Thanks for joining us on the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re chatting with Aaron Senneff, the Chief Technology Officer at Pushpay. Pushpay is a digital engagement platform that provides a donor management system, including donor tools, finance tools and a custom community app, to churches.

Technology is more important than ever in the church. But how do we effectively use it to inform our ministry approach and confirm that our ministry is “working”? Listen in as Aaron shares about how to use data to drive engagement and giving at your church.

Technology and churches. // In 2021 Pushpay did a Church Tech Report to find what people were thinking about technology in the church. Almost all respondents said technology was very important or critical to their church and ministry. 94% of churches who started online streaming during COVID say it’s a part of their future ministry.
Look at the data. // Technology tools can offer a way to look at who is engaging in the church. Pay attention to giving patterns and what givers attend online. Take a look at who are first time and second time givers, which can show who is making a commitment. We can’t do anything with the anonymous IP addresses of people who attend online. Provide an option, whether it’s a link or a QR code, to have people check in when they attend an online service. Offering some sort of online form enables you to follow-up, whether people are first-time visitors or regular attenders.
Have the information online. // Use your church management software to help people take next steps. Information about groups and volunteer opportunities are already there, so highlight them through your app. Having the information readily available online allows it to be accessed by anyone visiting at any time and creates a psychologically safe way for people to engage.
Engagement leads to giving, giving leads to engagement. // Don’t focus on how many donors you have or the monetary amounts. Rather use the data you have to figure out how to get people to engage in the church because those people are going to give. Similarly people who give will be more likely to engage and take next steps in other areas of church.
A heartfelt thank you matters. // Pushpay’s research has shown that a heartfelt acknowledgement of a monetary gift matters to the giver. It’s an important way for churches to engage with their donors and it doesn’t have to be hard. Recognition can be as simple as an automated email from Pushpay or MailChimp when someone gives for the first time, or commits to give regularly.
Technology Pushpay offers to bring data together. // A lot of churches have found that they end up using a bunch of different software to handle everything they need for their services, which can cause a lot of confusion. Pushpay offers systems, such as ChurchStaq, which are built to grow community, generosity and engagement. It brings data together to create the reports you need so you can see how people are moving along the path—from curious to leadership—and lets you know if the ministry is working.

You can learn more about Pushpay and their services at www.pushpay.com.

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Episode Transcript

Rich Birch — Well, hey, everybody! Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in today. Listen every week we try to bring you a guest who will both inspire and equip you. Today it’s our honor, our privilege, to have Aaron Senneff with us. He is the CTO, the chief technology officer, at a little organization called Pushpay. Which you might be familiar with their Pushpay product or CCB Church Community Builder or really a whole bunch of other different things that they’re doing to help churches like you. And it’s our honor to have him with us today. We want to pull back the curtain, learn a little bit more from Aaron. Welcome to the show. So glad you’re here.

Aaron Senneff — Yeah, thanks so much, Rich. It is well it is my honor to be here. So thank you for the invitation and I looking forward to the conversation. unSeminary seems like I’m either imminently qualified for this because I have not been to seminary.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Aaron Senneff — Or underqualified…

Rich Birch — No so glad you’re here.

Aaron Senneff — …but happy to be here and talk about church technology.

Rich Birch — Yeah, this is so great. Well why don’t you tell us for the four people who are listening in who don’t know who Pushpay is, tell us about Pushpay and about your role there.

Aaron Senneff — Yeah, so Pushpay is you know just to distill it is in the church technology space.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Aaron Senneff — So you know one of the things like many people would be familiar with from our organization is a giving platform. There are thousands of churches in the United States that use Pushpay’s giving to help you know manage and collect donations and donors in their church. We make a church management system as formerly known as Church Community Builder, now part of a broader product we call ChurchStaq and then other technologies to offer, you know mobile apps that you can sort of brand and label for your church and communicate with your audience. We’ve we’ve recently acquired a streaming platform by the name of Resi. And so really, really, you know if you just distill it what we’re trying to do is try to figure out, you knowy what kind of technology needs do churches have? How can we assist them and enable them with their mission of, you know, reaching the lost with the gospel and making sure they can run an as effective and healthy of of a church as possible?

Rich Birch — Yeah I I really love what you guys do. I’m definitely a fan from afar for years. I kept saying, man, somebody’s got to sort out this giving thing and make it simple. You did it with Pushpay. And then for years I’ve I’ve been in a multi-site space since the early two thousand s and I was like somebody is going to figure out this ah, you know streaming thing to make it work at at scale, and that obviously Resi’s a part of your family now, and ah you know ChurchStaq or CCB. Fantastic solutions. So I just I really, you know, just love what you guys do and how you empower so many churches to, you know, to to really do a great job reaching our communities. You know I think most people who are listening in today if I’m an executive pastor I would say, hey technology is important piece of what I do.You know I I think we all thought we saw this pre pandemic but then the pandemic obviously accelerated all that. In fact, you guys did a study that found I think it was over 90% of church leaders or church churches believe that technology plays an essential role in helping their church achieve mission. Tell us more about that.

Aaron Senneff — Yeah, um, well good – thanks for asking. Yes, well recently we did what we call the Church Tech Report. Yeah, this is something that’s accessible on our website if you’re interested. There’s some really interesting observations that come out of that. But you know we serve thousands of churches. So we we took the opportunity in 2021 to send out a survey to about 2000 leaders, you know, maybe people who are directly responsible for technology at their church who are executive pastors, maybe influencers for those technology decisions. And you know we we feel like we know our customers and the church pretty well but it gave us an opportunity just to, you know, make sure we weren’t you know missing the forest or the trees and understood how people were thinking about technology in the church. And you know it’s it’s probably not surprising in the sense that yeah in some ways it just confirmed things that probably most of us really are already understanding. And that’s that technology is important and getting more important…

Rich Birch — Right.

Aaron Senneff — …in the eyes of Church Leaders. So that’s probably not shocking. Sometimes we look at that data and we think like okay, but the way that is happening is a little bit interesting and unique and thought provoking. So it was a really good chance for us to sort of like step back and ask what is happening in the technology space and and again provide that to the you know the broader church leadership in the country to see how other people are thinking about it.

Rich Birch — Were there any ah kind of benchmark findings – things that kind of stood out that were like oh that’s kind of an interesting thing for us to be thinking about when we think about this whole space?

Aaron Senneff — Yeah I mean I think like there’s some things where it’s very confirming. So as a good example, if you just ask the question to you know the average ministry leader: How important is technology to your ministry? I think you know 93% of respondents say it’s very important. Over over half a respondents said it’s extremely important, so almost critical to the future of the church. And like I said that is that is probably not shocking.

Rich Birch — Right.

Aaron Senneff — You know, maybe confirming things that a lot of us already know. I think there were a few things that that have made us think a little bit more about the role that technology is playing. You know you you heard some things in the survey about, you know, not so much that that churches don’t find the tools that they want. It was more like, hey we have too many.

Rich Birch — Right.

Aaron Senneff — They’re working against each other, or they’re siloed…

Rich Birch — Right.

Aaron Senneff — …or how do these things work together? So there was this kind of this idea of like, Okay, how do we how do we like wrangle some of these things so that it’s working for us better? Um, you know, live streaming, again, probably not shocking that every virtually every church went online over the last three years if they weren’t already. So some you know some 94% of churches were were in the last year and last two years looking to get online and bring their services through streaming. You know the real question that we’ve had for a long time is what happens over the next two to 3 years as sort of you know covid is put behind us? And the reality is virtually every single one of those churches is saying online streaming is just part of our future.

Rich Birch — Right.

Aaron Senneff — And so now instead of ah, a tool to kind of get through a period, it is now a tool that will be a part of their ministry going on. And I think like another one that I… this one sticks out for me because I think we’re we’re all used to social media.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Aaron Senneff — Churches are very very invested in social media right now. Some ninety ninety some percent use it. But if you ask, is it important in the future? That really dropped off…

Rich Birch — Interesting.

Aaron Senneff — …which I think is interesting – less than 50% thought it would be strategically important to them in the future. And that’s you know there’s some whys behind that…

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Aaron Senneff — …that are fun to ask questions about, but I think that one was a really interesting observation. So like I said there’s some things in there you go, yeah I get that. Everybody’s talking about that. That makes sense. And there’s other times you think, hmmm what is that telling us?

Rich Birch — Yes, yeah, interesting. I do coaching with churches and a number of kind of the fastest growing churches in the country and there’s ah one of the stories I love to retell around the pandemic and streaming—and then really this is a bit of a long question or long introduction to get to a short question. But you know this this church, they, you know, their lead pastor by admission would say listen before March 2020, I was like anti-church online, thought it was a terrible idea, was like hey this is you know I’m not sure that’s like only for those a different kind of church. However, and and he would say like I was probably looked down my nose at churches that did that, and looked down my nose around a church’s use of social media. And he he retells this story about how somewhere there in mid March 2020 he pulled his senior leaders together and said, okay friends this is what we’re all going to do. Everybody’s got to get a Facebook account today. And we have to figure out how to get streaming and you all need to figure out how to how to ah, start using so social media this week, like this has now gone from a low priority to high priority.

Rich Birch — Now I think so many of us are on the other side of that now where we’re like yes, we have all these people viewing our streams. Or maybe our attendance is down from where we were before and we we don’t know what to make of all that. We’re not sure… Okay, so who are all those people? How do I connect with them? What are you seeing from your perspective? How how are you seeing churches kind of tackle that? Yes they’ve got into streaming. We have this audience; we’re not entirely sure what to do with it. We’re not entirely sure how to connect with them. What are some of the things you’re seeing on that front?

Aaron Senneff — Yeah, well you know the idea of that like who is out there?

Rich Birch — Yes.

Aaron Senneff — I think one of the things we can acknowledge is that’s probably been a problem for a lot of churches for a long time, especially larger churches.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Aaron Senneff — You know people walk in. They sit in a service. They walk back out and.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Aaron Senneff — Um, but we have processes, like churches have installed processes to try to get people to engage. So you’ll often hear like hey, fill out the contact card. Go visit us at the you know the new visitor center or the connect center. And so people who have the choice have this like avenue to to connect. And one of the think the frustrations that we hear as people engage online is some of those avenues are either broken, or they’re just kind of disjointed.

Rich Birch — Right.

Aaron Senneff — So it’s much much harder to figure out who is there, and how are they engaging in the community? How do we do we form community those people, and minister to them, and disciple to them? So it’s, you know, I don’t think the the idea of who’s out there is a new problem.

Rich Birch — Right.

Aaron Senneff — But like a lot of things, you know, covid just stretched things that were already happening and so now we’re in the situation where, gosh now it’s a very real problem because you know it’s it’s one thing to see that I have whatever – your analytics tell you that have 20,000 people you know, eyeballs on glass, but who are those people?

Rich Birch — Right.

Aaron Senneff — And are they returning? And are they engaging? So I I think you hear a lot of you know, continued sort of frustration or thinking about how do we make this a genuine community?

Rich Birch — Right.

Aaron Senneff — Not just people that are on the stream but people that are a part of our church.

Rich Birch — Right. And what what are some of the practices you’re seeing that are helping on that front? You know how how are how are they using in your case this the series of tools that you have? Because you have a number of different touch points. Someone might give once or someone might, you know, check in they might check their kids into kids ministry. Or they might fill out one of those new new here cards on on the website. How is all that working together? What are what are some best practices that we’re seeing bubbling up kind of post-covid and post this current you know period we’re in?

Aaron Senneff — Yeah I think there’s a couple things that I think about. And one one is that you’re right that you know we mentioned churches already investing a lot in tools, and sometimes those current tools are providing some windows into how people are engaging. So like giving records might be a good example. We always encourage look at first time and second time givers especially time because that sort of indicates a commitment, you know? You you don’t have to look at your online online analytics only and ask who’s out there. You can look at well how have giving patterns changed? And are there people that when we went online, they’re giving patterns… …talking to a church probably just about a month ago and you know it was one of those churches like you said that probably wasn’t highly organized around online. Very capable church. Very effective church, but online is sort of secondary. And we were we were just talking to some of the staff and the CFO just said, you know, what one interesting thing that did happen is, you know, we just got a gift from someone in New York for $5000. We’re thousands of miles away.

Rich Birch — Right.

Aaron Senneff — And you know we talked about that being well, you know, nobody just does that. You know, like that’s probably a window…

Rich Birch — Yes.

Aaron Senneff — …or a ministry opportunity, or a who is that and what community are they in, and how did that happen that you have a chance to follow up on. And because they gave you know a person’s contact information. You know that’s an opportunity to reach out and say hello. But I think also the the other thing that that can happen as like I mentioned that opportunity to connect sometimes gets broken. So we will we are starting to see churches do things like maybe use, you know, we’re we’re familiar with check-in for checking children into you know the the children’s worship. What about asking people to check in when they participate online? You know there’s some really nice mobile tools to do that. It doesn’t have to be awkward, and or maybe just saying hey if you’re just joining us for the first time or joining us for the second time, you know here’s maybe a link to a form, or a QR code to a form – just fill that out real quickly. It’s the same thing as filling out the contact card if you’re sitting in the auditorium, or walking to the connect center. And I think those you know those don’t tell us everybody who’s out there. We still have the problem just like in physical church of the people who walk in and walk out.

Rich Birch — Right.

Aaron Senneff —But it provides this invitation through your digital tools to let people let you know that they’re there.

Rich Birch — I love that. Talk to me more about the adult check-in thing. That that seems like the Holy Grail of, you know, connection ministries if we could get adults to check in. That’s like one of those I feel like for 15 years we’ve been wrestling with that. At the church I I was out for years we did name tags and I was like man, we should automate all of that process. And like let’s let’s get a whole bunch of you know and you know iPads and we’ll check people in. And just even the conversation around that, man that raised the anxiety with folks. But talk to us about that. What… I love that idea. I think from a connections point of view it could… it’s powerful data.

Aaron Senneff — Yeah I I totally agree with that. Like this this is one of the things I you know I just wished as as a yeah know giant church organization across the United States we were doing more of this, but there’s some great examples. So you mentioned it – I just visited a church in Houston not too long ago and they use child child check in but they use it for the adults walking in the church. So you walk in, bunch of kiosks for everybody who attends. They check in. They even chose to print name tags just to get over the awkwardness…

Rich Birch — Yes.

Aaron Senneff — …of not knowing who everybody is. And it’s also just a really great way to say, Okay, now we know who’s here. Well there’s no reason you can’t do that on on an online service.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Aaron Senneff — So we have churches that have maybe like set up online campuses.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Aaron Senneff — And they ask people to check in. We have, you know, because like in our product stack the mobile app is very connected to the CHMS so you can surface what we call instant check-in to the mobile app. So one way one way, for example, that we’ve used that in the past even for our own company is we used to we used to have this conference that we call Church Disrupt. Some of your your listeners may have tuned into that. So they might have experienced this. You you listen online; you register you listen online, and when ah when a session starts we would send out a push notification and that push notification would just say, hey can you just check in? Let us know you’re here. And you just go through a really quick exercise in your phone to do.

Rich Birch — Right.

Aaron Senneff — You know it’s just like child check-in but it’s just on your phone…

Rich Birch — Yep.

Aaron Senneff — …and it says like my family’s here and participating. So those are like that is a really great way to take, you know, a bunch of data that’s a bunch of anonymous IP addresses that you can’t do anything with, and then say okay now we have people that we can follow up with. We can engage. Whether you’re a first-time visitor, you’re a regular attender, or whatever – we know how you’re participating online. That opens a ton of doors.

Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely/

Aaron Senneff — And if you don’t have that information then it’s hard to follow up.

Rich Birch — Yeah absolutely. Yeah I love that. And I you know I I think there’s ah, there’s always this tension where the more anonymous… so most of my background I would say would be in the attractional church movement – that’s been kind of where I spent most of my time. And you know there’s always this tension between the more anonymous we make an experience theoretically it makes it more appealing to put folks because they’re totally in control of the experience. But the downside of that—and this is true in in-person church or online—the more we take an active role in trying to connect with people, the better we can get them to stick and stay and and provide a great experience for them. The more, like you’re saying, the more we ask them to check in or do a little bit of friction around the fact that, hey we’re glad you’re here. Um, you know that that helps us ultimately get people connected long-term. Talk to me about the in-person applications of that.

Rich Birch — I love that one example used in Houston. Are there other things that churches are doing to add to use technology to kind of drive connection? I’m thinking particularly at a larger church, a couple thousand people church where yeah you you know you look out and it’s like I have no idea who all those faces are out there.

Aaron Senneff — Yeah, we this is something that’s really personal to me because one of my you know my wife and I have been fortunate to be part of several churches, just as we’ve moved around the country with our jobs and other things that have gone on. And you know a lot of people probably have the story but we joined a certain church that was 100 people meeting in a high school gym. And a church like that you know everybody, the senior pastor knows everybody. You know you know who’s coming and going you know who’s setting up the chairs. You know who’s you know, wheeling out the worship equipment into the gym.

Aaron Senneff — And then we we just kind of like were one of those churches that the growth just was amazing. And we one day woke up in and in a new building. You know a thousand people and it was filled the first Sunday we were opened. And I remember we were on the leadership team. The elder team and you know that that first Sunday we had a meeting and you know was one of these days you should be high-fiving each other, like hey we’re we’ve done great.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Aaron Senneff — And I remember our senior pastor coming in and saying like, hey I think we we have a problem because I just talked to a few people and they they didn’t connect very well. Like our church felt a little cold to them. And you know this is just breaking his heart that this is who we become, and how do we fix that?

Rich Birch — Right.

Aaron Senneff — And the funny thing is this is long enough ago that you know here I am a technology executive that is software for a living, and I was like I don’t know.

Rich Birch — Right. Yes, right.

Aaron Senneff — I don’t know how to do that. But, you know, things have changed a lot. And you know a lot of people are more inclined to engage digitally first now. That’s just the way it is. So I think sometimes just simple things like, hey what is what is the next step? So a church I just visited recently was really good. They they published a form for for visitors. There was a QR code on the chair. Scan the QR Card, it takes you to form. Fill out a form that got the contact information and then it took me to a series of videos about what their church is about. So you heard like you know some of the founding members, the pastor, some of the staff members just talk about like who are we, you know what kind of place of this. I thought that is a really inviting way to just share a little bit and start to get people connected.

Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that.

Aaron Senneff — And then if you think about next steps. Um, you know I think like being public about the types of groups that are available, the types of volunteers volunteer opportunities are available. Maybe like missions your church cares about. And the thing is these are already all in your CHMS. Your groups are already there. You know your volunteer serving opportunities are already there. Your mission opportunities are already there. So being able to just surface those whether it’s through the app or the website gives people a really safe, psychologically safe, way to engage, you know, without having do the scary thing of walking up to somebody you know at a physical meeting and be like, okay I’m new here. I don’t know you, you don’t know me, but what do I do now?

Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, love that. I love that. You know it’s interesting – QR codes, right, they like came back with a vengeance here with ah you know the pandemic. It was like they were like they we’re all but dead. But now it’s like you know we’re everywhere you go you see them and it seems to have been, you know it’s like a a relatively easy… people I always… My benchmark for that is always my mom. It’s like if my mom knows how to use them, then there should be some, you know, there and she definitely knows how to use QR codes, which is kind of fun. So…

Aaron Senneff — And that’s that’s one that it’s just stuck, right?

Rich Birch — Yes.

Aaron Senneff — Like you you saw it get wide adoption to solve some problems.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Aaron Senneff — But I just walked into a restaurant this weekend and guess what there’s no menus. There’s QR codes. Like it has just stuck.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Aaron Senneff — And I think that’s probably true with a lot of technology changes that happened over the last two years.

Rich Birch — Oh totally. Absolutely. I had the same in a restaurant—oh this was in the last month—where they all their payment stuff was done—you would appreciate this as a payment company. Was the same thing – there’s a QR code on the table, and once we were done ordering you just literally scan and opens up to some mobile website where it had our order all there. I put the tip in and all that and paid right there on my phone, which was fantastic as a client, as a customer I loved that. I was like this fantastic. I don’t have to wait for somebody to bring me a check. I can just do it and you know away we go. Let’s let’s talk a little bit about the donor the donor side the donor development piece. You know you guys are at the the nexus of a lot of that um, at at Pushpay.

Aaron Senneff — Yeah.

Rich Birch — Obviously we’re we’re heading into some uncertain waters on the the economy side. You know the the whole impact of inflation and where is that heading and you know coming recession. All of that stuff. What is the advice that you’re giving to churches kind of at at a top level first around donor development. Um, you know, are there things we should be doing now to get ready for what’s coming ah, you know, assuming that things might turn a little bit sour here in the in the coming you know, couple quarters?

Aaron Senneff — Yeah, well valid concern. You know, I think that a lot of large churches are looking into the future and probably rightfully so have some concerns over you know what does what does participation look like…

Rich Birch — Right.

Aaron Senneff — …and then what does giving look like and you know will our church continue to grow on the path that it’s grown on in the past. So those those are really valid concerns. Um, and by the way there’s so many good churches out there that do this so well that for many of them I just want to say like I am not in a position to give you advice on how to manage that because…

Rich Birch — Sure.

Aaron Senneff — …you know your ministries and you execute them really well.

Rich Birch — Right.

Aaron Senneff — But the thing that I always think about when we look at data of how people engage with churches, engagement leads to giving. Giving leads to engagement. So I think that you know one of the things we want to try to do is not so much focus on, you know, Okay, how many donors do we have?

Rich Birch — Right.

Aaron Senneff — Are they are they reoccurring? What’s the what’s the amount? I think we want to try to use those opportunities or the data we have to try to figure out how do we get people to engage in the church because those people are going to give. so I I would say you know a really good set of giving tools shouldn’t just be a list of transactions. It should be a list of people that says…

Rich Birch — Right.

Aaron Senneff — …like hey yeah here are the people that are first time. Here are the people that are second time. Again, that opens up the door for you to reach out and ask like, hey you’re you’re new or you’re maybe just giving for the first time, you’ve been around for a while. Thank you. Or what has changed that’s leading to that? And then the other part I’d say—and totally obvious totally obvious—but um, online participation is just how a lot of people are going to show up to churches right now.

Rich Birch — Right, right.

Aaron Senneff —And so I wouldn’t overlook that. And one of the things you want to try to figure out is, first of all as you engage engage the online audience like like I said engagement is giving giving it is engagement. Those are those those both going kind of go hand in hand. So make sure you give them seamless, easy ways to participate if they choose to do so. Don’t make it hard. There’s some really good technology tools to you know, just kind of link into your stream. Go right here to the giving page and give if you want. And also just realize if you’re getting people to volunteer, if you’re getting people into small groups, those people are going to be much more inclined to give in the future. So it’s a holistic equation. It’s not just about, you know, collecting gifts.

Rich Birch — Yeah, I love it. I love the idea of simplicity and how do we make it simple. How to think about it from you know how do we reduce friction through that process. Um, you know how I think that’s so critical. The other thing you said, which I wonder if we could pull apart a little bit, is the acknowledgement side of it. The for some reason you know the church is I’ve seen so too many churches stumble in this area where they they don’t spend enough time actually just thanking people. And I don’t know why that is I think it could be a left hand right hand thing where like we don’t want to you know we don’t want to um, you know we don’t want to have some sort of weird relationship with our donors, and so we don’t want to say thank you to them. But but the reality of it is that people have lots of places they could give and the fact that they’re giving to your church is pretty amazing. You you mentioned a couple of those key milestones: first gift, second gift, setting up recurring. Um, are there any kind of best practices you’re seeing on the acknowledgement side that we should be thinking about?

Aaron Senneff — Yeah, well so first of I just think a a well done heartfelt acknowledgement does matter. We actually do see that in our research. It does matter.

Rich Birch — Right.

Aaron Senneff — That engages people in the church.

Rich Birch — Okay, yep.

Aaron Senneff — So and the and the funny thing is it doesn’t have to be hard.

Rich Birch — Right.

Aaron Senneff — So I I was you know talking one of the things we do is we we don’t just meet with church leaders, we meet with people who participate in churches and sort of ask you know what their experiences are like, and you know how are you engaging in the church. And there was just one recently interview that I was in and this individuals talked about like, hey I gave to my church and I got a really nice email from the pastor that was directed to me that just said, thank you here’s where your gifts are going. We really appreciate you participating. And they were just reflecting on that made me feel valued. You know I I just very much appreciate that it just didn’t feel like I sent a bunch of money to the general fund and it disappeared. I felt recognized.And you know the funny thing is, Rich, like I almost just kind of wanted to say, like that probably came out of Pushpay or MailChimp or something like that.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Aaron Senneff — Like like it is automated. It is simple. It is easy.

Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yes, yes.

Aaron Senneff — But it is valued.

Rich Birch — Right. Absolutely.

Aaron Senneff — So yeah I totally agree with you that acknowledgement and recognition is a really important next step.

Rich Birch — Right, right, right. Yeah, absolutely. That’s good. I just recently I had a guy pull me aside and say—we do we do like a handwritten note process for you know, basically people that have given at a certain level—and and um, you know this this guy pulled me aside and he said you know, Rich, like the fact that you would take time to write that note means a ton to me. Like the fact that you would and and it was it was like this you know like it was a little bit humbling frankly because I’m like it doesn’t take that long. I get generated a report that says here are the people. I have a stack of thank you cards on my desk I write notes and send it to people. It’s it’s not It’s not a big deal. Like it’s you know and you know it’s always if I know them if it’s like, hey you know it was a great seeing ya, or hope things are good with the kids, or you know that kind of thing – pretty straightforward. Um, but it was a good reminder to me again around acknowledgement and we’ve got to work hard on that. We’ve got to keep thinking about what we can do on that front. Now earlier you mentioned a problem that I’m hoping our relationship can sustain this, Aaron. I’m hoping that you know we’re we’re 25 minutes into our friendship and hopefully you can you won’t hang up on me. But one of the problems I find with technology is man, we just keep bolting on new stuff. It’s like the newest tool we got this thing, we got that thing we have all these different pieces of the puzzle, and that is really hard to manage. And and we have data silos and you know and I and I want to say stop it. Stop getting new subscriptions for a $20 a month you know tech solution. So I’d love for you to talk specifically from Pushpay. How are you helping churches solve that problem. What are you doing to help us wrestle through that?

Aaron Senneff — Yes, and not I’ll just tell you, Rich, not just you.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Aaron Senneff — So definitely a theme in churches.

Rich Birch — Yes, yes.

Aaron Senneff — There’s probably a lot of people in your audience that are kind of given a shout for hooray. Someone said it.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Aaron Senneff — That is really true. Church software like I think churches really over last ten years invested in technology. But now you step back from a technology stack and you’re like okay. We have a volunteer scheduling system over here.

Rich Birch — Right.

Aaron Senneff — You know we have maybe a database of people over here. We have a giving solution over here. You know someone else is using worship planning over here. Someone else has got maybe a accounting system and and it’s all in different silos…

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Aaron Senneff — …and hard to connect. And so I’m I am just going to say this. This is an area where Pushpay intends to help solve.

Rich Birch — Right.

Aaron Senneff — And I think we’ve got some really good head start on some things. But I’ll I’ll just tell you like why I think that’s important and where I think it can go.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Aaron Senneff — We we already know this – people are engaging digitally in the church. So if you just think about your systems today, the ones that already listed, you’re giving platform, wherever you register volunteers, where people sign up to be in a group. You know, how people consume information whether it’s through a email or a text message or an app, how they get online streaming, or how they do that. How they you know, how they may be messaged with people who are in a group. What you’re seeing is all these little what I call “digital footprints” of how people are engaging in your church that are collected, you know, just kind of automatically because people are engaging. And what we really want to be able to do is then say, okay we can step back and we can see, you know, how Rich is participating in our church. We can see that he he attends regularly. We can see that he’s a regular giver. And you know maybe we could say like and he’s not an active volunteer right now. That’s a great person to ask to step up.

Rich Birch — Right.

Aaron Senneff — Because he’s checking the attendance box, checking the giving box. Could we push on volunteering? Could we just reach out and say, hey we got some great opportunities. Do you think you could help? You’re probably inclined to say yes. So I think those types of opportunities of assembling that data, getting a really good 360 degree view of people, and then being able to tailor your ministry approach to those people based on, you know, sort of that engagement journey looks like. Did they… are they just curious? Did they just join the live stream for the first time? Or are they like committed members that have been participating for a long time and it’s time but for them to step into leadership? Um I think the data that we are already collecting can tell us a lot about those things and can help us be more effective at ministry Leadership. And then also I think that outcome is now you can see with a real concrete data how your church can grow. So you can see people moving from, you know, curious to participating, to involved, to committed, to leadership. And and then ask the question that everybody wants to know, like is the ministry working?

Rich Birch — Yes.

Aaron Senneff — Is this working the way we designed it…

Rich Birch — Yes.

Aaron Senneff — …with data? So you can do that today with some of our systems. Like I would say ChurchStaq which is the combination. You know you get all the people get linked together, all those records get tied together. You can run some really great reporting on how people are engaging and it also say we should already be way better at this. So if you just want to ask like where is Pushpay going next? This is sort of the next frontier to help people really understand their audiences and and community as well as possible.

Rich Birch — Yeah that’s good. Like I I think there’s it’s there’s an interesting kind of philosophical or maybe not philosophical or it’s like approach to technology is the future which, you know, I I think you don’t have to be a technology strategist to figure out what Pushpay’s solution is, is the future one giant solution that kind of does it all, or is it a whole bunch of solutions held together by Airtable and you know that’s like we kind of tape it all together ourselves. Um, which there’s a ton of churches that are doing that – I know you know that. That are like hey we’ve got all these different things and we’re going to pull it all together and then to try to answer the same question. Um, man I’m just just cheering for you from the sidelines. If there’s a way for you to make that work together to ultimately answer the question that you’re saying, which is hey how are people actually taking steps closer to you know a relationship with Jesus and across all of these different you know data points, um, man that would be powerful for so many of us.

Aaron Senneff — Yeah, and I do think is moving that way. And I think you see both approaches, Rich.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Aaron Senneff — So you do see churches saying hey we are going to figure out how to stitch this together.

Rich Birch — Right.

Aaron Senneff — So we’ll use these these separate tools and we’ll figure this out.

Rich Birch — Right.

Aaron Senneff — And I think that’s admirable. That’s also a ah like a hill to climb.

Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.

Aaron Senneff — So there’s some effort that goes into that. And then you also see a very common approach of okay, we really need to like make our stack more uniform…

Rich Birch — Right.

Aaron Senneff — …maybe more in all in one, and that way all the data is all all the way there together. So you see you see both for sure and the one thing I would just want to encourage everybody, you know, obviously I’m part of Pushpay. I like the all in one. We should be doing that for you. We should be making it helpful. But the one thing I would just say to everybody, be sensitive about where your congregant data goes. You know, maybe less critical if you’re thinking about a general ledger, or you know your accounts payable or accounts receivable, because that’s not like how your congregants are engaging.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Aaron Senneff — But when you think about who’s volunteering, and when are they volunteering, who’s giving when are the giving, how are they participating you know, are they in groups. Um, that is really important data…

Rich Birch — Yes.

Aaron Senneff — …to understand how your church is changing. And if you cannot tie that together, you are missing a lot of information.

Rich Birch — Yeah, no, that’s good. That’s a good insight. You know I know for years we would look at we do a quarterly report with our campus pastors where we all we looked at was giving trends. So we just were like who’s kind of behind trend and ahead of trend. And the conversation I would ask is ah, like I’m not actually concerned about the money side of it. It’s what is this telling us about our people, right? So people who have been giving at you know they were giving x amount of dollars now they’re giving half of what they were giving a year ago. That’s sending us a message that’s sending us a pastoral care message. There’s something’s happened in their house that is that we need to address, that we need to find out what’s happening there. Not not because we’re the the money is telling us a story, but we’re not actually primarily concerned about the money thing. You know and we could be if obviously if we’re thinking about donor stuff we are thinking about that as well. But there’s there’s so many examples of that, you know. But that if we could get better as churches, hey we used to check our kids in every other week and now you’re once every three weeks. Um what are we doing? It seems like a basic thing. It’s like ah…

Aaron Senneff — Yeah.

Rich Birch — …but but too many too many of us aren’t doing that. We’re not accessing the data we have today.

Aaron Senneff — Yeah, and that’s another thing I would just encourage that’s a good use of data, and that’s a really great segue. Because I think it’s one thing to just look at a donor list, especially if you’re at like a 10,000 person church.

Rich Birch — Right.

Aaron Senneff — Like okay we have you know 5000 active donors. What do I do with that?

Rich Birch — Right.

Aaron Senneff — Well if you’re really trying to focus ministry just like you said. Changes in donor behavior mean something.

Rich Birch — Right.

Aaron Senneff — You know, maybe it’s just something small to celebrate like a job change…

Rich Birch — Yep.

Aaron Senneff —…or you know our family’s changing. But we have heard story after story after story that those changes were indicating of life events are really important for the church…

Rich Birch — Right. Yep.

Aaron Senneff —… to come alongside and minister to those people. You know death in the family that led to an inheritance that led to a gift. So your your thank you note is now like ah oh how can we come alongside you and and help your family during this time? Or a job loss or the family’s being disrupted in some way. And so I really encourage people use the data to look for those moments – those changes…

Rich Birch — Right.

Aaron Senneff — …like what are the windows that we can open to say, Okay, something changed that is a chance that is a time for us to ask what’s going on. And you’re right like checking in every Sunday and then not. Or becoming going from a recurring donor to irregular donor.

Rich Birch — Right.

Aaron Senneff — Like there’s just different changes like there like those, and it helps distill the 5000 people in your audience to the hundred people that you can reach out to this week.

Rich Birch — Right, right. Absolutely. Well, Aaron, I I appreciate this. There’s a ton we could talk about here, but I I appreciate you just opening up a window a little bit. Again thank you on behalf of the thousands of churches out there that use Pushpay and all your various solutions to to help make ministry better. Appreciate what you’re doing I know you probably put out a lot of fires every day. So the fact that you give us some time here means a lot. So I really appreciate that. Is there anything else, you’d like to say just as we kind of wrap up today’s episode?

Aaron Senneff — Yeah I’ll I’ll just say to everybody that’s out there. You know, I’ve considered a privilege to be able to work next to churches. It is honestly a privilege to be a part of Pushpay. Hard time to be in church staff. You know, divided churches, a lot of things changing in the work, and so I just I just want to say this – we we meet with ministry professionals every day. It is a very difficult time to be a ministry professional. We love you all and um, just ask everybody to take care of yourselves and hopefully Pushpay can do our part and try to help on the technology side. So that’s all.

Rich Birch — That’s great. So we want to send people to pushpay.com – is there anywhere else we want to send them to kind of learn more about what you guys are doing?

Aaron Senneff — pushpay.com is a great place. It’ll take you a lot of different ways.

Rich Birch — Right.

Aaron Senneff — And then if you if you do a little digging, you’ll find the church technology report. There might be some things that are insightful to you.

Rich Birch — Okay, thanks so much, Aaron – appreciate you being here today. Thank you so much.

Aaron Senneff — Thank you, Rich. Appreciate it.

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