Church administration is a daunting task and there are several reasons for this.
Asides from having to deal with managing funds and dealing with loads of emails, there’s also dealing with church communication. Sometimes, it feels like there are too many tasks to accomplish, that twenty-four hours aren’t sufficient to handle.
The good news is that there are ways to make church administration easier. It takes developing an efficient support system and employing better planning. In this post, we will show you 5 ways to make your church administration easier.
How can church administration be improved?
Despite church administration being so tedious, there are several things that you can do to improve it and make it easier. We will discuss some of these things in this section.
Adopt automation
Keeping track of volunteers, emails, social media, finances, etc. manually is a huge ask. The church administrator will get worn out within a very short time trying to do all of this. This will result in mistakes and burnout.
To prevent this from happening, you should adopt automation. A church management software like ChurchPad makes it easy to track just about anything you want to. From text giving to church communication and congregation management
Adopting automation helps to deal with confusion and miscommunication resulting from traditional methods. It also helps to reduce the tasks of the administrator to the barest minimum. All the administrator has to do is monitor the system and provide input when necessary.
Clear communication
Church communication is a very important aspect of church administration. The administrative office is saddled with the responsibility of bridging the communication gap between the church leadership and congregants. It must also convey messages to volunteers in various departments with clarity.
This can be a lot of work if the church has several thousands of volunteers and congregants. We have already told you about adopting automation. That’s not enough for communication. The administrator must also employ several other tools to ensure clear and smooth communication.
Several resources can make the job easier. One of them is Canva. This app makes it easy to create simple designs that can be shared on social media platforms and in emails. Now, the administrator doesn’t have to wait for the graphic designer to get designs ready each week. They can create simple designs and input them into the automated system that then shares them on the desired platforms.
The administrator should have a clear understanding of the audience. Doing this makes it easy to send out messages in a language that each audience understands clearly. As such, the back-and-forth caused by misunderstanding is reduced drastically.
Create a directory of vendor contacts
One of the duties of a church administrator is ensuring that the church runs smoothly. What this means is that the administrator is responsible for the daily running of the church facility. It also implies that when the church is running low on supplies, the administrator must restock.
This will be very challenging if the administrator had to leave the office each time to visit the vendors. They wouldn’t get any work done if they utilized this model. A lot of tasks will drag and there will be so many lapses.
An easy way to solve this problem is to create a directory of vendor contacts. With this in place, heads of departments know who to call when they are running low on supplies. Now, the administrator isn’t the only one with the contacts or answers regarding prices and supplies.
It gets easier if you make use of a ChMS like ChurchPad. All you need to do is to create the directory on the app and share it with the different departments. Add relevant pieces of information like –
- Organization name
- Contact information
- Description
This way, anyone that has a need can simply pick the contact information and reach the vendor directly.
Create to-do lists
Organizing tasks is one very difficult aspect of church administration. Everything else that you do lies in how organized you can be. Poor organization means that so many tasks will be left unattended. The result of this is a very messy administration process.
One way to make church administration easier is by creating to-do lists. As you prepare for a new month, you should figure out what tasks you should carry out all through the month. Write them down and organize them in order of priority. After doing this, split each task into modules for easier comprehension and completion.
What you get is an overall to-do list for the month and sub-to-do lists for each task. You can enter these lists into your calendar or organizer software. Also, set up reminders for each task so that you don’t get lost.
The administrator will thrive on the satisfaction of completing each task and striking them off the list. Also, the issue of deciding on what tasks to complete each day is dealt with. You are sure of what you should be doing each day. Just arrive at the office and get to work.
Make use of finance apps
Asides from ChMS, you also need to make use of finance apps. These apps make it easy to track your finances, digital donation, and text giving. More than anything else, finance apps make it easier to handle church accounting, a very sensitive aspect of church administration.
Poor financial management could ground the church. With a finance app, the administrator can track cash inflow and outflow. This way, creating reports at the end of the month becomes a piece of cake. You can link the app to your church account so it draws its records straight from there.
The output from these apps helps you to know the financial state of the church. It also makes it easier to draw up budgets for each month. All of these are tasks that make the job of the administrator very tedious.
Conclusion
Church administration doesn’t have to be as difficult as we make it to be. We have shown you some tips to make it easier. You can check out ChurchPad and try out its amazing church administration features.
