Summer Lovin', Church Data Strugglin': Time to Clean It Up!

Ah, summer. The season of barbecues, mission trips, and asking "Where is everybody?" every Sunday morning.

While half your congregation is at the beach and the other half is at Grandmas, youve suddenly got a little breathing room. No Christmas pageants to plan.

You know what that means? Its the perfect time to finally update your church database.

Dont pretend you dont know what Im talking about.

• Sister Mildred is still listed as a "Young Adult."
• There are 17 people named John with no last name.
• And were 95% sure that "Mr. and Mrs. Smith - Possibly Joined in 2016?" is not a real household.

The Summer Data Cleanse

Whether you use B1 Admin from ChurchApps (free and open-source), Breeze (simple and friendly), or Planning Center (powerful and organized), now is the time to:

• Merge duplicates
• Delete former staff members who moved away in 2019
• Get kids out of the nursery and into the right grade
• Actually put addresses in the address field, not the notes section

But Why Summer?

Because youre not knee-deep in Christmas rehearsal schedules. Because the church calendar finally has more white space. And lets be honestyou already spent 2 hours this morning trying to fix the church copier. You deserve to sit in the office with a nice database cleanup task.

How to Start

1. Bribe a few church teens with pizza to help clean up member profiles.
2. If you are still using spreadsheets, investigate church management options. If money is an issue consider B1 Admin, free and open source.
3. Have your admin team commit to keeping data current going forward.
4. Pick your tool and start smalldelete just one "Unknown Visitor" at a time.

Final Word

Dont let another year go by with a database that thinks Bob and Barbara moved to Canada and are also still teaching Sunday school.

This summer, give your church the gift of data salvation. Because nothing says we care like finally spelling everyones name right.

Check out B1 Admin for a cost-free, guilt-free way to get your church info in order.