Building Processes for Connection, Not Busywork

Someone at your church fills out a form. Maybe they want to get connected, learn about becoming a member, or start leading a group. They hit submit and wait to hear back.

What happens next? At a lot of churches, the form lands in an inbox, gets copied into a spreadsheet when someone has time, or ends up on a sticky note stuck to a monitor. Everyone means well, but inboxes fill up, staff get busy, and people slip through.

A church database can fix that if it's set up for the right job. Storing names is the least of what it can do. Set up well, it helps your leaders follow up with people consistently, without having to keep track of everyone in their heads.

At Orchard Hill Church, everything database-related runs through Planning Center, which I set up and run. I've also worked in other church databases, including CCB/Pushpay ChMS and Subsplash One. The examples in this post come from Planning Center because it's what I know best, but the same ideas work in any church database. This is the first post in a series on setting up your church database well.

What busywork looks like

Every church has a few processes that exist because that's how they've always been done. You can usually spot them: the same information typed in twice, a form that sends an email nobody owns, a report someone prints every month that nobody reads, a follow-up that only happens if one particular person remembers.

Busywork is tiring for staff and volunteers, and after all that effort, people still fall through the cracks.

What a connection process looks like

The processes that work share three parts: a form, a workflow, and a person.

The form collects someone's information once, in their own words. The workflow puts that information in front of the right leader with clear next steps. In Planning Center, a workflow is a list of steps, and each person moving through it gets a card assigned to a staff member or leader. Then a person does the part only a person can do, like the phone call, the coffee, or the check-in.

The database does the remembering, and your leaders get to spend their time with people.

Three processes from my church

Here are three processes we use at Orchard Hill. None of them are complicated.

Get Connected

Our Get Connected form is for anyone who wants to take a next step. We keep it short: basic contact information, which campus they'd like to get connected at, and whether there's a particular area they're interested in. A few more questions are there for people who want to tell us more about themselves, but they're optional.

When someone submits it, they get an automatic thank-you email right away, so they know it went through. The workflow is simple too: a staff member follows up personally, and a final email wraps things up. We expect staff to follow up within three days of being assigned.

That follow-up is where the real work happens. The staff member's goal is to help the person into the next process that fits what they're looking for, whether that's serving, joining a group, or membership. Without it, a guest who raised their hand could easily never hear back.

Discovering Orchard Hill and Membership

This one happens fully online, in two parts. Discovering Orchard Hill is a first step for anyone who wants to learn about the church. People watch a video, then fill out a form saying where they are: ready for membership, not ready yet, or have questions first.

Each answer gets its own follow-up. People with questions hear from a staff member. People who are ready get an email with their next steps toward membership, and people who aren't ready yet get an email about other ways to get involved at the church. Nobody is left wondering what to do next.

People who continue toward membership watch the membership video class. After they finish, a staff member follows up to talk about whether they'd like to officially become members. Because the workflow shows where each person is, someone who starts the process doesn't stall out halfway without anyone noticing.

New Group and New Leader Application

This is our most detailed form, and it should be. It asks about the person and their faith journey, along with details about the group they want to lead, like the study materials and the schedule. Group leaders also need to be members, so this process builds on the last one.

Each of our group directors oversees a different area of groups. When an application comes in, the director for that area follows up with the new leader and gives the final green light. Admin staff are part of the workflow too, so the group gets set up in the database without the director having to do it.

The process keeps going after a group launches. Once someone is leading a group, a renewal process helps directors check in with each of their leaders and find out what they need for the next season of ministry. Without it, a willing leader could be left waiting, or a new leader could get started and then feel like they're on their own.

The pattern behind all three

Each of these starts with a form that gathers information once. A workflow makes sure the right person knows what to do next. Then a staff member or ministry leader does the caring, either by making sure no one falls through the cracks or by checking in with people consistently over time.

Is it connection or busywork?

Here are five questions you can ask about any process at your church:

1. Does this process end with a person reaching out to a person?
2. Does anyone type the same information in twice?
3. If the staff member who runs it left tomorrow, would it keep working?
4. Does each step help someone get cared for, or does it only help us keep records?
5. Would the person who filled out the form notice if this step disappeared?

Where to start

You don't need to rebuild everything at once. Pick one process, usually the one for first-time guests or people asking to get connected. Write down every step as it happens today, including the ones that only live in someone's head. Cut the steps that don't help a person, then build what's left as one form and one workflow.

If you'd like help building it in Planning Center, that's part of my Planning Center Setup work.

What comes next

Think back to the person who filled out that form and hit submit. Asking took a little courage. They should hear back from a real person who knows why they reached out, every time.

Next in this series: getting your People data right, since every workflow depends on it.