NewPointe Community Church: Change Is Fun

Has someone ever moved your cheese? How about your CMS? If that thought makes you break out in a cold sweat, you need to meet Bronson Witting, Director of Information Technology at NewPointe Community Church in northeast Ohio.

Bronson learned about Rock RMS through his contacts in the Church IT Network and determined to transition the church of 4,500 attendees from their then-current church management system to Rock. And not only that, he determined to make it fun.

What? Here’s his formula: lots of training tools, over-communication, public resources and a healthy dose of puns.

When Bronson and his team began to introduce their staff to Rock, they loaded up on cardboard standups of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, a trunkful of Pop Rocks, fun t-shirts, notebooks and more. As excitement mounted, they shared with each team how Rock would add value to their job and ministry, scheduled mandatory training sessions and prepared tools like a Rock Wiki. Volunteers and families were also treated to in-depth resources like training videos for check-in and online giving. "And we could have done even more!" according to Bronson.

How did the February 2015 launch go? "We have had countless staff express how happy they are with Rock because it helps them understand peopleʼs relationships and history better, and it helps save time so they don't have to worry about administration and have more time to care for people. That is a huge win!"

Since then, NewPointe Community Church has moved its website from WordPress to Rock, utilizing new features like personalization with Lava and content channels, while adding flexibility and cutting administration time, leading Bronson to label Rockʼs CMS as a "killer feature!"

A self-confessed skeptic at first, Bronson sums it up like this, "Switching from another platform to Rock is hard work, but absolutely worth it!" He does caution that Rock isn't a magic bullet to fix bad processes though. "It may seem daunting up front to look at moving from another system, but with community-driven tools, itʼs easier than it seems."

Top Tip: People don't like change. And excitement doesn't equal commitment. Look at the process from your attendeeʼs point of view and have as many resources as possible for changes that affect them.