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When Rob Packer and his wife moved to Christchurch, New Zealand, they already knew the senior pastors of Living Waters Christian Centre–a 200-person church with a primarily 40+ population.
It was a no-brainer when the leadership team reached out to Rob with the opportunity to jump in as church administrator. The position fit his skill set “like a glove,” says Rob.
When Rob began his role at Living Waters Christian Centre, he found a helpful suite of tools to help with his role, including Tithe.ly Giving and Tithe.ly ChMS.
“ChMS is the Rolls Royce of databases,” says Rob.
Clearly, Rob was already happy with the tools that Tithe.ly provided. So when he found out that Tithe.ly offered additional products for churches, he was excited to give the tools–namely, Tithe.ly Sites–a try.
When Rob started at Living Waters, he found that they had built a website that was an improvement on the previous site. It was functional, but still lacking.
“There were some significant gaping holes in terms of the technology,” explains Rob. “If you wanted to view a sermon, for example, it would take you right into our Google drive, which was less than ideal.”
Rob also saw a lack of integration between the current website and other tools, and knew that there was much more possible.
“It wasn't that we were trying to do things that we couldn't do,” says Rob. “But when I saw what Tithe.ly Sites could do–like integrate its Events tool with a calendar feed–I knew there was so much more available to us as a church.”
When Living Waters made the leap to using Tithe.ly for Sites and Apps, Rob spearheaded the initiative.
Tithe.ly’s awesome customer support team made the transition enjoyable. And now? Living Waters Centre has a seamlessly integrated site (and app) with everything it needs to better engage their community (and keep admin work to a minimum).
Here’s how Tithe.ly helped Living Waters build an awesome new church website.
Making the switch to a new church website can feel intimidating. There’s data and information to migrate, assets (like photos and audio files) to store, and of course, a whole new site to build. But Tithe.ly’s customer support team made that process as simple as possible for Rob.
“The customer support is just outstanding,” says Rob. “The whole onboarding experience was super helpful.”
Not only that, but the support team was quick and responsive.
“Within a very short time of sending an email, I've got one acknowledging the request and following it up,” says Rob. “Tithe.ly scores top marks for that.”
Finally, Tithe.ly’s customer support team made the transition feel more comfortable.
“Do I leave what I'm familiar with in terms of the tools I'm using to go into a new ecosystem?” asks Rob. “The support adds a whole degree of security to the process.”
One of the things that struck Rob the most about Tithe.ly Sites was that it’s thoughtfully built just for churches.
“I really appreciate the thought and research that went into the development of the website platform,” says Rob. “There are some great ideas that we hadn’t even thought of.”
“For example, there are certain blocks that are inherent to the home page template which give you a feed from other sections of the website,” he explains. “You’ve got upcoming gatherings, which pulls from Events in ChMS. You’ve got the blog feature. You’ve got a block for contact info and FAQ’s.”
“All of that was already custom-made,” explains Rob.
Rob also appreciates that individual tools on Tithe.ly Sites are easy to use and super-efficient.
“I love the economy of the gallery feeds,” he says. “When we’re showcasing our staff, Tithe.ly Sites makes it simple to hide or de-activate certain tiles without needing to delete them–for example, if a small group leader is taking a break.”
The sermon viewer is another favorite feature, for its clean UI.
“I love the fact that you can adjust the sermon viewer to find sermons by date or by series,” says Rob. “It looks so clean and tidy.”
The GroupFinder helps create a helpful experience for site visitors looking to get plugged in–and maintains safety and security for the church.
“The GroupFinder, which is set up in ChMS, is also great,” says Rob. “It helps new visitors find a group on a map without showing the exact location, which is great for security purposes.”
The bottom line? With features that make life easy–and make your website look fantastic–Tithe.ly Sites is built just for church administrative staff like Rob.
Perhaps the most winning part of Tithe.ly Sites for Rob is that it smoothly integrates with other tools. It was also a strong motivator for trying out Tithe.ly Sites.
“The opportunity to be able to link in with other tools was a great incentive to delve deeper into Sites,” explains Rob. “Just like Microsoft Office works, for example, you have a series of programs that talk to each other.”
Tithe.ly Sites links directly to Church Apps, a big selling point for Living Waters as they adopted both platforms simultaneously.
“You don’t have to recreate very much on the church app,” explains Rob. “The sermon viewer, for example, feeds directly from the site to the app.”
Rob also mentions the calendar feed and live streaming as integrations that have proven to be super helpful.
“The calendar feed is integrated with Events from ChMs,” says Rob. “And we were only using Facebook for live streaming before, but now we can link the website to directly live stream our services.”
Ultimately, integrations not only mean that the data and information shown on the website and app are accurate; it also means much less work for the admin.
“Once the app is set up, it’s very easy to maintain,” explains Rob.
Switching to Tithe.ly Sites has helped Living Waters create a better user experience for church members and visitors and made work more efficient for the church admin.
Rather than cobble together a number of tools, churches can use Sites and Church Apps to create a single seamless experience for connecting better with their people.
“It’s not just usable for churches,” Rob says of Tithe.ly. “It’s designed with churches in mind.”
To learn more about how Tithe.ly can help your church build a seamlessly integrated website, app, and more, click here.
