RockRMS

On this special edition podcast, Jon & Emily are joined by Spark Project Manager, Laura Stephenson. Sponsors Online Giving Giving & Donation Platform We thank our Rock Sponsors for their ... [More] support of the Rock Community - visit their websites through the link above to learn how they can help your ministry! [Less]

As we prepare for life after COVID-19, we want to make sure attendees feel safe returning to church. With that in mind, the Spark team has been focusing our efforts on creating new features to support churches ... [More] as we come out of this pandemic. Below are updates for the four features we’re working on: Ticketing: If you need to limit the size of your services when you begin meeting again, Sparkability Group has a solution ready to build for you: ticketing. Each ticket is individually numbered, but not tied to a person. This solution adds both the countdown and ticketing abilities to your external Rock site, making the administration simple. Request more information about this new feature at: https://sparkabilitygroup.com/#connect TV Apps: Sparkability Group is now able to build and publish Roku and Fire TV apps for your organization. This is a good solution for those who are still unable to attend services in person once church buildings reopen. Making your weekend services easily accessible across many platforms ensures that everyone will be able to stay connected. Request more information about these apps at: https://sparkabilitygroup.com/#connect Church Online Platform Check-in: This feature is already in development and it will be released in v10.3! The ChOP Check-In block allows a person to log-in to Rock and quickly indicate who else is watching with them, providing an accurate attendance count of your online viewers. A special thank you to those who donated toward this feature! Contactless Check-in: This proposed option re-wires check-in to use geo-fencing and mobile phones with a single-use QR code to print labels. Offering ministries, a safer check-in process as we return to in-person services. Initially, we heard a lot of interest in this topic, but haven’t yet received much response in moving the feature forward through funding. If this is of interest to your church, please let us know as soon as possible so we can create a go-forward plan. The intent would be for several churches to contribute toward the full amount, rather than for one church to fund the whole project. Through these challenging times, the Spark team will continue to provide flexible, robust solutions to meet the needs of the community. [Less]

Features and Projects We're Considering As we look at the next phase of our response to the COVID-19 event, we’ve been ideating on new features and services to help support the Rock Community. Below ... [More] is a listing of some of the features we are considering. If you’re interested in any of them, please let us know. Ticketing: Many localities are considering limiting the size of gatherings as we work our way back into our normal lives. This means church services may need to have a limited capacity. We have some ideas about how tickets could be given out from your website. These tickets would not be tied to an individual but would be individually numbered. If this is something you’re interested in having us help with please contact us at [email protected]. TV Apps: As we extend our digital strategies, we need to reach people on many types of devices. We have been researching how to extend Rock to power TV Apps like Roku, Fire TV and Apple TV. If you would like help getting these apps created and published, reach out to us at [email protected]. Church Online Platform Check-in: The Church On-line Platform has recently added a new Moments feature to their v4 version. This is a very exciting feature as it allows a person to connect with your organization in rich ways. While you can get started with this feature now using features like Connections and Workflows, we’re working on a new block to allow a person to log in to Rock and rapidly note who is watching with them. If you think this block could be of interest to you, please let us know by emailing [email protected]. Contactless Check-in: There has been interest in how people will respond to check-in once church starts back up. There are some parallels we can look to in the industry like self-check-out at stores. While there may be some regional differences, self-check-out is still happening without significant changes or reduced use. We have two viable options here, which we'll describe below. Contactless Check-in Options We have discussed options with many churches over the last two weeks. While there are many different ideas, we wanted to discuss a couple that we feel like could be the best options. You can find these below. Option #2 will require funding to get developed. If this is something you’re able to help with, please email us at [email protected]. Option #1 The simplest option we've heard is to provide an attended check-in experience. This could be for all kiosks, or just a set for people who would prefer it. This would require additional volunteers, but it's likely that the number of occasional attendees will lag a bit as services start up. To speed up this process we are considering creating a simple web, mobile-friendly block that would allow attendees to enter their phone number, select their family and present a QR code to be scanned at the kiosk. This block would remember the selected family in future weeks and simply show the QR code. Luckily (or more likely by divine providence), Hillside Christian Church had just engaged Sparkability to add barcode reading as a part of the iPad check-in using the device's native camera. This project is complete and ready to be used. With the addition of this block, the attended check-in should move fairly quickly. The attendance would scan the QR code from the attendee's phone, select the kids/rooms and then hand over the printed labels. This option would only require the addition of the one block. We could develop this block without additional funding, and it could be available quickly. Mine Pass Instead of this block, one could also consider the Mine Pass plugin which allows you to create mobile-friendly wallet passes. This has the advantage of being provisioned ahead of time, popping up on the person's home screen as they get to the church and having an enhanced user experience. For more information see: Minepass. Option #2 A more extreme option would be to re-wire check-in further. This solution would: Move the check-in functionality from the current kiosks to the attendee's phone using a geo-fence that would only allow the check-in within a limited range of the church. Changes would be needed in the current check-in blocks to polish this user experience to feel tailored to an individual's phone. Prevent the labels from printing from this device check-in. Printing is an issue in this case as server-side printing is not available in cloud hosted solutions (currently). Present a single-use QR code that would be used to get their labels. With this we would add a feature to the iPad check-in kiosk to scan this new barcode and the labels would print. This option is obviously a lot more work. It would require additional funding to implement and take a few weeks to have ready. We feel like the funding for this feature would be $36,500. Important Note: Option #2 represents some additional capabilities for check-in. For several months, we have been working on re-thinking how the check-in experience could improved for a Check-in 2.0 feature. We still want to make that a reality, but there is not time before coming back for services to make that a reality. [Less]

Now more than ever, a church's digital strategy is an essential part of ministry. One sometimes overlooked feature of Rock that should be widely considered by every Rock church is the ability to power ... [More] your external website. Why is running your site on Rock a critical part of your digital strategy? Here are just four of the top reasons. Deliver Personalization. Your database knows the individuals in your community, so why communicate as if you don't? Display content and messaging that is relevant to each individual for a tailored online ministry experience. Online Prayer Requests. Provide a connection point for your community with the online prayer request feature in Rock. This simple and underused feature allows people to submit requests on your website, and for those requests to be distributed to your staff and volunteers. Integrated Online Giving. Contributing tithes and offerings shouldn't be dependent on in-person services. Digital payment processing is a familiar daily tool for most people, and one that your church should be utilizing for the convenience of your members and the security of your budget. Timely Messaging and Podcasting. Keeping members informed during this time is critical. Use Rock's easy-to-administrate content channels to post updates, publish weekend messages and more to your website. Bonus This is just the tip of the iceberg, but having the four features listed above in your current digital toolbox would make today's circumstances less complicated for many ministries. Once social distancing measures are behind us, you will find powerful public-facing ministry tools like volunteer connections, small group finders and group leader toolboxes, as well as the almost-endless flexibility of Rock's workflows and forms to be invaluable to the work you do as well. Take the time now to consider how a move to a public Rock website could take your digital strategy to the next level and ask the Rock community about the benefits they are experiencing by running their websites on Rock. [Less]

In this special edition episode of Rockcast recorded at our recent Rock Experience Conference, we talk with Michael Mullikin, Operations Pastor at NewSpring Church. Michael graciously shares his heart for ... [More] advancing church technology and inspires us to keep dreaming because we really haven't even gotten started yet. Sponsors Fishhook Fishhook is a provider of website design and development services. We thank our Rock Partners for their support of the Rock Community - visit their websites today and learn how they can help your ministry! [Less]

In this special edition episode of Rockcast recorded at our recent Rock Experience Conference, we sit down with Terry Storch, Digerati pastor at Life.Church and co-founder of YouVersion. We'll talk about how ... [More] God is in multiplication, how big dreams are part of God's vision, and how the greatest innovation happens when we're solving a problem. Sponsors SignNow SignNow is a provider of integrated e-signature services. We thank our Rock Partners for their support of the Rock Community - visit their websites today and learn how they can help your ministry! [Less]

Since the beginning, which for Rock dates back to 2011, we've been driven by a passion to serve churches in new ways with cutting-edge technology. A quick survey of the church management system ... [More] landscape at that time, and still today, yields a startling lack of innovation. Just as surprising is the lack of openness. The lack of choices. Since that beginning, the team at Spark Development Network has been calling for more. More innovation, more openness, more choices for churches. Now eight years later, there are a few more choices on the horizon for churches to consider. A recent post from Jeff Hook about his reentry into the ChMS space asks the question, "Does the church market really need another church management system?" And to that we wholeheartedly continue to say, "Yes, the Church needs choices." From payment processing platforms to full church management systems, the more innovation and competition the better. When there is no lock on technology, when there is no shortage of options to consider, churches will then be able to find the tools and prices they need to best power their ministries. We welcome Jeff back to the privilege of serving churches with innovative technology. The church can only be better served by a wide range of technology options that are positioned to serve the many different needs of each organization. Does the Church deserve more? Yes. [Less]

In this episode of Rockcast, we'll recap RX2019 along with some of the major announcements, talk about what it takes to be a Rock Star and give you some details about next year's RX2020 in Phoenix/Glendale ... [More] , AZ. Our agenda for this podcast episode: Announcements at RX2019 v10 going alpha v0.5 Rock Mobile Next year's Rock Stars RX2020 - Aug 18-19 Reserve both your ticket and your room by Oct. 8 to be eligible to win one of 8 upgrade packages. pre-event community gathering late evening application and group connection gatherings And, a pre-RX2020 Master Class (now 4 days long) Rock Master Class Join us for an upcoming Rock Master Class and take your Rock skills to the next level with hands on training directly from the core team. Sign up today! Sponsors RMR Development RMR Development is a full service specialists partner. We thank our Rock Partners for their support of the Rock Community - visit their websites today and learn how they can help your ministry! [Less]

In this episode of Rockcast, we'll discuss v9 developments, our upcoming Rock Experience Conference and the benefits of attending a Rock Master Class. We'll also pick Jon's brain about books he's reading and ... [More] hear some electrifying analogies. Our agenda for this podcast episode: v9.2 update RX2019 Conference within days! Lots of announcements: RX2020, new features and timelines See you there! Posting new list of Master Classes soon: make sure to plan to attend or send your staff Artillery vs Rifleman What Jon’s Reading Rock Master Class Join us for an upcoming Rock Master Class and take your Rock skills to the next level with hands on training directly from the core team. Sign up today! Sponsors Advanced Church Technology Group Advanced Church Technology Group is a full service specialists partner. Pushpay Rock Partner Pushpay is a giving and donation partner. We thank our Rock Partners for their support of the Rock Community - visit their websites today and learn how they can help your ministry! [Less]

In this episode of Rockcast, we'll talk about v9 and how much we appreciate our testers, and we'll share a few interesting nuggets including some data about Rock community instance stats. We're getting so ... [More] excited for the RX2019 Conference and the Master Class! We can't wait to see you there. Our agenda for this podcast episode: v9 update Rock Community Instance Stats RX2019 Conference Rock Master Class Rock Master Class If you're looking for an in-depth training program for Rock RMS, join us for the Rock Master Class right after the RX2019 Conference. The class takes place September 25th to 28th about 30 minutes down the road from the conference at Fellowship Greenville. Sign up today! Sponsors PlainJoe Studios Rock Partner PlainJoe Studios is a provider of website design and services. SignNow SignNow is an e-signature document platform and mobile app. We thank our Rock Partners for their support of the Rock Community - visit their websites today and learn how they can help your ministry! [Less]