Executive Pastors: Your Orientation Guide

Church Community Builder Proprietary

Table of Contents Welcome! 3 Document Themes 4 Our Support Model 5

1. Onboarding 5 2. Online Resources 5 3. Our Support Team 6

Best Practices 7 1. Roles, Responsibilities, and Relationships 7 2. Finances 8 3. Attendance 11 4. Volunteers 11 5. Manage with Data 13

Strategic Ministry Partners 14 Preferred Service Providers 14 More Church Community Builder Resources 15

1. Tribes 15 2. Implementation Coaching 15 3. Data Migration 16 4. Training 16 5. Blogs, eBooks, Events, Case Studies, and Webinars 17

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Welcome! Welcome to the Church Community Builder family! To assist you with the onboarding process, we’re providing you with two key documents. First, this document provides a broad overview to help you become oriented with Church Community Builder software and services as the Executive Pastor. Second, we’re providing a Software Setup Guide specially designed to help Executive Pastors configure and use the software, in collaboration and coordination with your church’s Master Administrator.

As the Executive Pastor, you are in a key leadership role. Our observation is the most successful Executive Pastors not only lead well, but also know how to be led, especially by the Senior Pastor. We’re here to help you in your responsibilities. At Church Community Builder, we care about church leaders and want to support the vital work you do. While we are known for our web-based software, helping you do ministry is what fires us up! We are committed to offering objective advice to aid you in your quest to do church better. We will work hard to help you and your church leaders discover what is working, what is not, and how technology can be leveraged to make more disciples. Because you’ve partnered with us, we are committed to walking alongside you to:

• Challenge the status quo to revisit and revitalize strategies, processes, and procedures

• Help you simplify and streamline those processes and procedures

• Assist in combining our software with those processes to enhance your ministry

Effective process will, in large part, be driven by the DNA of your church. To help you, we created a comprehensive support model consisting of 1) an onboarding process for new church partners, 2) online resources available 24/7, and 3) a dynamic support team with Basic and Premier Support. Our experience with churches of all sizes and denominations has identified a number of best practices to enhance your operations and amplify the success of your transition to new church management software. We’ve also established deep and trusted relationships with a number of strategic partners to help you navigate opportunities and challenges that will increase your effectiveness. Furthermore, we collaborate with Preferred Service Providers who provide a tool or service which complements or integrates with our software to increase the impact of your church. Finally, Church Community Builder provides additional resources, such as Tribes, Coaching, Training, and content to round out our tools and services.

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Document ThemesThroughout the document, there are two themes to be aware of:

Tasks

You will see these checkmarks (✓) throughout the implementation guide. They denote a task. These may be appropriate next steps or links to Help Desk articles providing you more information regarding the topic at hand.

Hyperlinks

Hyperlinks are easily identified by black italicized text. For example, click on the following hyperlink to take you to the Church Community Builder’s online Help Desk, available 24/7.

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Our Support Model At Church Community Builder, you’ll find a comprehensive suite of resources carefully designed to help you not only effectively implement the financial tools in the software, but also become more effective in your leadership role as the Executive Pastor. In fact, our passion is ‘Guiding Church Leaders to a Better How’ in order to assist leaders, such as yourself, in living out the calling God has placed on their lives.

1. Onboarding We know you want to begin using the software and its products to support the work you do every day, so let’s get you started. Our onboarding process is relational, functional, and accessible. It’s relational because our Onboarding Team is your single point of contact throughout the entire process and if you have purchased any additional services, such as Data Migration or Implementation Coaching, we will connect you with the appropriate teams. It’s functional because we’ll assist you in getting up to speed quickly though a number of resources. It’s accessible because of our dynamic support model.

2. Online Resources Ours is a web-based software, so it only makes sense to offer an online Help Desk available 24/7. Trying to figure out how to create or communicate with a group? Want to use reports for giving to the church, volunteers serving in various capacities and ministries, or attendance at church services, small groups, or special events? Our Help Desk is well organized and easy to use, with over 300 articles videos on almost any topic you can think up. To access the Help Desk, all logged-in users can click ‘Help’ under the settings gear in the software. In addition, individuals may access the Help Desk without being logged in by visiting support.churchcommunitybuilder.com.

Videos and articles are arranged in the Help Desk by topic. You can also search by keywords to find any of these resources. To see the full list of video topics, navigate to the Help Desk and click ‘Videos‘. To make sure you know exactly what’s going on, we even have an article on how to use the Help Desk.

✓ Read Using the Help Desk

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3. Our Support Team Our Support Team is made up of people who have lived and worked in the local church. We understand your world and are inspired to make it better. Most importantly, our Support Team has dedicated Guides specifically focused on assisting Executive Pastors with unique issues that extend well beyond ‘how do I do this in the software’. Our Guides are prepared to assist you with updating existing processes and defining new ones to maximize your impact as the Executive Pastor.

Basic Support

Our goal is to give you the best support possible. But what happens if the Help Desk doesn’t answer your question or you need tailored support to help you become more effective as the Executive Pastor? You can submit an email support ticket and we’ll help answer your questions through our email support system. One of our Guides will get back to you within one business day, and many times they’re even faster. Basic Support is available to the Master Admin and one other designated Support Contact; perhaps that will be you. If not, you should direct your questions to the Master Admin or a designated Support Contact who can forward the question to our Support Team if necessary.

✓ Read Support and Using the Help Desk

Premier Support

Church leaders desiring quicker response times can access our Support Team through an upgraded level of support called Premier Support. With Premier Support, you’ll receive an initial response through our normal email support system within one business hour. In addition, Premier Support expands your Support Contacts to three while providing the ability to contact one of our Guides through a phone call or online chat during regular business hours.

No matter what support option you have selected, Basic or Premier, our Guides are prepared to assist you with more than implementing the software, defining new processes, and optimizing existing ones to maximize your impact as the Executive Pastor. We can help identify best practices to more effectively support you, your church leadership, and your church’s members and guests.

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Best Practices Church Community Builder has identified a number of best practices to amplify your success as the Executive Pastor. Of course, best practices will be tempered by your church’s DNA, culture, and size.

1. Roles, Responsibilities, and Relationships 1. Ensure your relationship with the Senior Pastor is well grounded, both spiritually and functionally. Our

observation has been that this is critical for setting the tone for the rest of the church and its leaders. Others must see the Senior Pastor and Executive Pastor’s relationship as thriving, openly communicative, and positive. In addition, understanding the Senior Pastor’s vision and how you will execute it will play a pivotal role in your success as the XP. Understanding each other’s gifts, talents, strengths, and weaknesses will provide strength and unity for you as a team. And setting expectations for each other will provide a strong foundation for your mutually supporting relationship.

2. Recognize the Executive Pastor position is not for the faint of heart. People will bring issues, problems, complaints, and concerns to your doorstep, bypassing other leaders in the church. Much of the time, these things will be negatively charged, so knowing how to handle difficult people and situations is critical!

3. Our observation is the most successful Executive Pastors not only lead well, but also know how to be led, especially by the Senior Pastor.

4. Determine your roles and responsibilities; these should complement the Senior Pastor’s. Executive Pastors usually handle the majority of the business and day-to-day operations of the church, freeing the senior pastor to concentrate on the congregation's spiritual growth. In general, these responsibilities tend to be managing finances, attendance, and volunteers, but may include oversight of other areas, such as assimilation processes for newcomers, staff development, human resources, and public relations.

5. Communicate what you do and how you do it; don’t assume others inherently know it. However, be assured people will know if things are not running smoothly!

6. Develop a list of the 10 or 20 key relationships you need to not only build, but also cultivate. These key relationships are best established and maintained when things are running smoothly — you’ll need to rely upon them during harder times. Examples of such relationships are staff, volunteer leaders, and community partners. Finally, it is vital to develop a circle of influence outside of your staff. These relationships will help ensure you do not lose sight of the big picture or become too insular.

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2. Finances 1. Know the difference between managing finances and managing donors — it’s the foundation for any

church leader who wants to cultivate more generosity within their church. Our observation is that many churches ignore the donor management aspect, which is really about inspiring your church members to be more generous with their time, talents, and treasure … and is one of the most difficult aspects of ministry, especially in today’s culture. Many voices in our society encourage people to live with clenched fists. Uncertainty in the economy, instability in global geopolitics, and people’s tendency to spend all of what they earn (or more) has made cultivating generosity challenging at best. The bottom line is many churches emphasize the financial aspect of church giving, but forget about the donors themselves. Here are a few examples:

• Churches pay thousands of dollars to have their finances managed, but don’t invest in engaging members to give more

• Conversations revolve around meeting the budget rather than cultivating generosity

• Many church stewardship committees spend most of their time crunching numbers rather than taking time to cultivate stories that will inspire people to give

• The person who manages the bills and payroll also manages the donor records

It’s important to be intentional about not just managing finances, but supporting donors as well.

2. Start using your new online community for contribution and donor management right away. Many churches are tempted to wait until the start of a new calendar or fiscal year. However, we recommend immediately using the software and migrating your financial data to reap the most benefit from your online community. Most likely, you’ll want to delegate the responsibility for running financial reports to a Financial Administrator. However, we most strongly recommend becoming familiar with all the financial reports in order to best use them in your role.

3. Here are the ‘Big Four’ Financial Reports — the four most commonly used financial reports. If you are not using any of them, this may be a great time to look at the information generated in each of these and incorporate them into your financial processes, tracking, and planning.

• Batch Report by Category Summary: This is the best report for regularly transferring contribution totals to your general ledger.

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• Individual Transactions by Batch or Date Range Detail: This is the best way to see each transaction as its own row with a flexible search option for batches or date ranges.

• Merchant Transaction Detail Report: Use this report for reconciling your bank statements with BluePay.

• Top Givers Report: This allows you to easily see everyone’s total giving for the chosen date range, along with contact and membership information. It even allows you to organize results by family.

4. In addition to the ‘Big Four’, have your Financial Admin create a mid-year ‘tell-all’ giving report for your church. While creating a comprehensive giving report is something we encourage every church to do at the end of each fiscal year, taking the time to create a mid-year report and then taking the appropriate action based on the numbers, will help you reconnect with those who determine your capacity for ministry.

One of our favorite elements of Church Community Builder’s financial feature is the ability to create year-end giving reports. These reports are extremely accessible and easy to review, providing valuable information and insight for your donor manager. The real opportunity in these ‘tell all’ church giving reports is their ability to be customized to exclude donor names and maintain the financial privacy of your donors when others view the report.

By pulling the comprehensive report from last year, you’re able to see…

• The overall giving to your church

• Giving from January 1 to December 31 in a given year

• Sorted reports by highest giving donor to lowest

• A breakdown with a month-to-month view

Your Financial Admin has the specifics on how to generate the ‘tell-all’ report.

If you’re looking for a way to leverage technology to increase generosity, our new financial service provider, MortarStone, can help you take donor analysis to a whole new level.

5. Set up online giving and introduce an option for donors to give online. We have partnered with BluePay, a payment processor, which allows donors to give online by debit/credit card and e-check. Donors have the option to give a one-time gift or even set up a repeating gift. Donors can login to your online community and click the Give tab to submit their gifts. Any donations given this way will be easily trackable and can be placed into a batch for contribution purposes. You can even enable a public online giving page, which would allow donors to give without even logging in! For more information on how to get started, see the BluePay Pricing and Application article.

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• Optimize your church’s online giving experience. Taking the time to make sure giving online is easy for your donors is imperative. See seven ways you can improve your church’s online giving experience to make it easier and more convenient for people to give.

6. Connect your online giving with your church management software. This is a small change that can make a tremendous impact on your church’s finances. Integrating online giving with your church management software can create a measurable increase in overall contributions. Read about three churches that experienced an increase in generosity simply because they learned how to implement online giving.

7. Establish, communicate, and use internal controls for all aspects of your church finances in order to serve God and His people through great stewardship. Unfortunately, churches aren’t immune from financial embezzlement, theft, and fraud — and much of the financial loss occurs from inside the church itself! It happens every day around the world. The loss is calculated at $100 million every day according to some studies and is predicted to grow at 6% annually, reaching $60 billion by 2025.

According to Matthew Hirschy, vice president and treasurer at Brotherhood Mutual Insurance Company, “The defining element of church thievery is that it’s intentional. Even if a thief’s aims are modest, the behavior is especially deceptive since these people are trusted to handle church assets properly.” Most church thieves, he says, gain access to the resources they steal through their position. So what can you do? First, establish internal financial controls in your church through a written document, reviewed and approved by your accountant and attorney. Second, consider communicating the document to staff and volunteers to set expectations. Finally, scrupulously adhere to the financial controls, with oversight from an oversight group such as your financial committee, leadership team, etc.

The information and text within this document is provided with the understanding that Church Community Builder is not rendering legal, accounting, or other professional advice or service. Professional advice on specific issues should be sought from an accountant, lawyer, or other professional. For more information specifically about legal contribution management, please refer to IRS Publication 1771.

3. Attendance While tracking attendance might seem like mundane record keeping, it really equates to stewardship of people. It’s critical according to thought leaders Chris Mavity and Steve Caton. In their e-book, ‘The Numbers Game’, they definitively state:

Tracking attendance might seem like a no-brainer, but there are many churches that don’t track attendance of any kind—worship services, small groups, children’s ministry, or events.

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An accurate understanding of attendance data gives an overview of what’s going on. It’s the 30,000-foot view of the ministry. It’s the pulse-reading of the church, telling you how many people are involved, where they go while on campus, which ministries are growing, and which are in decline.

We recommend using the reporting function of the Church Community Builder software to analyze the attendance patterns of your church. For example, generate the Attendance Overview Report regularly for insight into the attendance trends across all groupings for a specific week or month. For more information, read about Attendance Reports.

Mavity and Caton recognize that tracking attendance is just a tool to help build into people. They state:

Tracking overall attendance isn’t enough to grow community, however. Without personal connections, many people will eventually stop attending your church, and you will only have the change in numbers to tell you about it. That’s because in larger churches—say, 250 people or more—it’s easy for individuals to get lost in the crowd. They can attend and then disappear without anyone else knowing about their daily lives. That’s why raw numbers don’t help you grow community. The unconnected people will disappear, become mere turnover stats—and you won’t know why.

Since attendance numbers alone will not tell you why people come and go, look at the other dimensions of ‘The Numbers Game’ to get a clearer picture of retention and turnover within your church community.

4. Volunteers Volunteer ministry is one of the hottest topics among church leaders today. Nothing can propel your ministry further and faster than thriving volunteer teams. In fact, it may be quite fair to say that developing a thriving volunteer ministry is the best way to ensure the long-term health and vitality of your church.

However, as we talk with church leaders across the country, we find that many still have questions when it comes to creating a comprehensive volunteer strategy. If you’ve felt compelled to rethink your volunteer strategy or feel behind the curve, here are some great posts that can help:

Recruiting Volunteers

1. How to Recruit Volunteers Quickly: This is a great reminder from Chris Wesley that there is no silver bullet when it comes to recruiting volunteers quickly. If you’ve always struggled to recruit volunteers, make it a priority to fix your problems now.

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2. Equip, Then Ask: When it comes to recruiting volunteers, most church leaders have it backwards. This post from Church Community Builder team member Cody Binder explains why the best way to motivate people to serve is to equip them before you ask.

3. 5 Reasons People Aren’t Volunteering at Your Church: Are you making it difficult for volunteers to serve? In this post, Ron Edmondson shares five common ways churches are their own worst enemy when it comes to recruiting volunteers.

Training, Equipping, & Leading Volunteers

1. 10 Questions to Increase Volunteer Engagement: There are a lot of factors that go into creating a thriving volunteer culture. In this post, Tony Morgan shares ten questions to help you identify the things influencing your culture.

2. 5 Steps to Happy Volunteer Leaders: What are the primary factors which impact volunteer retention? Chris Mavity breaks them down in this post.

3. Technology’s Role in Equipping the Saints: How can we effectively equip the saints for ministry in the 21st century?

4. 5 Keys to Communicating with Volunteers: Deborah Wipf does a great job of explaining why better communication just might be the key to unlocking your volunteers’ potential.

Thanking & Supporting Volunteers

1. How Do You Thank Your Members?: From our experience, these are the three things every church needs to know if they want to make their volunteers feel valuable.

2. Appreciating Volunteers — 33 Actionable Ideas: If you’re looking for ways to thank your volunteers, look no further than this post from Rich Birch.

3. 4 Ways Technology Helps You Support Volunteer Leaders: Technology is just as crucial for supporting and equipping volunteer leaders as it is for helping leaders identify potential volunteers.

4. Volunteer Coordinator Job Description: One of the most helpful things you can do is take the time to list out the responsibilities of your volunteer coordinator. If you’re looking for a great place to start, this post from Kevin Stone is a must-read.

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Multiplying Volunteers

1. 9 Keys for Multiplying Leaders in Your Church: Few people know more about multiplying leaders in your church than Alex Absalom. This post shares some of the best takeaways from our webinar on the topic.

2. Help Staff and Volunteers Take Ownership in Your Church’s Mission: This 60-second video from Kevin Odor provides some of the most practical ways to multiply volunteers.

Measuring Your Volunteer Ministry

1. 3 Questions to Evaluate Your Volunteer Strategy: Is your volunteer strategy really working? Ask yourself these three questions.

2. Key Questions to Help Leaders Measure Ministry Effectiveness: While data provides valuable insights into your volunteer ministry, these questions will help you answer some of the most qualitative areas.

5. Manage with Data In addition to your intuition and observations, we recommend developing a set of key metrics and dashboards for each core ministry area — and not just any metrics, but metrics that matter! Metrics are the foundation for monitoring your church’s ministry strategies and addressing the real needs of the people you serve. Also, set expectations for your staff and leaders that they should use Church Community Builder as their best source of data. Finally, learn and teach how to use the metrics and reports to understand the ‘what’, the ’so what’, and the ‘now what’. For example:

• What — What does the data say? • So What — What does it mean for the church? • Now What — What will we do about it?

The metrics you develop will help you invest deeply in the lives of people, equipping them with the tools they need to lead and empowering them to engage in ministry, which is the heart of an Ephesians 4 church.

Strategic Ministry Partners Our Strategic Ministry Partners represent deep and trusted relationships for us. They have huge hearts for ministry and have made a significant impact on churches we serve. Church Community Builder desires to be a resource to the churches we serve in a variety of ways. Because of our unique approach, we get to do this a lot! As we explore the processes that support your church, we often discover needs we do not address.

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We are not satisfied just telling you, “Figure it out and let us know how it goes.” We would much rather introduce you to a partner we trust and admire who can help you navigate opportunities and challenges that will increase your effectiveness.

Preferred Service Providers Church Community Builder collaborates with other companies, our Preferred Service Providers, to help you do ministry even better. Each one of them provides a tool or service which complements or integrates with our software to increase the impact for your church. All of these Preferred Service Providers are approved, trusted partners in ministry with us, so you can count on a good experience and a high level of support and care.

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More Church Community Builder Resources Church Community Builder believes that the church is called to equip people as they fulfill the mission of the Gospel. We are called to offer you a better how, and that is why we offer a variety of other services to support church leaders.

1. Tribes Ministry is about transformation, but too many of us are locked into old patterns. Looking to the newest book or conference may provide helpful information, but we know that information alone is not enough. That is why we created Tribes. A tribe is a group of peers serving in similar ministry capacities at similar-sized churches, journeying together. These relationships help tribe members discover new and better ways to thrive in their role.

As an Executive Pastor, you face unique challenges and opportunities. By connecting with others who can relate, you can explore, innovate, and implement new strategies to help you be more effective. Without a place to take your questions and people who can relate to the specifics of your role, ministry can feel isolating. It doesn't have to. The relationships you will build in your tribe will help you discover the answers to the questions you are asking and shape the impact you are making.

Interested?

✓ Read more about Tribes!

2. Implementation Coaching Implementation Coaching starts you off on the right foot for using our software and improving your ministry processes for how you do church. The critical thinking required for effective change management can be overwhelming. We understand the local church because many of us were previously, or are currently, in church leadership. The good news is our coaches will help you adjust your strategy, build leadership consensus, and create or refine your processes to support your overall vision. Our coaches will guide you along your journey as we share the wisdom and experience of thousands of churches who have been through what you’re going through now. Coaching streamlines the roll-out of Church Community Builder, helps you get the right people using the software, and increases long-term impact. Coaching gets you up to speed faster and with less stress!

Interested?

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✓ Read more about Coaching!

3. Data Migration Hit the ground running! Our Data Migration team can help speed up the process of transitioning from another ChMS platform so you can start using the software to support your real ministry goals. Our one-time, cost-effective services are priced based on a tiered system with several migration options, including individual profiles, contributions, groups, pledges, pictures, events, attendance, and more. We’ll take care of the data so you can take care of your people.

Interested?

✓ Read more about Data Migration!

4. Training Virtual Training

We offer web-based sessions where a training specialist teaches your staff, key leaders, and volunteers the ‘how-tos’ of the software. Learn best practices for using the available features as your trainer guides you through the concepts of each topic and provides your staff with quality question and answer time.

Interested?

✓ Read more about Virtual Training!

On-site Training

You set the schedule and let us come to you! We’ll send a trainer to your location to work in a group setting or one-on-one with your staff and/or lay leadership. We’ll work with you to determine the type of training and how much time you’ll need, schedule a date, and prepare for the event. You can schedule two or three days of On-site Training, based on your unique needs.

Interested?

✓ Check out On-site Training!

If you have already purchased on-site or virtual training, our training team will contact you about 30 days after your purchase. To schedule or to reach our training team, click on ‘Help’ > ‘Ask The Support Team’ in your Church Community Builder site. We recommend scheduling your training during the first three months of purchase so we can help you implement your software.

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5. Equipping Content At Church Community Builder, our journey will always be about assisting you in multiplying your ministry by helping church leaders be more effective in their roles. We are so much more than a software company! We are committed to providing top-notch content that will inspire, encourage, and enhance your ministry. In addition to our content, we’ve built a library full of great content from thought leaders like Chris Mavity, Alex Absolom, Aaron Fortner, and Brad Leeper. We also want to hear and learn from you. Connect with us on social media to share your insights and best practices.

Interested?

✓ See our Blog!

✓ Connect with us on Facebook!

✓ Follow us on Twitter!

6. Church Leader Advancement We know that implementing a church management software can be overwhelming, so we strive to make it as easy as possible. If you aren’t sure that you’re getting the most from your partnership with Church Community Builder, or if you’re feeling stalled, we want to help. Our Church Leader Advancement Team can point you in the right direction. That direction might be Training, Coaching, Tribes, Support Options, a Preferred Service Provider, upgrading or downgrading your software, free resources — or something else entirely. We would love to schedule a call to see how we can serve you better.

Interested?

✓ Schedule a video call with Church Leader Advancement!

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