Training and equipping your staff is one of the most important parts of leading a church. 

Of course, the primary way that we all need to grow is in relationship with Jesus. Next, we need to grow in our ability to minister to others, demonstrate compassion, and share the Gospel. 

But growth in administrative skills–like how to use tools for church administration, marketing, donor management, and more–is also important. 

The bottom line is that your church staff wants to be equipped. If you’re not sure where to begin doing that, keep reading. 

Church Leaders & Staff Want to Be Equipped in These 8 Areas

It’s not just church staff that wants to be equipped; it’s pastors, too!

We asked over 6,000 church leaders and staff how they wanted to grow in the following 8 areas. 

• Communications tools–think tools for email marketing, mass text messaging, and more
• Increasing giving/generosity–how can you help church members respond to the Biblical call to give?
• Social media management–how does social media fit into outreach, awareness, and sharing the Gospel?
• Church management (ChMS)–how can churches use ChMS tools to increase efficiency, automate workflows, and save time/money?
• Increased app engagement–how can you encourage people to download and use your church app?
• Websites–how do you improve your church website to make it more engaging?
• Church Apps–how can you build and manage a church app?
• Online Service Programming–how do you live stream your church?

Finally, we included an “other” category for churches that may want to grow in areas we didn’t mention. 

Here’s what our survey of 6,000+ church leaders and staff said. 

Which areas would you and your church staff want more education or training on?

As you can see, the results were evenly spread across the board. While “communications tools” rated highest on the list with over 36% of survey takers prioritizing this topic, none of the categories were far behind. 

How to Equip Your Church Staff (and Leaders!)

Here are some ideas to get you started on equipping your staff and leaders. 

Communications Tools

Knowing how to use and manage an email marketing tool is more important than ever. But it can feel intimidating to build and send mass emails to hundreds of church members. 

Fortunately, email marketing for churches doesn’t have to be difficult. Tithely Messaging is perfect for any skill level, and includes plenty of easy-to-use templates to make it simple to send emails to your church in minutes. To learn more about Tithely Messaging, click here. 

Increase Giving/Generosity

Increasing giving and generosity in your congregation can be more strategic than giving an offering message every weekend (although we do encourage that!) Making it easy and convenient to give with online giving is key in helping to increase generosity. 

A free giving tool provides your church members with an easy way to give whenever and wherever they want. With options for mobile giving, recurring giving, text-to-give, and more, Tithely makes it simple to be generous. 

Social Media Management

Social media management can feel tricky for the church. How can churches use social media platforms in a way that’s efficient and automated to reach their members as well as potential visitors? 

A free graphics tool for churches provides customizable graphics that you can use for inspirational and Biblically-based posts. Using a social media scheduler will help you automate the entire process so that you can post ahead of time (leaving more time for what’s really important–ministry!)

Church Management (ChMS)

A church management software, or ChMS, can be incredibly helpful for churches of any size to save time and energy on administrative tasks. It can also help churches become more efficient and effective at engaging with their communities. But learning how to use ChMS may feel intimidating. 

Fortunately, there are easy-to-use and cost-effective options for church management. To learn more about church management software that’s simple yet effective, click here.

Increased App Engagement

Many churches have apps to help church members or new visitors learn more about events, Bible studies, and more. But they don’t always have great rates of engagement–in other words, they’re not seeing a ton of downloads or app usage.   

Part of increasing app engagement is using marketing tools and strategies to raise awareness about your app. Next, you’ll want to make sure that your app is worth using! Keep reading to learn more about how to build a church app that’s easy to manage–and delightful to use. 

Websites

Building a church website shouldn’t cost an arm and a leg, and it shouldn’t be difficult to maintain and manage. Unfortunately, many churches may believe that they need to outsource this task to a pricey web developer–and then pay a ton of money per month to keep the website up to date. 

Building and maintaining a beautiful website for your church is easy when you use Tithely Sites, a website builder that’s perfect for users of any skill level. To learn more about Tithely Sites, click here. 

Church Apps

In recent years, it’s become expected for churches to offer a church app that provides users with resources like sermon series, an events calendar, events registration, small group information, and more. Even small churches now offer church apps to their congregations!

Since church staff aren’t regularly hired for their software development abilities, however, churches are left in a tricky situation. Do you outsource the work to a pricey software company? Or attempt to use an app platform to build your own?

Fortunately, there’s a solution. Tithely will work with you to build the Church App of your dreams–at a minimal cost. Plus, maintenance and updates are easy to perform. 

Online Service Programming

Finally, many church staff and leaders may feel overwhelmed by the task of online service programming. But live streaming is still an expectation for most church goers–in fact, our survey revealed that nearly half of all churches still have 1-50 live streaming viewers per week, and nearly one in 10 churches has between 101-500 live streaming viewers per week. 

Just like building a website or an app, however, providing live streaming doesn’t have to be a challenge for churches. Tithely Sites makes it simple–learn more here.  

Discover More 

Interested in learning more about giving trends in the Church? Download our free ebook on the State of Giving now.