very reasonably priced.
    http://www.connectionpower.com

  13. Wufoo – (wysiwyg) build online forms
    http://www.wufoo.com

    Basecamp – online project collaboration
    http://www.basecamphq.com
    Managed over 1000 projects in 2008 with 40 volunteers and over a dozen ministry groups with ease!

  14. Wufoo – (wysiwyg) build online forms
    http://www.wufoo.com

    Basecamp – online project collaboration
    http://www.basecamphq.com
    Managed over 1000 projects in 2008 with 40 volunteers and over a dozen ministry groups with ease!

    blog link fix: http://greggackle.wordpress.com

  15. A great collection of tools!! Here is another one for volunteer scheduling:

    http://www.ministryschedulerpro.com

    It allows scheduling around peoples preferences and availability, which is key. It also has a web-based portion for accessing and updating the scheduling once it has been produced. If you are managing a lot of volunteers it is definitely worth a look.

  16. Are there internships there?

  17. No. I already looked into it.

  18. Church software is good to use for making directories as well as for management system. and i think all these things are important for Church software

Trackbacks and Pingbacks:

  1. Church Relevance « brewster - November 3, 2008

    [...] Church Relevance Posted on November 3, 2008 by brewster Kent and his crew have a great thing going on over @ Church Relevance. Check them out. They just posted a GREAT post about 5 tools churches should be using. [...]

  2. Web Sites of Interest » links for 2008-11-03 - November 3, 2008

    [...] 5 Cool Church Tools | churchrelevance.com (tags: it church) [...]

  3. » 5 Cool Church Tools | churchrelevance.com » Church Newsletter - November 4, 2008

    [...] by unknown « Marion United Methodist Church: 2008 Charge Conference Tuskawilla Presbyterian [...]

  4. Tuesday Links | Subverting Mediocrity - November 4, 2008

    [...] 5 helpful church tools you might want.  We’re using Church Metrics and it’s very handy.  Check the list. [...]

  5. More Church Tools… « brendanwitton.com - March 12, 2009

    [...] Just following up on a post from earlier in the week and pass on another link for church tools. Church Relevance list 5 ‘cool tools’ recently (and if you read the comments from others you will actually come across even more – I’m going [...]