The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of Church Calendars

When it comes to organizing the operations of a church, it may look like the wild wild west when planning for the whole year.  The church calendar is one of the essential tools for planning and organizing your church.  The proper calendaring practices can help to ensure that everything stays on track, while the wrong calendar practices can lead to confusion and chaos.  Selecting the right church calendar and the calendaring process is essential to ensure the church runs smoothly.  PowerChurch Software offers powerful tools to help navigate the good, the bad, and the ugly of yearly planning for any church. 

 The Good

The good of church calendars is that they are a great way to help keep everyone in the church on the same page.  Organizing the calendar can help reduce confusion and ensure everyone knows when events, meetings, and other activities are taking place.  Ministry is busy, and time is precious; using tools that organize our time is invaluable and keeps everyone on track. Using calendaring software lets users quickly create events and assign them to specific dates and times.  It also allows users to send reminders to those who need to be aware of an upcoming event resulting in a more informed staff and congregation.  A church calendar also helps leaders stay organized and effective when planning for the year.  Calendaring out an entire year can take undue pressure off staff and leaders and also allow for a more intentional approach to ministry. Seeing the scope of the year is helpful. As it's said, "it's easier to get there when you know where you're going."

The Bad

The bad of church calendars is that they can be challenging to manage if they are not updated regularly.  If the events and activities on the calendar are not updated promptly, it can lead to confusion and missed opportunities.  Communicating about the calendar (so that you can communicate better) can sometimes seem like more of a chore than a useful tool. Calendars also typically rely on the viewer to understand the resources and requirements needed for the event or activity listed. These assumptions can also lead to a calendar failure.

The Ugly

The ugly of church calendars is that they can be challenging to manage if they are not used correctly.  If the calendar is not set up correctly, it can lead to conflicting events, missed deadlines, and other issues. One struggle with keeping a church-wide calendar is knowing which events or activities should be listed publicly or are intended for internal use. Imagine visiting a church's website and clicking their church calendar link to learn the pastor had a haircut appointment that week and a root canal the next. While transparency could be applauded, it's important for churches to distinguish what information is essential to communicate publicly. 

The Redemption

The good, bad, and ugly of church calendars can be managed with the help of the PowerChurch software.  With PowerChurch, users can easily create and manage events and activities, set up reminders, and even generate reports to keep track of the church's activities.  Utilizing calendaring software makes it easy to classify events that should be public and events that should be internally communicated. With PowerChurch, users can assign events to specific dates and times, schedule rooms, and integrate equipment logs and staffing, allowing every detail to be organized in one place.