More Than a Church Growth Platform – It’s a Discipleship Strategy

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With a solid background in both the technology industry and the pastoral ministry, Blue Van Dyke has a piece of solid advice for church leaders. When he confers with them about selecting a digital tool to better disciple their members, he tells them, “Technology and even some processes should be submissive to your church’s methodology.”

Your church’s strategy and how you approach discipleship need to be your top priorities. The digital tools and processes you use to implement your discipleship strategies serve as support to help you actualize your goals.

Focus on Your Discipleship Strategy When Choosing Digital Tools

Think about the tools Jesus used to disciple his followers. A boatload of fish, a jug of wine, a cup of cool water – and even a sycamore tree – all served as tools to support his discipleship strategy.

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Instead of building His strategy around his tools, He let His strategy determine the right tool for each individual and group He encountered. So should you.

Because today’s technology is so new, churches often only look at its features and capabilities rather than how those features and capabilities fit with their overall engagement strategy.

Just think about it. If you walked into a car dealership needing a sturdy pickup truck and walked out with the keys to a sleek two-seater sports car, you’d probably kick yourself in about a week when you need to haul your lawnmower into the shop.

It’s just a variation on the shiny new toy syndrome. Instead, let your purpose drive your purchase.

First, Centralize Your Church’s Ministries and Communications

Having a central hub to align all your ministries and communications keeps everyone on the same page. If every ministry is in charge of all their communication and strategy, they need to align their mission and their communications with one central goal. 

Otherwise, you run the risk of overwhelming your church’s members with a ton of messages, each needing their attention. Without a central communications and data hub, you might not even know that your church’s many communications are annoying your members until they drop out of sight. 

Until you align your ministries and communications around one guiding vision, you will never engage your members effectively, no matter how robust your technology is. Your tech must support your vision, not replace it. 

When looking for a church engagement platform, it pays to go in with a list of your discipleship goals, then determine if the tool has the operational capacity to achieve them. Having a tool designed specifically for churches, for instance, would be more likely to tick off more boxes than one designed for businesses.

Assess How the Platform Equips Your Team to Engage with Your Members

How well do your current tech tools equip your leadership team to engage with your church members? Your tools need to support your ministry, not stand in its way. 

Since your staff isn’t omnipotent like Jesus is, you need digital tools that make ministry easier. That’s why we integrated a staff portal into our member engagement platform. 

The staff portal displays a search bar at the top of your staff members’ dashboard. This tool allows them to search for a member, see what messages the member is seeing, and look at what steps each member has taken along their discipleship journey, along with basic information from your church management system (ChMS). It streamlines and simplifies the information, giving you the tools to minister to your people at scale.

And, with our Next Steps program, you can gently nudge your members to take the next step along their faith journey, whether that be attending a baptism class or volunteering to teach Sunday School. It’s the missing link that can make even a megachurch seem like a welcoming home.

Want to set your team up with digital tools they need to succeed?

Assess How Members Engage with Your Platform

Not everyone who walks through your doors will be tech-savvy. Having an easy-to-use, accessible member dashboard will help drive up your tool’s adoption rate.

Make sure your member engagement works on both mobile devices and desktops. With an easy-to-use interface, even your most tech-averse members can enjoy using it.

Learn How to Align Your Tech with Your Discipleship Strategy

Selecting the right tech to support your discipleship strategy is all about the results – how well it serves your overall vision. At The StudioC, we tailor your congregation’s onboarding process to your unique needs. Our team will walk you through every detail until you and your members think of your app as their second church home.

Even better, we offer an all-day strategy workshop that will help you align your strategy with your technology to realize your ultimate goal: reaching more people for Christ. To learn more about how aligning your tech with your strategy can turbocharge your ministry, get in touch with our sales team today!