Delivering Change : Best Practice

भगवान भारत के लिए मुझे बुलाया ... अब क्या?

FTDeliverySvcs — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 17:45:00 GMT

(To Translate the title from Hindi to English click here)

As the missions pastor, I have been praying to know where God wants us to go as a church to reach people. Over the last few weeks he has been guiding me to India. I was thinking Aruba or maybe the Virgin Islands but God seems to be pushing me more and more towards Northern India. I have been speaking to the Sr. Pastor and he wants to help out by sending supplies and direct aid to our Northern India contact church.

To maximize our impact we want to bring 25 people. We would like to bring 50 but we think 25 people are a much more manageable number because the trip to Burma last year was impossible to manage. We had 3 spreadsheets being updated by 4 people with money coming in from a dozen places. Besides Donna in accounting said that she would quit if we tried to do that to her again.

The cost per person for the trip is more than the average person at our church can afford so we are going to ask people to raise the money by asking friends and family members to support their trip. Last year we printed letters and they mailed them to family and friends with return envelopes addressed to the church. We want to do something online because we have a terrific mission’s website but it has to be easy to track and we don’t want 2 systems to track the money through. Can we say 21^st century?

There are a few required documents that we would like to track for each traveler and we need a way to store the information electronically so that we know who has turned in what. We need to track vaccinations based on the CDC’s recommendations for India. We need a copy of the first page of every person’s passport. We definitely don’t want another Ruth McMaster incident where she lost her passport in Burma and was stuck trying to convince the consulate that she was an American citizen.

That is why I have come to you… the Fellowship One Champion Obadiah Juan Gonzalez to please tell me there is something we can do to make this easier to track and flexible enough to handle our unique issues. Help me Obi Juan you’re our only hope!

That’s easy… just download these documents and they will guide you towards a chaos free trip to India.

The smart people in Delivery Services at Fellowship Technologies have worked with hundreds of missions ministries since January 2004 and have come up with a brilliant solution that will not only make tracking donations towards the mission trip a breeze but also give you a mass communication tool and the reports necessary to quickly and easily communicate with the people going on the trip. Their solution will easily integrate with your existing mission’s web page and give you all the capabilities you have asked for and more. Using their proven process we can have 50 or 100 people without overwhelming your administrative capabilities. To help you with this process I would like to be the first person to register for the trip.

Perhaps God will select Aruba next year but alas India is where I am needed now.

Matthew McMaster

Delivery Manager (Missionary Wannabe)

This just in... Church of the Prim and Proper in Chaos!

FTDeliverySvcs — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 19:27:00 GMT

To keep from leaving your church in a lurch, please don't create a single point of failure on your staff. This is where creating, fertilizing, and growing a healthy Fellowship One Champion team can be a life saver for many churches. Attached to the picture below you will find a document that details the teams that should be present at your church and how they interact with Fellowship One.

Now if you are thinking "We only have 3 people on staff! How can I build a team across ministries? There is only one person who runs ministries and that is me!" God blessed you with ministry leaders that are not on staff. Tap into your volunteer base, find the right people and lead your new Fellowship One Champion Team made up entirely of Volunteers. They will appreciate the extra abilities Fellowship One gives them and you will keep from shooting yourself in the foot by being the single point of failure. Some day Jesus will come and welcome you home. Are you raising up leaders or making yourself so critical to the success of the church that they can't survive without you.

Matthew McMaster

I lost my receipt thingy.... NOW WHAT!?

FTDeliverySvcs — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 21:11:00 GMT

Last year I was attending a big church in Grapevine Texas. One thing you never want to do when attending this church is lose your receipt. They take your children's safety very seriously and they don’t mind making you wait to get that point across. The good news is that once you move past the initial shock that they are not going to just “trust me” and that they don’t care that I am a member and a volunteer and a very special person in general… is that you feel very secure with leaving your kids in their care. Of course this usually takes about an hour or so to get from your head to your heart. It helps that you were able to make it to your favorite restaurant before the lunch rush after all.

The take away from this blog is that churches of every size need security for their children. Unless you don’t expect any first time visitors then you need to know this stuff. It is important to understand that this is a standard process and it needs to apply to everyone from the Sr. Pastor to the first time guest. If you don’t consistently enforce this policy, your volunteers will be put in the untenable position of having to determine who is allowed to bypass the security measures the church has in place to protect children. This protects your volunteers by placing them under the authority of the Children’s Ministry.

When a person shows up to pick up a child the process is very clear. If you have the receipt and you know the child’s name you get to pick them up. The process is not:

You dropped them off and I recognize you so it is OK this time
You are on staff so it is OK this time
You are the Sr. Pastor so it is OK this time
You look nice and you know the child’s name so it is OK this time
The child is screaming Mommy… Mommy… so it is OK this time
You are my next door neighbor and I know these are your kids so it is OK this time
You are my husband and our kids are driving me crazy so I don’t care if you lost the receipt take these kids NOW (this one is OK for the safety of the kids and the Dad)

So now you have an adult standing at your door demanding that you give them their child back. All volunteers should be trained to say “I am not authorized to release children to parents without a receipt. I can find my supervisor/director/pastor and they will be able to help you out. I do recognize you and I am sure this is your child but we have security processes in place to protect your children and I am sure you understand the importance we place on child safety.”

If your church has radios then a call should be made for the supervisor to come to the door and guide the parent through the next part of the process. If you have a clearly identified information desk, they can be sent there.

Once at the information desk or nearest assisted check in station here are the steps to follow:

Ask the parent for a picture ID (insert comment about how good their picture looks and try not to sound sarcastic)

Log into Fellowship One and verify that the name on the ID is an authorized person to pick up those children. This can be done on the household screen. See Figure 1
If the parents are still in the same household and there is a custody issue, please unselect both parents. That way whoever has the receipt brought the child. See Figure 1
If they are not authorized, call the authorized parents and take all necessary measures to verify that the child can be released to this person
Threatening to keep the kids and put them to work at the church folding bulletins never works so don’t bother

If the parent has no picture ID available, log into Fellowship One and search for them by name

If the name of the person matches up with one of the parents authorized to pick up the child

Ask the parent for their children’s name
Ask the parent the last activity they attended
Ask the parent the child’s DOB
Ask the parent to verify their address, email address, phone number, cell phone number, etc
If it is the husband ask him for his wife’s DOB and their anniversary date. I do this just to get them in trouble

If the name of the person does not match up to the name of the parent authorized to pick up the child use the system to call the other parent’s cell phone. Use all means necessary to verify that this person is authorized to pick up the child.

Once the authorization process has been completed have the parent fill out a first time visitor card or similar form. Write the parents DL number on the form and have an authorized person at the church sign the form. It is best to have a specific form for this process that is very similar to the first time family card. It should have space on the card to write down all of the children’s names that have been checked in that day. The parent then uses the signed card as their authorization form to pick up all of their children.

As the teachers verify the names of the children written on the card against the nametags on the children they will initial the names of the children to verify that they checked the data. Teachers should be trained to pick up the form if all of the children listed on the form have been picked up. This documentation is critical in case there is some sort of litigation that arises from the church giving the child to an unauthorized person.

For your viewing convenience I have written all of this up and had it formalized by the proper authorities. You can download a less funny and more serious version by clicking the picture of the light bulbs below. Hopefully the lit bulb represents you at this point.

Matthew McMaster

Delivery Manager and Bulb Tester

What do I do with this 3 digit code?

FTDeliverySvcs — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 17:05:00 GMT

As a father of two, I still remember the first time that I dropped off my children in a Children’s Ministry when I was searching for a church home and a relationship with God. I didn’t have a clue of how secure my children were in those back rooms. During the worship service I was unsettled. My mind was in those back rooms worrying about my kiddos. Of course, I knew that they’re in a church, but I just needed a little reassurance.

As a Delivery Manager, I get to see some great best practices at the churches I work with. At one of my recent churches, the Children’s Pastor came up with a very cool idea. She made a First Time Family Card that served several purposes.

First, the card would explain the purpose of the security tag and how it’s used. It explains both main purposes of the security receipt:

1) The security code is compared to the security code on the child’s nametag during the pickup process.

2) The security code can also be used to page the parents in case they are needed for the care of their child during the service.

Second, the card is yellow so it’s easily identifiable by escorts or greeters when mom or dad returns to the Children’s Ministry to pick up their children. An escort can greet or seek out the family to reconnect or answer any questions that the parents might have.

Lastly, the yellow card is an obvious reminder to classroom teachers that during pick up that this is a new family. The classroom teacher can then take some extra effort to let the family know how their child did during the service. They can then thank them for coming and send them off warmly and let them know that we’d hope to see them back soon!

Not only will classroom teachers and greeters know that this is a new family, but others would see this yellow card as well. Everyone from ushers, the welcome center, bookstore and pastors can give an extra warm greeting to new families.

A great suggestion from my fellow Delivery Managers is to provide a map of the building on the back of the card. This will help the parents locate the Children’s Ministry and their children after the service.

I think this card does a great job of providing a sense of comfort to the parents and will provide a way to identify the new families to the greeters and classroom teachers.

Mark Lindsley

Delivery Manager

P.S. Click here to download the original document so that you can edit it and use it at your church.

Critical Information About Check-in

FTDeliverySvcs — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 16:14:00 GMT

Hello... Hello... Is this thing on?

One benefit to Fellowship Technologies that you may or may not know is that Big Brother is watching. No, this isn't the fictional character in George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. But rather our nerdy database team tucked away in a dark corner in a nondescript building at 5605 N MacArthur Blvd, Irving TX. They are always monitoring, checking, and rechecking the health of the Fellowship One database. Each person on this team has multiple computer monitors with strange graphs and numbers constantly changing and refreshing.

Besides the obvious stuff like making sure the server is running, they are also analyzing how you are asking for data and making sure that we are returning it in the most efficient way. Through this monitoring it has recently come to my attention that no one is listening to me when I am on the road implementing Fellowship One. If you were you would not be doing this:

I bet the light bulb just turned on and now you are ready to repent. No? Ok let me explain what you are looking at. This graph is from Sunday June 22, there were 52K (Check-in version 2.5) searches for the day. This data only represents a portion of the overall Check-in traffic, there were 205K total Check-in 2.5 methods called. The problem with the numbers is the first bar which represents name searches. There were over 20,000 name searches performed when trying to check people in. That number is way too high. Why? Because name searches are more prone to mistakes. "Hi Welcome to Super Duper Mega Church can I get your last name? Masolaouski? Is that with one Z or two?" Versus "Hi Welcome to Super Duper Mega Church can I get the last 4 digits of your phone number? 1919. Welcome back Mr. Maslouski, will you be checking in Maggie, Marcie, Mark, and Zagloob?"

Now to be fair some of you are doing terrific. This next graph represents one church that is doing it almost right. The first bar represents bar code searches which is fantastic. That is the best, most efficient way to check in. Way to go Super Duper Mega Church! You know who you are. But before you get too slap happy look at that next bar which represents name searches. When someone forgets their bar code you are using name as a backup search option. The third pancake (I can't even call it a bar) represents phone number searches. Those two should be reversed.

The last issue that I want to speak openly about is the churches that are using our assisted check in option as self check in.

The next graph represents name searches that we pulled out of the system. I am guessing that a highly trained check-in volunteer did not type this into the system.

We have changed some of the names to protect the "innocent" and we definitely removed the vulgar search items that we found. I am still blushing from some of the search requests. This isn't a dating service people!

Assisted Check-In was designed to be "Assisted", meaning that a volunteer checks in the family into their classrooms. We have a great new self check-in application that protects the data integrity of the church and allows for self-sufficient members or regular attendees to check themselves in. I have heard the argument before "our members are smart enough to figure out your very well designed Assisted Check-In solution, and our teenagers would never do anything inappropriate." The above searches prove otherwise.

If you haven't yet NOW IS THE TIME TO REPENT. Take the training classes again. Listen to the soft soothing voice of Bill Wheaton lull you into submissive understanding. Download THIS DOCUMENT which will give your check-in volunteer the approved party line on how to properly check in people that don't have their ~~bar codes~~ Happy Passes. Stay with the flock...

Matthew McMaster

Delivery Manager (and mind control expert)

Swim Lane Documents: Contact Management 201

FTDeliverySvcs — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 16:26:00 GMT

In this blog entry I will be sharing something the delivery team has been working on. (When we are not doing the Delivery side of our job) We have been documenting processes and putting them into a usable form. The document needed to be flexible because Fellowship One is very flexible and constantly improving how churches work with individuals. We landed on Swim Lane documents. Since the Olympics are on right now, and I think Michael Phelps is winning something in the water as I write this, you should know what a swim lane is. For our purposes we are attempting to show how a task, such as working a contact from beginning to end, flows from one person to another across those swim lanes. The first document was penned by Will Steed. He has been a Delivery Manager at Fellowship Technologies for a while now and comes from a consulting background. The documents referred to below have been updated in the 5 Degrees of Contacts blog post.

The top of the document is the Swim Lane. This represents how the contact flows from the Congregation to the Data Entry Team and on to the Staff. If you are the entire staff at your church, just switch your hat around and pretend you are the data entry team for a short period of time.

The bottom portion of the document should give you best practice tips for each of the blocks in the Swim Lane. This is not meant to be a training document or to walk you through how something is done step by step in Fellowship One. We have a Bill Wheaton for that task. You can find him and the rest of the Education Department on the Education tab. Where Bill stops we try and pick up with the "which is the best way to do this task".

Towards the end of Will's Process the Card Swim Lane it leaves off with "Working the Contact Begins". This can take on different work flows based on what type of contact you are processing. In the example below I describe how contacts can work when fully utilizing the Small Groups Manager in Fellowship One. I tried to make it generic but I was thinking of using the Small Group Manager for Care ministries when I wrote the document. You can get more information on why you might want to use the Small Group Manager to coordinate care ministry activities HERE.

You are the first to be exposed to our new Swim Lane documents so I would really appreciate some constructive feedback. Nothing like "Will Steed is a silly name", or "I don't like blue font colors". Don't forget my ego is easily bruised or bolstered so feel free to say "Matt, you're the best". For those who are eager to get their hands on these documents, know that we have a dozen swim lane documents created already, but we want to get your feedback on format before we hand them out.

Matthew McMaster

Delivery Manager and Document Producer

Using Group Manager for Care Ministries: A Case Study

FTDeliverySvcs — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 05:34:00 GMT

Recently I was working with CrossWinds church in Dublin CA and came across a situation I had seen in the past but did not have a great solution to meet their needs. Recent advances in F1's ability to send contacts to small group leaders has provided a solution that now easily meets a care ministry needs.

The Issue:

CrossWinds Church has care teams that are regionally based around the Dublin City area and provide services to people in need. They bring meals to families that need them, they visit people in the hospital, and they provide services such as lawn mowing to single parents. Each team is comprised of a leader and an area coordinator. The leader is responsible for the group and recruiting new volunteers into their ministry. The area coordinator is responsible for coordinating efforts of the team members to provide services and report the information back to the church staff.

Prior to Fellowship One this was being done through a network of Excel spreadsheets, email notices, and phone calls which were all painstakingly tracked by the staff to keep an idea of what was going on across all of the teams. The pastor responsible for care groups also tracked volunteer activity (who was providing the meals or visitation) to keep a list of top volunteers for the purpose of thanking them and promoting the ministry.

The F1 Solution:

The first need was to track who was involved in the teams. Since the church was regionally tracking the teams I proposed that the Activity Groups be the regions of the area that the groups were divided into. This would allow for expansion of the teams or possible sub division of some of the larger teams which could include up to 80 people. The Team Leader then could be assigned at the Activity Group level and the area coordinators could be assigned over smaller groups.

The second need was to be able to take requests for ministry from multiple sources such as web, phone, and information cards. They would all be input into the contact management system in Fellowship One as contact items. Each type of request would be tracked as a separate contact item. (hospital visitation, meals ministry, service requests, etc) This would allow the church to run reports and determine the greatest need of the community at any given point and also perform trend analysis. (I.E. how many meals did the church provide in 2007 compared to 2008?)

After contacts were entered into F1 from the various sources they all routed to an administrative assistant that would validate the request and determine the best team to handle the issue based on area and type of service the team provided. The contact would then be transferred to the small group which triggers an email alert to the Area Coordinator. (See training video in eUniversity for how this occurs)

The Area Coordinator then assigns the task to one or multiple Care Team members who then provide services/meals/visitations to the requesting party. Notes are entered on the contact through the Group Manager by the Area Coordinator for each instance of service. The Area Coordinator also posts "attendance" for the team members who are providing the services. This allows the Church staff to track their top volunteers for the purposes previously mentioned. Through the process the Area Coordinator is setting the proper disposition for the contact item which allows for tracking "success" vs "failures" which are difficult to determine without contact dispositions.

The church staff runs regular reports tracking open, in progress, and closed contacts. They track open and in progress contacts to verify that the area coordinators are properly documenting and following up with service requests. They also track closed contacts for the same purpose as well as to see if any staff follow up is needed.

This same scenario can easily be replicated at your church. Levels of security for this type of ministry can also be adjusted to allow all team members to update the contact items. Training of staff and volunteers is important to the success of this ministry.

Matthew McMaster

Passionate for People Because Christ Is

The Best First Time Visitor with Children Process EVER

FTDeliverySvcs — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 21:00:00 GMT

The pressure created by putting a title like that on a blog is not lost on me but I love this process. I have seen so many exciting and dynamic churches use this documented process and heard the success stories enough to know that this process has meat on its bones.

I heard it said somewhere that “Assimilation starts in the parking lot” and that is where we will begin. The key to this process is getting as many first time guests in through a particular church entrance as possible. Most churches have lots of ways to get in but we want to funnel the first time guest through the front door. The easiest way to do this is to have a designated first time visitor parking area. One thing that I think is greatly underestimated at many mid sized churches is the parking ministry. With a well trained parking lot ministry you can quickly fill and exit the church parking lot in an orderly fashion.

The next step is signage. I tell my churches that the first time visitor check in area needs to have a sign so big that blind people feel its presence. “FIRST TIME GUEST CHILDREN REGISTRATION” Why be subtle here? Below that sign is going to be the first time visitor desk. At that desk will be a computer station running the Fellowship One Check-In application. There is no need for a touch screen at this location. A fast typist and the Zebra LP-2844-Z printer is all you need. A well trained volunteer can even begin putting the information into the system by reading the card upside down as the parental unit is filling in the information.

The next step is getting your first time guest registration card in their hand. The picture below shows you the key elements. While the parental unit #1 is filling out the registration card the Super Greeter (here to for known as SG) will come and introduce themselves to the additional parental unit and kids.

As you might imagine with a title of SG they have to be special. This is not the position you fill with people that say “I was thinking of volunteering this weekend… Do you have some place to put me?” This is the position that people are promoted to. The perfect person for this position is Chatty Cathy. You couldn’t shut her up if you wanted to. Come on now you are picturing someone in your mind right now aren’t you? This person is super friendly, super nice, super knowledgeable, and has been at the church since they laid the foundation. They need to be well versed on security procedures in the children’s building. They need to know all of the teacher’s names or at least recognize them. They need to know the difference between Nursery and Preschool. They need to know what curriculum is and how it is applied at different levels in the Children’s Ministry. When I think of this person I picture my mother. I am fairly sure that she has never (not even once) sat by someone on a plane where by the time they touched down she didn’t know if they were married, how many kids they have, where they went to school, where they live, and why they are on that plane.

When the parental unit #1 is done filling out the card they hand the card to the regular greeter behind the counter who then enters parental unit #1’s name and DOB into the check-in system. The Regular Greeter (here to for know as RG) then enters in each child’s name, DOB, and any allergy information into the check-in system and prints off the nametags. The nametags are then handed from the RG to the SG who then grabs a church map and circles all of the classrooms where the children units have landed. While the map is being circled by the SG the RG re-instantiates the database by configuring the flux capacitor using the Heins-Bergenstein method which all churches should know by now.

They then escort the family to each of the classrooms dumping the before mentioned information on the family. They introduce the parent to each of the teachers and explain that since the 80’s we no longer take homeless people in off the streets and make them nursery workers. Nowadays we run a background check on every teacher. Not only that but we have strict policies in place to ensure your child’s safety.

After walking the parents to each classroom and explaining the differences between the curriculum and drop off/pick up procedures they escort the parents to the sanctuary. Once there they help the family find a seat near the back of the sanctuary so that if they get paged it will be easier for them to exit. They show them the screens used to page and tell them what to look for. They then introduce them to the Smith family who always sits there waiting for the next first time visitor family to arrive and be friendly to.

Rinse and repeat…

Matthew McMaster

Currently Building My Own Flying Delorian

Check-In Dos and Don'ts

FTDeliverySvcs — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 23:09:00 GMT

I have recently volunteered to be on site at churches when they go live with Fellowship One check-in. Not too long ago, I always passed on these opportunities because I believed it to be a waste of my time and a waste of the churches money. I had explained to the church several times and they had watched hours of training videos explaining how to setup and run check-in. Not only that but I had just been there walking the church through the check-in process. What was there not to understand?

The issues I will be presenting below I have seen at nearly every church I have worked with helping them to get up and running on check-in. A common issue is facing the kiosk towards the guests. Anyone that has been to an airport lately and seen self check-in would say that they had them setup correctly. The problem was that these kiosks were not for self check-in. In the diagram below you can see the problem. The “Greeter” manning the check-in station has to turn their back on the people they are checking in.

I know what you are thinking now and yes… I do come from a family of artists. Notice the angst on the children’s faces as the check-in greeter does a poor job of checking them in. It breaks your heart doesn’t it?

The next common mistake that I have seen deals with kiosk spacing. When churches initially setup their kiosk in an empty room they tend to place them two feet apart or less. This seems to make perfect sense even when they are testing and having their staff come up to the check-in station and pretend to be a family checking in on Sunday. The problem is that you will rarely ever have just one person checking into a children’s activity. What is more common is a mother checking in with two to four children orbiting her like satellites while dad graciously offered to drop them off at the door so he could “park” the car. What mom probably already knows is that dad only offered because of the chaos that ensues when dropping the kids off. If he can time it right, all the work will be done and mom will be ready for coffee and bagels by the time he makes his entrance. Sorry guys… if I can’t do this anymore because my lovely wife and mother of my 4 kids has figured this out than neither can you! In the wonderfully illustrated diagram below, you can see the proper placement of kiosks.

Lastly we address the issue of lines. Death, taxes, and lines are inevitable if you are human and a part of a growing, dynamic church. The only way to avoid lines is self check-in (which will not be addressed in this blog), teaching your parents not to show up 2 minutes before the service starts (yeah right), or a moral failure by your Sr. Pastor. I personally favor self check-in. In the first diagram, originally painted by Van Gogh and skillfully imitated here, you can see a well organized stanchion lined process for parishioners to flow through.

At the exit will be a friendly greeter assisting families to locate the next available check-in station. There are several benefits to this which include a constant state of movement due to the interval of turnover at the different kiosks. It also helps reduce the chaos factor which can be seen clearly in the second diagram. But my personal favorite reason for one line going to multiple kiosks is that you never get stuck in the slow lane. How many times have you been caught in the grocery store line behind the woman that can’t figure out how to write a check or the cashier has the motivation of a man going in for a vasectomy or the guy in front of you wants to argue that the item was clearly marked on the shelf as being .48 cents not .55 cents! CAN I GET AN AMEN!? That will not happen with multiple options available to you at the point of being the next in line.

You do not need to have stanchions and a long line if you have enough check-in stations. The best approach is to have enough kiosks to be able to have only two or three families in any given single kiosk line. This is not always possible and chaos soon follows.

Matthew McMaster

Delivery Manager/Impressionist

Data Integrity Team Responsibilities

FTDeliverySvcs — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 04:42:00 GMT

Weekly Data Integrity Team Tasks

Meet weekly initially to establish training guidelines and come up with a list of authorized data input specialist.
Weekly meetings to establish how and in what format data will be tracked in Fellowship One. I.E. Will we use attendance or attributes to track baptisms?
Establishing minimum information required to input a record in Fellowship One
Establishing and approving any data capture methods such as first time visitor cards, registration cards, and volunteer applications.
Running duplicate individual reports and merging down any duplicate records.
Checking the system status queue in the duplicate finder and reducing the number of system status records to zero each week.
Training classes for any potential data input specialist on staff or volunteers that want to help with data input responsibilities.
Contributions Data Integrity team member match any unmatched checks in Giving Area

Monthly Data Integrity Team Tasks

The first two items in the list should diminish over time and move to monthly then quarterly meetings.

Checking the database for inactive records. Maintaining the integrity of the database through more advanced data mining techniques such as more elusive duplicate records.
If you have multiple campuses, associate individuals with correct campus status per Standard Operating Procedures

Periodic Tasks

The data integrity team should meet after the announcement of a large event at the church to discuss how information will be gathered and tracked. They should also meet with the Fellowship One Champion team to coordinate their efforts.

Why Do We Need a Data Integrity Team?

FTDeliverySvcs — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 02:48:00 GMT

Church silos continue to be a problem at many churches I visit. What many churches don’t understand is that there is more than one type of silo. Communication between ministries (written and verbal) is the easiest to comprehend. Many churches will say they haven’t spoken to anyone in the children’s ministry in as long as they can remember. By establishing cross functional or cross ministry teams you can help tear down that silo wall. There is another silo that exists in churches that I think is more harmful to a churches ability to minister to their congregation. Information silos.

When I first began working at Fellowship Technologies we called them islands of data. The children’s ministry uses an excel spreadsheet to track their volunteers. The children’s ministry spreadsheet contains the most recent contact information they can get from their volunteers. The men’s ministry uses Outlook to track and communicate with the men in the church about upcoming events. The women’s ministry had one of its ladies develop an Access database to track the women in the church. Where did all of these silos come from?

A Church usually starts with a central database to track contributions and should be using this database to track any updated information on its congregation. Did one day the Sr Pastor send out an announcement saying “I want you all to track only your people in separate databases!” Of course not. There are three common reasons for ministries to begin tracking "their" data in a separate database:

The church thinks their current database doesn't provide the functionality they need
The finance or member services ministry implements a "all changes to personal information must be submitted in writing and in triplicate" policy
Or they think other ministries don't need access to "their" data

I am guessing at this point you might think I jump on the bandwagon and begin trashing my competitors. I mean there is blood in the water it is easily justifiable and the church would probably love to hear me agree with them. I never do. I usually say your current database probably has the ability they are complaining about. The problem is that the staff is under trained or the current database is difficult to work in.

As for the second issue that the finance/member services ministry wants everyone to submit any changes to a person’s communication values in writing via email; that is just silly. Ministry happens with or without a database. Pastoral staff and administrative staff move on to tracking their information in the easiest way possible with little or no regard to the church as a whole. They create a big honking silo. (honking is a technical term)

Don't even get me started on the third issue. If you need an explanation for that one please read "Politics, Silos, and Turf Wars" by Patrick Lencioni.

This is where the data integrity team comes to the rescue of the church. A key element of the data integrity team is that there is a member on the team from every ministry. Does that mean the worship team needs to submit a person to something they have little or no interest in? Absolutely yes. The data integrity teams goal is to keep from saying things like “quit messing up my database”, or “I am going to lock every user out of this system if I see one more miss typed email address!” Their job is to train and empower the end users in how to properly input data.

Should every user be able to input data? Absolutely NOT! But when a user needs to input data to perform their roll in ministry they should be properly trained and vetted by the data integrity team. If that user offends… retrain them. If the user continues to mess up the database restrict their access and retrain them.

Lastly the only way to be successful as a data integrity team leader is to face each day by saying “what am I going to do today so that the church does not need me anymore”. Scary I know. But you should think of the data like sand, the more you squeeze it in your fist the more sand escapes.

God Bless,

Matthew McMaster
Delivery Manager
(with lots of help from most of my team!)

P.S. If Granger agrees with me then I must be on the right track!

http://kemmeyer.typepad.com/less_clutter_noise/2008/02/we-dont-have-a.html

Fellowship One Champion Team

FTDeliverySvcs — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 22:17:00 GMT

One mistake we have made in the past in the Delivery Team at Fellowship Technologies is putting all of our eggs in one basket. This basket was the Fellowship One Champion. We would pour all of our knowledge and experience into this one person. They in turn were supposed to lead the cause for Fellowship One at The Local Church. Many times they would end up owning it to the point where the church staff would look at Fellowship One as something they did not own or control. In hindsight, we were creating a silo. Not only that, but this was a very mobile silo that could depart the church at any moment and leave the church with a huge hole. On many occasions we would have to go back to an existing client because one person left the church and took all the knowledge with them. To combat this problem, we have begun advocating the creation of a Fellowship One Champion Team.

The Champion Team consists of one person from each ministry who will be responsible for Fellowship One in that ministry. The team begins by meeting on a weekly basis to establish standards in Fellowship One. This would include who gets access to Fellowship One, what security rights are to be given out to whom, what standard requirements are for tracking attendance, and setting priorities for check in. Over time they will meet less and less, moving to monthly and possibly quarterly meetings. The exception to this is when large events come up such as VBS, conferences, volunteer fairs, and other large church events. When these events are announced by the leadership team at the church, the Champion Team meets to discuss how this will impact the system. They also need to communicate with leadership as to what information will let them know if the event was successful. Will you be tracking registrations via the web? Will Check-In be used?

This is where the real benefit of a cross functional team comes into play. The children’s ministry champion knows check-in better than anyone else so they can help make sure the event is setup properly and possibly provide training materials for the volunteers. The youth ministry champion knows web registration better than anyone else and can help set that up. The finance champion can make sure that the funds are setup for possible payments. Not only that, but the ministries are discussing at a very basic level what needs to be done and by whom. Communication increases, understanding of roles and responsibilities increases, and return on ministry from Fellowship One increases.

If your saying to yourself… what silos? It’s just me to run the children’s, youth, worship, administration, men’s, women’s, and mission’s ministries. Or some variation of multi-tasking ministries then you might not have silo issues. What you should still do is find a backup person that can help you manage and understand Fellowship One. In this scenario a key volunteer would be a good solution. They can work from home or from the office on their lunch break. Just don’t leave yourself open to becoming an island of information or a silo of one with little or no chance of taking a vacation without the world coming to an end.
In the next blog I will be discussing the other critical cross functional team: The Data Integrity Team.

Matt McMaster
Delivery Manager
Fellowship Technologies

Silos… The Unspoken Barrier to Ministry

FTDeliverySvcs — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 04:40:00 GMT

My name is Matthew McMaster and I have been a Delivery Manager at Fellowship Technologies since March of 2004. In that time I have implemented over 100 churches. Some of them have been very sophisticated in how they communicate within their ministries but many of them have a real silo issue. When each ministry functions as its own separate entity with little or no regard for the larger entity (The Local Church) as a whole, you have a group of silos; not a unified team. An example of this would be when the Youth Pastor gets their new students to fill out a first time visitor card. This seemingly ordinary process is really masking a silo issue. When you look closer at the first time visitor card you will notice it is missing some very important information. What are the parent’s names? Do they have any siblings and what are their ages? What is the best way to get in touch with the parents? Do they have a church home? Now the Youth pastor might say, “That information isn’t necessary for me to reach that student.” This is a silo mentality. The Youth Pastor is forgetting that the student is part of a larger entity of the family. Each member of the family is a potential soul needing to be reached. Each member of the family is the target market for other ministries at The Local Church.

Another example of a silo that I have seen involves working with multiple ministries trying to coordinate volunteer activities. There really is a best first time visitor with children process and it involves “Super Greeters” that can escort a family from one classroom to another explaining the check in and pick up processes. These “Super Greeters” naturally come from the Greeting team which is a separate ministry from the children’s ministry. I have heard from the leaders in this ministry on many occasions, “Why do I need to staff Greeters in the Children’s Building? That is their responsibility!” This silo mentality is detrimental to the volunteers as well as potential guests.

There are many other types of silos but I think you get my point. So now you must be wondering, “What do I do to break down those silos?” The answer is deceptively simple… Cross functional Teams. In future blogs, I will discuss two specific cross functional teams but you can have many more. The first is the Fellowship One Champion Team and the second is the Data Integrity Team. In my next entry, I will be discussing how the Champion Team functions.

Matthew McMaster
Delivery Manager
Fellowship Technologies.

Student Ministries - Name Tags - Are they worth it? 3 of 3

FTDeliveryTeam — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 13:23:00 GMT

I hope eveyone had a safe and fun holiday weekend! The last blog entry was all about making the name tags cool for the youth. This week, we’re going to talk about how to implement Self Check-In for Student Ministries. This last cool factor of name tags will help you tremendously as you won’t have to have as many volunteers manning Check-In Stations.

There are four important things that are needed for Self Check-In to work properly:

1. The student must be in the system.

2. The student must have a barcode number assigned to them.

3. They must have a Participant Assignment (be on the roster) in the Youth Activity.

4. They must have a barcode key fob to be scanned at the Self Check-In Station.

· As mentioned, each individual needs a barcode key fob. This is very similar to the grocery store super saver key fob that you probably have on your key chain. However, these key fobs will definitely need to be on the cool side with the youth graphics along with service times, address, phone info, etc to promote the youth activities.

· Any student not driving yet should also receive a lanyard to clip the key fob so they won’t lose it. The lanyard could be as simple as a dog tag chain with key fob hanging on it. The student will wear it around their neck at service and then hang it on a door knob at home.

If any of the above are not met, the student must go to the Assisted Check-In Station. Going to the Assisted Check-In will help in welcoming new students. It will also help in placing individuals on the roster and issuing the barcodes. For youth that have lost their barcode, standing in line while their friends are hanging out will encourage them to remember it and not lose it.

The best practice for issuing the barcodes for the very first time is to issue them at the Check-In Station. You have the capability to edit the individual’s information while at the Check-In Station. It’s very easy to scan the barcode at that time and provide the key fob to the student.

If you have a Kick-Off Night just for issuing the barcodes, you can do as shown above and then have the students try it immediately. This can be done by checking them into the normal Youth Activities for the night using the Assisted Check-In Station. Then, have the student try checking in using one of the Self Check-In Stations. The key here is that the students must be on the roster for the Kick-Off Night activity via a Participant Assignment.

To illustrate this process… they’ll get their usual name tag at the Assisted Check-In Station. As well, they’ll be issued their barcode. They’ll then be instructed to check-in at the Self Check-In station which will give them another name tag. This name tag should be used for some type of drawing. I know, another drawing, however, by having the student check-in immediately, they’ll see immediately how the Self Check-In application works. This will reinforce how easy it is.

I trust that after the last three weeks that you have learned the benefits of having students check-in and how easy it is to have it acceptable by our coolest congregants. It is definitely cool to have name tags and it’s even cooler knowing who’s present and who’s not. This great tool ensures that you are providing the best possible care for each student.

Student Ministries - Name Tags - Are they worth it? 2 of 3

FTDeliveryTeam — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 02:18:00 GMT

Last week we talked about the importance of Name Tags. The top 3 reasons for having the youth wear name tags were

Name – Face Recognition
Approachability
100% Attendance Reporting.

Now, how do we get those cool congregants to wear name tags? We make it cool to wear name tags.

It first starts with the messaging from the youth leadership and the enforcement (encouragement) of wearing the name tags. The messaging from the Youth Pastor and other Youth Leaders has to show that everyone sees the importance of wearing the name tags. If the Youth Pastor is negative, then the youth will easily and quickly catch on to this vibe and not wear the name tags. Also, everyone needs to wear the name tags including the Youth Pastor and Youth Leaders.

Secondly, condition the youth to wear the name tags. If they’re not already wearing name tags, they might rebel just at the thought of wearing them. You can condition them to wear name tags, by having a drawing for everyone that checks in and gets a name tag. This drawing can be done over the first few weeks. You can have a weekly drawing or one big drawing after the first few weeks. To help facilitate the drawing, just print out an Asset Tag at the Check-In Review screen. The Asset Tag is used normally for nursery-aged children to ensure that their belongings (diaper bag, bottles, etc.) are returned to them. In this case, the Asset Tag would be used for the drawing. It works great, because it has the church logo, date, and the student’s name on the Asset Tag.

The drawing can also be used as an outreach tool. For every friend that the student brings, print another Asset Tag. Thus, if they brought 3 friends, they now have 3 more entries into the drawing.

Allow the youth to add “flair” to their name tag. Flair was made popular by waiters and waitresses at T.G.I.F. restaurants. It refers to the buttons, sunglasses, etc., that they’d wear. Using the same concept, once a month or weekly, allow them to add stickers (flair) to their name tag. It’s best for you to create the flair beforehand. Some fun ideas for the flair stickers: sports stickers, sport teams stickers (college and pro), skate boarding sticker, shopping sticker, etc. Fellowship Technologies actually used this flair idea at the 2007 Dynamic Church User Conference. It was a great fun way to get to know each other. Shameless plug... please make sure to mark your calendar for May 15th-17th for the next Dynamic Church User Conference in 2008. It's never too early to budget for this great event!

Back to the name tags... Make the wearing of name tags necessary to participate in Youth Activities (Xbox, pool, foosball, etc.) or enter the Youth Service. As mentioned last week, the wearing of name tags will ensure that the attendance is at 100%. As well, it allows everyone that checked in the privilege of participating.

Lastly, for the cool factor, use Fellowship One Self Check-In. This allows the youth to check themselves in. In their own minds, they don’t need you to be doing this for them.

Next week, we’ll talk about the best way to roll out Self Check-In for Student Ministries.