After searching through every corner of the internet, we’ve identified every Content Management System geared toward Churches (that we could find).
To get this blog started right, we’re going to post an overview of each one of them. Each overview has information on the features they offer, and pricing from the companies who were willing to publish it.
Our goal is to be the definitive resource to help you choose the right CMS for your church. The field is crowded, and some less-recognized companies may have the feature set that best fits your situation.
It’s tough to get a full idea of what a CMS is like from their website, so if you use a service we’re featuring on a regular basis, let us know what you think about it in the comments.
Here are some questions you could answer for us:
- What CMS does your church currently use?
- How do you feel about it?
- What might we also consider?
Looking forward to it! We hope to serve you well!
Matt Shaughnessy says
Sweet! Looking forward to more info. We had a really hard time a year ago trying to find a good CMS to work with that would meet our needs – we ended up going with Fellowship1 and it’s been really helpful in some ways (and really frustrating in others) so I’m looking forward to seeing this blog grow and develop.
You’re probably already planning on it, but it’d be helpful to have them broken down by platform (Windows/OS X) and also whether they’re web-based or server-based. When we were searching about a year ago, there wasn’t a lot available that was web-based and mac-compatible (I’m sure there are probably a few more options out now) For smaller churches and new plants, a cloud-based database is a lot easier to manage (at least it was for us)
John Saddington says
That’s a great idea!
Stephen Bateman says
Hey Matt, thanks for the feedback. In a lot of ways, the difficulty of finding a good CMS is the problem we’d like to solve w/ this site.
And you’re right, a lot of times a cloud solution saves some headaches.
Corri Page says
1. We use Shelby Membership/Finacials and have for 10+ years.
2. Our bookkeeper LOVES Shelby Financials because she says it is a true accounting program. I’m not a big fan of Shelby Membership. The controls are not intuitive and it has been impossible to train and convince other staff members to use it. So we are paying a lot of money for Shelby and not utilizing everything it can do because of the difficulty in training.
3. Tips on integrating ChMS programs with the office software we already use – Outlook, Word, Excel – and social sites – Facebook, Twitter – would be very helpful. I’ve found that ChMS programs aren’t as useful as they could be if they don’t play well with others.
Jimmy King says
I’ve been looking forward to this =)
On a totally unrelated note, I that a new ribbon you got there John?
Ben Miller says
I’m looking forward to this blog, as this is an area I know very little about.
I was wondering if you could define the terms “CMS” and “Content Management System” as you are going to use them here. I’ve always understood the abbreviation CMS to have two different meanings: “Content Management System” and “Church Management System.” A Content MS controls the content of a website (i.e. WordPress, Joomla). A Church Management System is used by church administration to store information about church members, finances, and events (i.e. ACS, Fellowship1), and may not even have a web component to it. I assume this blog will be about what I have been calling a Church Management System, and not about WordPress?
Matt Shaughnessy says
I think (correct me if I’m wrong) but is the Church version “ChMS” (like Corri used above)?
Stephen Bateman says
Matt, you’re right, unfortunately in practice it ends up as ChMS, ChCMS, CMS and probably a bunch of others. Ambiguous to say the least!
Rodlie says
Looking forward to the conversation. I had no idea there were enough cms’s out there to devote a whole blog to it! 😉
Chris Huff says
We use WordPress. I and one other church member update the website, and I’ve never heard any complaints, so I guess we’re all happy with it.