How Tithe.ly Tools Help Time Management

Time management is a skill. It’s developed and perfected over time. It’s bolstered by strategies and tactics that help you stay focused. And it’s reinforced by that awesome feeling you get when you accomplish a long-term goal or finally slay your To Do list. 

But time management is more than a mindset. You might be highly disciplined, laser-focused, and wonderfully self-aware during your work day. But without the right tools, you’ll never succeed. 

There’s a reason that we’ve switched from snail mail to email, and from Word docs to Google docs, and from in-person meetings to Zoom calls. All these tools, in one way or another, help us to save time. Whether they speed up delivery, cut down on back and forth communication, or reduce commute time to zero, these tools help us become more efficient. 

Visitors may think that running a church looks like nothing but prayer meetings and Bible reading. But anyone who’s ever been on staff or leadership knows that the church demands the same kinds of tools and technology that are required to run successful secular organizations. 

With unique challenges to time management, multiple departments to run, and hundreds (or thousands) of people to manage, churches need tools–not just discipline–to help them succeed at time management

In the following article, we’ll take a look at a few of the top challenges to time management in the church, and how Tithe.ly tools can help church admin, staff, and leaders save time and become more efficient. 

Time Management Challenges in the Church 

Churches face a number of unique challenges when it comes to time management. They are complex organizations with multiple departments, initiatives that run simultaneously, and a range of members with different backgrounds, behaviors, and needs. 

That being said, most churches will face the three following challenges.

Multitasking

Sunday services. Conferences. Weekly prayer meetings. Small groups. Giving campaigns. Podcasts. Books. Merchandise. New church plants. And the list goes on. 

Churches tend to dream big and execute quickly. Far from what the secular world may think, churches are far from sleepy or passive. If you know, you know: “Church folk” are some of the most driven people on the planet!

With so much to accomplish, church leaders and staff tend to tackle lots at once. But multitasking isn’t conducive to great time management–or to becoming more successful. 

In fact, a professor at Stanford University conducted a study in which he found that people who multitask are worse at filtering and remembering information.

Church leaders and staff who are great at time management know how to handle a lot without multitasking. Instead, they use tools to help them divide and conquer.

Relationship-Centered Work

Relationships are at the center of the church. After all, Jesus gave us a mandate to love others as we love ourselves (Mark 12:31). His teaching was primarily concerned with relationships–with others and with God. 

But relationships don’t always filter well into our working lifestyles, especially when we don’t know how to set boundaries (even Forbes recognizes that boundaries are important). On-demand communication, long conversations, and even an unhealthy “people-pleasing” mentality can drain efficiency and prevent us from accomplishing goals. 

A church that’s truly efficient puts relationships at the center without sacrificing healthy workflows and best practices. At the end of the day, great time management serves people...and creates more space for fruitful, Christ-centered interaction. 

“The Work is Never Done”

“If I were to compile a list of the hardest parts of ministry, I'd top it with the fact that the work is never done,” says Brady Boyd, pastor of New Life Church, in an article he wrote for Christianity Today. “Most professions carry with them natural finish lines—times to pause, even if only momentarily...Not us.”

Boyd points out one of the most difficult parts of leading a church. The work is never quite finished. As the Church, we are called to tell others about Jesus, disciple His followers, and see the Kingdom of God advance until He returns. Not quite the same as launching a product or completing a building project. 

“Never feeling done” can ultimately lead to overwork and overwhelm, sometimes rooted in a works-based mentality. While no tool is going to address the root of this challenge–only Jesus can do that–the right kind of technology can help church staff and leaders remain organized and complete short-term goals. 

Tools for Better Time Management

Tithe.ly helps you improve time management with tools designed just for churches. These are tools that streamline workflows, automate tasks, improve communication, and ultimately, create a better experience for your members.

Here’s a rundown of a few of our favorite tools in the Tithe.ly suite, and how they can help you become better at time management–and create a stronger church. 

Save Time on Managing People with Tithe.ly ChMS

Tithe.ly’s ChMS is a church management tool that helps you manage and organize the “back end” of everything you do at church, from member management to volunteer check-in to service planning. 

People and Member Management 

Managing members and people is a top priority for churches. But that’s easier said than done. Keeping track of individual members can be a challenge–and a time-suck. 

Tithe.ly’s people and member management tool makes it simple to communicate with your congregants and follow up with first-time visitors. With easy-to-access profiles for members, this tool can help you save time on accessing information. It can also keep management organized and transparent. 

Automated Workflows

Each project or initiative at the church has its own workflow, and with that, people and tasks to manage. It takes time to make sure that people are on top of their tasks and responsibilities, and to follow projects to completion.

Managing different initiatives can also be a distraction. When you’re doing something that demands unhindered focus (such as preparing a sermon or creating content), the last thing you want to do is break focus. But when you’re overseeing projects, interruptions are often the norm.

Tithe.ly’s ChMS helps you to automate workflows so that you can stay on top of the ball without spending a ton of time and effort on management. 

Group Management

Small groups are often the heartbeat of the local church, but organizing them can be time-consuming. Transient members, evolving leadership, and changing locations are all status quo in small groups. 

Tithe.ly’s ChMS makes this responsibility easier and more time-efficient with group management. Ultimately, it also helps church staff and leaders to care better for congregants and small group attendants.

Child & Volunteer Check-In

For anyone on church staff, Sunday morning service is hectic. In theory, Sunday can be a wonderful time to connect with people, minister to others, and have valuable touchpoints. But oftentimes, administrative demands–such as managing volunteer and childcare–can stand in the way of those goals. 

Tithe.ly’s ChMS can help you easily check in both children and volunteers on a Sunday morning, so that you can focus your time on what’s really important: connecting with people, and with God. 

Make Marketing Easy with Tithe.ly Media & Sites

Like it or not, a big part of running a church in 2021 is spreading awareness and building a brand–especially online. But like everything else, creating content and strategizing on campaigns take time. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the growth of online church by leaps and bounds. 18% of all adults in the U.S. said they watched an online service for the first time ever during the height of the pandemic.  Even as most churches have reopened, the impact of online church is lasting. Many Christians are now accustomed to learning about churches online, looking for an online presence, and digitally connecting with their churches. 

Tithe.ly has tools like free media and a site building platform to make the task of branding and awareness easy and most importantly, time-efficient. 

Tithe.ly Media 

More than ever, churches have a high need for visual content–for their social media accounts, websites, sermon series, and more. And in a content-saturated world, members and potential visitors have high expectations for beautiful, quality graphics that feel relevant (In other words, gone are the days of cheesy church graphics). 

But creating media can be tedious. You can always outsource content creation to a graphic designer, but that can be expensive and complicated. The solution? Free church media that’s fresh, beautiful, and customizable. 

Tithe.ly Media provides media to churches (even without Tithe.ly accounts) to make it fast and simple to come up with amazing graphics for social media campaigns, sermon series, and more. Plus, it’s absolutely free–and unlimited–to use. 

Tithe.ly Sites

Your church website is one of your most important touchpoints for members and visitors. Your site provides important information about service times, small groups, and upcoming events. It gives visitors an idea of who you are, and what you stand for (essential for the 17 million non-churchgoers that visit church sites every year!). And it provides an important platform for giving. 

Building and managing a website, however, doesn’t have to be expensive or complicated. Your website should make life easier for your church, by providing a simple hub of communication and engagement that’s mostly “hands off” for staff.  

Tithe.ly’s website builder can help you actually achieve this goal, by making it easy to:

• Build a clean, beautiful church website–just pick a template, add content, and customize to make it your own. 

• Embed your livestream services from Facebook, YouTube, or Vimeo.
• Create a mobile-friendly website. 
• Integrate a sermon media player, event calendar, and more. 
• Offer your visitors a giving feature. 
• And more…
  

Plus, Tithe.ly Sites comes with unlimited storage and a super low set-up and maintenance costs, saving even more time on ongoing maintenance. 

Connect with Tithe.ly Messaging & Tithe.ly People

Too often, churches take a reactionary, rather than a proactive, approach to managing people–and time. 

“Church work is so need-based that it can be reactionary, instead of proactive,” says Bree Curley, former college pastor at Antioch Community Church in Brighton, MA. “That makes it difficult to move things forward and build.”

Of course, the church is meant to respond to the needs of both its members and community at large. But finding ways to connect with members proactively creates boundaries around time, and sets the tone for how the church operates. Ultimately, this kind of connection actually frees up time for leaders and staff to manage their own time better, and accomplish more goals. 

Tithe.ly Messaging and Tithe.ly People are two tools that can be used to proactively connect with members and visitors, and contribute to better overall time management. 

Tithe.ly Messaging 

Tithe.ly Messaging is a texting service and email software that makes it easy to share important information with your members–like service change times, event registration news, and more. By keeping your members informed, updated, and connected, Tithe.ly Messaging helps you take a more proactive approach to managing your communication–and your time. 

Tithe.ly People

Running a growing church is a great problem to have. But the larger a church is, the more complex it is to oversee members. Tithe.ly People is a tool that makes it easy to centralize your contacts and stay up-to-date with your church community. Store contact information, identify people quickly, sync with Tithe.ly Messaging, and even run background checks to keep management of your members as efficient as possible. 

Save Time with Tithe.ly

At the end of the day, great time management is about making room for your true priorities. If your workday is consumed with administrative needs, for example, you’re unlikely to have time (or energy) left over to devote to leading people to Jesus. 

Tithe.ly was created to make running a church easier with technology that can help you free up time, become more efficient, and even save some money. To take a look at Tithe.ly’s full suite of tools and products, click here.