Ways to Use Technology in Church to Create Purposeful Connections

According to Stanford University’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education, “People who feel more connected to others have lower levels of anxiety and depression. Moreover, studies show they also have higher self-esteem, greater empathy for others, are more trusting and cooperative and, as a consequence, others are more open to trusting and cooperating with them.”

And you already know the Bible considers the building of purposeful connections to be a vital component of living the Christian life, as demonstrated in Romans 12:10. Connections with and amongst your congregants is a vital part of any healthy, thriving church. Do it well, and you will continue to reach new people, increase engagement, and impact your community. Do it poorly, however, and people will leave.

How about building purposeful connections during a pandemic? Admittedly, that was a twist we didn’t see coming. And we’re guessing you didn’t either, so congratulate yourself and your staff for making it this far. And now that we’re returning to some sense of normalcy? It’s time to consider how you’re going to move forward, not only creating more opportunities to connect, but continuing to feed and care for the purposeful connections already in place. The answer? Technology.

Church Apps That Make All the Difference

The My Church and Custom Church apps can optimize your ministry efforts and bring people into the heart of your church beyond just the weekend experience.

The Custom Church app is the perfect solution for churches who need a custom, feature-rich app but still want to maintain their unique style and branding. The Custom Church App also perfectly integrates Church Community Builder Check-In, Groups, Group Events, and Profile features. When a member of your community launches the app store and searches for your app, they will see your church’s name and logo—not Pushpay, and not Church Community Builder.

Just like our Custom Church app, our My Church app is thoroughly customizable and full of features. The difference is our My Church App is a single app hosting thousands of churches. If a member of your community downloaded the My Church app they would simply launch the app, search for your church, and connect. Each time they launch the app, your church’s content will be front and center. However, while the My Church app is fully customizable, you cannot change the app name or app icon.

A Few Key Features

Both the My Church and Custom Church apps include many features that allow you to connect with your congregation like never before. Let’s talk about some of our customers’ favorites.

Keep your community connected and growing together with the Groups feature. We have taken the power of the ChMS Groups functionality and empowered members to interact, communicate, and support each other. Messages allows for direct communications with one another. Members won’t miss a beat as messages are stored within the app to stay up to date with important leader and group member messages.

Whether it’s setting up meals for a group member who just had a baby or organizing a potluck, Needs is a great way to encourage your group to come together and serve one another.  Leaders and group members have the opportunity to request and accept a need directly from the app keeping everyone informed when and if someone needs support.

Help your congregation connect with others and find a community that deepens their spiritual journey and their relationships at the church. With the Group Finder, people can locate groups that fit their needs, review the group description, and even request to join a group.

Keep group members up to date with Group Calendars. Allow group members to see upcoming events in their group, get all the details they need, and even RSVP, right from the app.

Attendance provides a simple and easy way to empower your leaders to track attendance for their classes and groups. With the ability to take attendance in the My Church App app, your leaders have direct access to mark attendees as attended no matter if they are meeting at a church classroom,  coffee shop, or video call.

Rich Push Notifications are a powerful way to connect and communicate with your app users, using both words and images. With the rich push notification composer, you will be able to create impactful messages that increase engagement with your app.

The Rich Push Notification Composer gives you the ability to add an image, a title, and subtitle to your message. You’ll also see improved formatting when the notification is received and the ability to display the body of the message.

Use Rich Push Notifications for a variety of reasons, including the Attitude and Quick Polls. The Attitude Poll is a draggable in the composer that allows you to gather feedback from your community using rich push notifications. With this feature, you can survey your app users anonymously and review their answers in real time. The Quick Pollenables a question with up to four possible responses to be sent through a rich push notification. Users will receive a notification on their phone prompting them to participate. When they tap on the notification, the app will open the question with the available responses. Quick Polls encourage engagement by allowing app users to choose a response to vote for. Once a user votes and selects a preferred response, the poll updates in the app to show the percentage of votes that have been received for each response.

The Impact Card’s purpose is to help communicate and inform community members about important projects and goals, which can foster a feeling of belonging and drive engagement.  The template (a draggable in the Mobile App Studio) comes pre-populated with properties you can use to make your message clear and engaging. You’re free to add and remove properties to the item depending on your context and content.

New Feature Alert!

Pair the best-in-class tools from Pushpay and Church Community Builder with direct integration to your church website with Church Co. Save your team time by having your Groups and Events automatically updated on your website the moment they’re created in CCB. And the same goes for your congregants when they amend or add to their info.

Link your Pushpay giving page seamlessly to your Church Co site, so even your web donors experience fast and easy giving. Robust, intuitive, and well-designed, this is a new feature you’re sure to love.

Learn More Ways to Use Technology in Church

Curious to learn more about creating purposeful connections? During Church Disrupt 2021, Church leaders and staff came together to tackle some of the most pressing problems the Church faces today.

Listen to Travis Greene, Lead Pastor, Forward City Church, talk about the importance of creating purposeful connections–especially within the culture.

Watch this free session and more by visiting our Church Disrupt 2021 website.

WATCH REPLAY