Why does all church management software suffer from these same problems?

Is the information in your central member database at your church up-to-date? Is your team particularly happy with your member management software? If not, you’re not alone. The more churches I talk to, the more it seems that nobody is really all that happy with their church’s member database. The central place they keep all their records for their members…is broken. Why?

• Why is the data old and unreliable? (And getting worse with each day that goes by.)
• Why is the member management software so hard to use? And like pulling teeth to get ministry leaders to use it?
• Why don’t we make use of so many of the capabilities it claims to provide?
• Why can’t we manage to sync our data across all of our different tools?
• Why do we continue to pay so much money for something that doesn’t even serve our basic needs all that well?

The central records for your members are really important. It’s how you keep track of and nurture these most important relationships.

But why is it so broken at so many churches? 4 reasons.

1. Change is hard: It’s easier to just keep doing what’s always been done. But in this case, if it’s not working well, we must be willing to change.
2. We need a do-over: Most church software started a long time ago and has just been tacking on additional features ever since. But a lot has changed since then and what we really need is to re-clarify the problems we’re trying to solve and to rebuild new solutions from the ground up.
3. Trying to do too much: Of course, we like the idea of a tool that does *everything* we need. But the truth is that in practice, it never quite lives up to the promise (here’s why). We must start with less, and we’ll accomplish more.
4. Starting in the wrong place: The central piece of software for your church should be built around the most important function: Communication. But most all church member management software started somewhere else (like as a database), and then later tried to add on ways to communicate with your people. In the end, they end up doing neither all that well. But when you start with communication, when you have folks’ most important contact info (cell phone and email), when you establish a common (and simple!) interface all ministries can and will use to communicate and lead the community, then it opens up lots of options to do more and do it well.

This is why so many Flocknote churches find that their Flocknote database has more people in it, with more up-to-date information about them, than any other tool they use at their church. All because it prioritizes communication and connection with your people. And now, from there, we’re starting to help do even more. Click here if you’d like to learn more about how your member data can get better with time and be a tool your leaders actually enjoy using! We’d love for you to join us on this journey.