How The Potter’s House of Fort Worth leverages church tech to serve their community

Summary

They were piecing it together piecemeal. Then they found a system that let them stop managing workarounds and start managing ministry.

AT A GLANCE

Church: The Potter’s House of Fort Worth | Fort Worth, TX
Type: Protestant | Multi-ministry, growing congregation
Using Pushpay Since: 2017 (ChMS), 2020 (Giving + App)
Products: ChurchStaq (Pushpay ChMS + Pushpay Giving + Custom Church App)

KEY RESULTS

• Eliminated disconnected spreadsheets and manual processes across all departments
• Unified event registration, volunteer coordination, and giving onto one platform
• Enabled data-driven ministry decisions with centralized engagement metrics
• 7+ year partnership with continued adoption of new features

The situation

If your staff has ever shown up to lead an event and found another team already in the room, you know what it feels like when your systems aren’t talking to each other.

The Potter’s House of Fort Worth was growing fast, but their operations hadn’t kept up. There was no church management system. Finances, events, calendars, and congregation data lived in disconnected spreadsheets maintained by separate departments. Cedric Spencer, IT Director, described the reality bluntly: “We were piecing things together piecemeal. If staff hadn’t recently looked at the spreadsheets or calendars we were using, a space could get double booked and teams could be showing up with no spaces to use.”

The problems weren’t just logistical. They were relational. Volunteers, ministry leaders, and staff were frustrated. Information didn’t flow between teams. And as the church grew, every manual process that sort of worked at a smaller scale started to break.

Then came the breaking point. A congressional ruling disrupted the church’s text-to-give short codes, and suddenly members were being asked to memorize a 10-digit number just to give. As Cedric recalled, “That’s what really prompted us to go to the next thing, a more robust, flexible solution.”

The solution

A sister campus had already been using Pushpay’s ChMS and recommended it. After testing the platform, Cedric’s conclusion was immediate: “We decided we can’t go without this anymore.”

The Potter’s House adopted Pushpay’s ChMS in 2017, then added giving and the custom church app in 2020, building their stack in phases as needs evolved.

What makes this story worth noting is how the church uses these tools beyond Sunday services. The Potter’s House runs monthly food drives, backpack giveaways, EDUFEST, and programs for entrepreneurship and financial literacy, all serving the broader Fort Worth community. Every one of those programs requires registration, coordination, and follow-up. Cedric was candid about what happened before they had a platform: “We tried to do some of these things before we had a platform and we weren’t successful. The tools made the difference.”

The Results

Seven years in, The Potter’s House of Fort Worth is still finding new value in ChurchStaq. Post-COVID, the church is seeing new faces every Sunday and using Pushpay’s data to understand what’s working and where to invest.

Cedric puts it simply: “I’ve been here since we first opened the campus, so I know why we use it and what it was like before we had Pushpay. From my perspective, it’s very much well worth it.”

The shift isn’t just operational. It’s strategic. The church now makes ministry decisions based on actual engagement data rather than gut feel. “We leverage Pushpay to help us figure out how to do ministry more effectively, and we’re getting better because we can see what’s effective.”

And for a church that’s been on the platform for seven years, the relationship still feels current. Cedric credits Pushpay’s ongoing product development: “The way Pushpay is constantly updating the product is one of the most valuable things. We can be assured and confident that we’re getting a product that is innovative and meets the needs of our church.”

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