With today’s church management software and technology systems, churches can track and utilize data for ministry to a degree not enjoyed by churches at any other time in history. The modern church’s ability to collect, retain, organize, and utilize member and ministry data provides endless ministry opportunities; nevertheless, in our work, we find that most churches are missing out on this opportunity.

Churches today depend increasingly on technology to enable, support, and streamline ministry activities and operations. Our church partners utilize a growing array of applications, tools, software, and social media platforms to manage ministry and engage with participants and volunteers. 

Long thought of as primarily a management application to track and administer the finances, people, and activities of the church, modern church management software (“ChMS”) may also be one of the most powerful tools a church has to execute and enhance its discipleship process.

We are seeing an ever-increasing number of “phishing” schemes and other types of cyberattacks directed towards churches. For a variety of reasons, cybercriminals have identified churches as an attractive and potentially lucrative target. 

In the past several years, I’ve served as a facilitator to over 45 churches to assist them in either selecting a new church management software package (“ChMS”) or helping them to optimize and get the most out of their existing system. The process I go through with them always involves assisting the church staff in defining their ministry requirements in detail, then evaluating potential ChMS candidates that might fit those requirements.

In this article, we identify some of the recent major church management software (“ChMS”) company mergers and sales. We also share four key questions you can ask to analyze whether an individual sale or this pattern of acquisitions, sales, and mergers of ChMS software companies is helpful or harmful to your church.

Often times in the church setting you see staff getting frustrated with their ChMS. This usually occurs when they don’t fully understand how the ChMS operates. This frustration can cause you to look for the “new and improved” software that will solve all of your problems.

A common complaint surrounding most churches’ relationships with their Church Management Software (ChMS) comes in some form of a lack of trust in the data contained in their system. One of the main reasons for keeping track of data for a church is to enable more intentional ministry. Needs can be known, tracked, and met, relationships can be cultivated, connections can be made.

If you’ve recently walked through an airport, flipped through a business magazine, viewed any commercials on tv, or paid attention to almost any news source, you have likely heard terms such as “Big Data,” “data analytics,” “business intelligence” and “artificial intelligence.”