The end of summer signals the beginning of the back-to-school for parents and back-to-church season for ministry leaders. Just as every parent knows that it’s time to buy school supplies, so every church leader knows that it’s time to ramp up for the busy fall schedule: board meetings, small groups, youth groups, and every other type of ministry seem to wake up from their summer rest.
Here are five ways to connect with your congregation during this back-to-church fall season:
1) Putting all your printed forms into your app
Have you stopped recently to add up all of the money and time associated with printing your forms? Paper and ink costs, printer repairs & maintenance, time to input the form’s information into a computer, time to decipher what was written, not to mention environmental costs. Beyond time and money, there are many benefits to switching all of your church’s forms to digital forms within your app, such as new guest/visitor forms, signup forms (e.g. small groups, camps, new members classes, etc.), announcements, sermon notes, etc.
2) Setting up your In-app Giving
Churches that add in-app giving to their digital giving see an average of over 20% more tithes and offerings! People don’t carry cash and checks like they used to, so offering an in-app giving service makes it easy for them to donate to your church. Better yet, you can add CustomgivingTM for free within your app, or we can add your existing giving platform to the app at no additional cost.
3) Scheduling Automated Push Notifications
Push notifications work like text messages, appearing on each user’s home screen of their phone or mobile device, even when they’re not using the app. Save time and improve your communication by scheduling your push notifications in advance through your Custom Church Apps console.
4) Integrating Your Church Calendar
Chances are that your church already has an online calendar for your events. Many of these calendars, especially Google calendars, are easy to integrate with your app. Offering your calendar within your app is another great way to stay engaged with your community, while increasing the number of returning users to your app!
5) Adding a Custom Bible Reading Plan
One of our dynamic app features that is very popular with churches is the Custom Bible Reading Plans. Summertime is a great time to invest in adding your own Custom Reading Bible Plan. It’s easy, very engaging, and will help draw people back to your app every day for devotions.