Automate. aː.t̬ə.meɪt – to make a process in a factory or office operate by machines or computers in order to reduce the amount of work done by humans and the time taken to do the work.
We’ve come a long way from the days of oil lamps being physically lit to have any light. Apps now exist to light up our entire house at a certain time of day, and we don’t have to lift a finger. Vacuum cleaners now run on their own and empty themselves.
Why wouldn’t we also expect our ChMS to run itself?
Don’t get me wrong, automation is fantastic. I highly encourage using it. It can ensure we don’t miss things we normally could. But when a church says they want to automate ALL of the processes and information related to their guests…I have to pause.
Do we really want to become fully “hands-off” churches? My opinion? No. But why?
Our people – whether guests, members, old or young – have a story, and that story is integral to the forward trajectory of our church’s growth. The more we know about a person, the more we can engage them. The more we can engage them, the more our people will get connected. And how can we really get to know our people if automation does it all?
Let automation process information related to things such as:
- Did they recently respond to a serving need you have?
- Did they complete a final milestone in a journey?
- Has their level of engagement had a negative change?
You should even let your system automatically send them an email about their serving response, auto-assign a milestone to complete their journey, and communicate with them when their engagement level changes.
But don’t remove yourself from the workflow. Make sure you see that information because that is how you will get to know your people and where they are in their discipleship journey. And that is how you will connect with your community.
Automate. Use the power of your system. Take some of that work off of your ministry plate.
Just don’t let your people become nothing more than data because of too much automation.
About Candice Hoy
Candice has been married for 27 years to Robert and has one daughter, Morgan. She resides in Tulsa, Oklahoma which is a hop-skip-and-a-jump from her hometown of Enid where she served on her local church staff for 10 years in multiple departments to include: Children, Student Ministry, Women’s, Senior Adults, and Singles. She joined the team at MinistryPlatform in 2019 after using the system at her home church. She loves that MP empowers churches through flexible technology.
