Pass the job of absentee follow-up onto the Sunday School classes.  ChurchTrac provides dated Attendance Role Sheets with a column listing the “most recently attended on” date.  If you don’t normally use this style of attendance sheet, print a copy for each of your class leaders at the beginning of the month and have the class come up with creative ways to contact those who have been absent.  Have the class make a “group” call during class and yell “We miss you.”  Send a card or postcard signed by the entire class.  Post a silly “miss you” sign in their yard.  If a more serious situation is at hand, you will need to take a more serious route, like a personal phone call from the teacher or class member.

People want to know they are missed.  So don’t forget about your absent members. Many times they are just hoping someone will notice they are not there. If no one notices over a long period of time, then bitterness can set in and keep the person away for good.

ChurchTrac membership software enables you to enter both their local and out-of-town addresses into the People Screen, under the Family Details tab.  You can then switch the primary and secondary addresses back and forth as needed by clicking the “Make this address the family’s primary address” button.  This will enable them to receive the church newsletter and/or other correspondence while they are local or away.

On the Groups screen, click on Group Expense Tracking on the top toolbar. The left side of the screen, shows the Groups which currently have expenses or money due.  The right side shows which members of the group have paid, how much they have paid, and the date it was paid.  You can enter a person more than once (each time they pay) to keep track of ongoing expenses or incremental payments.

Then you can click on the Print Group Expense Report button to show a list of all the currently selected group members and the amounts they have paid.

Having worked as a VBS director myself, here are a few tips I learned about recruiting workers. And ChurchTrac can be a great resource for helping you out.

1. Identify new members (conduct a Filter/Search on Membership Date). New members are often excited to get involved, but are hesitant to volunteer. VBS is a great way for them to get to know more people at your church and to try out a ministry opportunity on a “short-term” basis.
2. Identify people with the spiritual gifts and abilities that fill the needs you have (conduct a Filter/Search with SHAPE profile criteria). VBS isn’t just about finding people with the gift of Teaching or even people who like to work with children. There are also many other gifts, such as Serving/Helps, that people can use in areas like snacks, decorating, organizing supplies, greetings, cleaning up and much more.
3. Recruit retirees or stay at home moms, who would enjoy preparing/organizing craft supplies, making packets or doing other projects that can be done ahead of time.
4. Go to the “adults with children” Sunday School classrooms and explain that VBS is for THEIR kids, and you need them to help.

Finally, and most importantly, once you have identified your prospects using ChurchTrac; you have to ask personally. Announcements from the pulpit, flyers around the church or in the Sunday School classrooms are great – but nothing works better then asking a person face-to-face to work in VBS.

• Updated Reconciliation Report
• Added a feature allowing users logged in as Administrator to edit reconciled transactions
• Fixed an issue on the Pledge Screen
• Updated the Birthday Report option
• Updated User-Defined filter/search options
• Added the ability to export names to vCard
• Fixed balance totals on the Accounting screen
• Added “date the individual was added to the database” on the Notes tab
• Added Attendance graph reports
• And other minor improvements and fixes.

We hope you will enjoy these changes, and they will make your experience with ChurchTrac even better.

Just this past Sunday we had a Women’s Ministry Meeting booked at the same time as a church-wide shower for a family who had just adopted child from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is a typical scenario of double booking, because the planners didn’t check the church calendar.

So if you haven’t checked out ChurchTrac’s calendar, now is the time.  It is easy to use and provides a great way for your church to keep track of all the events going on. You can even sort the events by categories such as Youth, Children, Churchwide, etc. and print calendars.  Click here to find out more on how to use the Calendar Screen in ChurchTrac.

So let’s be excited that these people are here on these special Sundays and pray that God will speak to then in a special way that will change their lives.

So once they have come, how can you follow up with these people?  Here are a couple of ways ChurchTrac church management software can help.

For Guests:

• Enter their full information as you are checking them into a Sunday School or Bible study class.
• Enter their information from the worship guest registration card.
• Click on the “Notes” tab on the people screen and select “1st time visitor” from the drop down menu.
• Now you can click on the “Filter/Search” tab and select all the who meet the requirements where “membership events” equals “1st time visitor” and the date.
• You can also run another “Filter/Search” to include 2nd and 3rd time visitors if you want.
• Once all the names you want appear on the People Screen, select “Output Options” from the top menu. (You can manually add names here too, if you need.)
• Then you can select to send an email, print letters and envelopes, or send an automated voice message to all the names on the list.

ChurchTrac makes it easy for you to follow up with your Easter guests.

1. Your ctdata file may have been moved or deleted.

2. The ChurchTrac update may have connected to the wrong file.

3. Your data file has been renamed.

We’ve recently published a knowledgebase article on this topic to help you know what to do in each of these situations in order to restore your current data file. Click here to find out How to find and restore your missing data file.

1. You can choose one of the default directory options by first clicking on the Pictures tab on the People screen.  Then click “Picture Directory” from the top tool bar.  You can then select from the default directory options to create your picture directory.

2. You can also create custom picture directories by selecting Custom Reports from the top tool bar on the People screen.  Creating a directory using Custom Reports will allow you to include email addresses or other fields you want printed in your directory.  We have created two sample custom directories that you can copy from our knowledgebase article on How to Create Custom Picture Directories.

Picture directories are so easy with ChurchTrac and are a great way to help your members get to know one another and to learn each others’ names.

If you have never used our Automated Messaging System, click here to try out our Free Trial Offer!  Use your free credits to practice sending voice messages and texts.  Once you find out how easy it is to use, you can then send information to your members about “opting in” their cell phones to the service if they would like to receive text messages from your church.  To opt in, each cell phone should text your keyword (see this article on How to Use the Automated Messaging System) to 292929.  Voice messages can be sent to regular phones without needing to “opt in.”

So you better start now, so you will be ready to use the Automated Messaging system before the big day on Sunday, March 11.   After that you will want to use it to call groups to schedule/cancel meetings, pass along a prayer request, request volunteers, and so much more!