With three locations in Davidson, Huntersville, and Westlake, North Carolina, Lake Forest Community Church’s mission is to love people as they discover and live out their role in God’s story. But the only way to do that is to know and be able to engage with each of the 1,500+ people who walks through the doors of the church.
Prior to 2016, the leaders at LFC were using a database system that didn’t give them the option to delete or merge duplicate profiles for the same person. This challenge coupled with limited options for the information included on a profile made it difficult for the staff to effectively connect with people and guests within the church.
“Managing profiles was not an easy task,” says Jenn Poppen, Systems Coordinator. “People were always accidentally creating profiles, and we couldn’t merge or delete them. That didn’t work for us. Reporting was really, really difficult. And we are a church that likes data. So trying to report on things was not functional.”
They needed a solution that would allow them to preserve the integrity of their data by removing extra profiles and include detailed information all the way down to where and how a person is serving. The answer to their problems came when they switched to Realm.
“In Realm, a person’s profile can give so much information,” Jenn says. “You can add even simple things like what their favorite things are so that when I have a volunteer who wants to get treats for somebody because they found out they were in the hospital, you can access all that information in a minute on your phone.”
With easy-to-manage profiles and mobile access to their database, the leadership team at LFC are now able to meet people where they are and truly connect with them as they help each person find their place within the Body of Christ.
“You can capture all the information you need for volunteers or people in one place,” Jenn says. “So [leaders are] able to do their ministry if that means serving people, helping people, knowing people. It’s all in one place. And that helps them do their job, no matter what it is, more effectively.”
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