Lakeside Christian Church: Technology Trials Published Jun 3, 2016 Leaders set the direction for their organizations and Lakeside Christian Church is no exception. With an inclination toward technology and the standard set of ministry problems to solve, Lakeside Christian Church’s Director of Administration, Dave Brown, has overseen the implementation of several new applications. From a technology perspective, Dave is kept on his toes. He reports to a lead pastor who is as much at home with Web and SQL development as he is with leading a church to have significant impact in the local community. In fact, Lakeside has seen its share of technology difficulties and tried solutions ranging from Shelby to a self-developed SQL database with a Microsoft Access user interface. They kept an eye on Arena, but just couldn't justify the price tag for their church of nearly 500 in Springfield, Illinois. Keeping a finger in the current ChMS pool led them to discover a "new" product, Rock RMS, and they decided to give it a try. As Dave shared with us, "When the lead pastor is the project champion, everything is easier to roll out." Their plan was simple. They provided web links to the online Rock manuals for each ministry leader in their area of influence. The tech team also loaded their current data into a Rock sandbox and tested how their data might create unique scenarios so they could anticipate issues before running in production. (Smart work there!) It was only another two months before they went live with Rock in September 2015. According to Dave, Lakesideʼs favorite features include workflows, which they use to assign general inquiries, and prayer management, which has streamlined internal communications and raised awareness of the needs of their community. "We feel like we have significantly greater potential to run an effective ministry with Rock than we did before implementation." Their hard work is certainly paying off but there is still more work to do, proving that it is possible to launch with the features you need most, and add others later. Currently, the Lakeside tech team is working to implement online giving and troubleshooting scheduled transactions. With a track record like theirs, we have no doubts that they will master this feature, as well. Shared Dave, "Rock is like the human brain…we’re probably using 10% of its capabilities." Sounds like there will be plenty of interesting pursuits for the Lakeside team this year, as well. Top Tip: The user forum and the manuals cannot be discounted in terms of your time and research. You don't have to "go it alone" with those invaluable resources!