Church software is any type of

computer software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

specifically designed for use by a

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * C ...

. There are administrative packages tailored to handle membership databases and finances, and also worship presentation programs to generate images for

video projector A video projector is an image projector that receives a video signal and projects the corresponding image on a projection screen using a lens system. Video projectors use a very bright ultra-high-performance lamp (a special mercury arc lamp), X ...

Worship presentation software

A worship presentation program is a specialised

presentation program A computing, a presentation program (also called presentation software) is a software package used to display information in the form of a slide show. It has three major functions: * an editor that allows text to be inserted and formatted * a ...

designed for displaying images (primarily

song lyrics Lyrics are words that make up a song, usually consisting of verses and choruses. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist. The words to an extended musical composition such as an opera are, however, usually known as a "libretto" and their writer, a ...

, often with

cinemagraph Cinemagraphs are still photographs in which a minor and repeated movement occurs, forming a video clip. They are published as an animated GIF or in other video formats, and can give the illusion that the viewer is watching an animation. A vari ...

s video background) during some forms of

Christian worship In Christianity, worship is the act of attributing reverent honour and homage to God. In the New Testament, various words are used to refer to the term worship. One is ("to worship") which means to bow down to God or kings. Throughout most ...

. Some programs include other features to help plan the service or schedule participants. There are programs available both commercially, as shareware and as free

open source software Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose. Open ...

(for example OpenLP).

Church management software

Church management software is a specialized

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated software documentation, documentation and data (computing), data. This is in contrast to Computer hardware, hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. ...

that assists churches and other religious organizations in organization and automation of daily operations. These packages typically assist in the management of membership and mailings, fundraising, events, report generation, and

bulletin Bulletin or The Bulletin may refer to: Periodicals (newspapers, magazines, journals) * Bulletin (online newspaper), a Swedish online newspaper * ''The Bulletin'' (Australian periodical), an Australian magazine (1880–2008) ** Bulletin Debate, ...

publishing. Churches use the packages to reduce the cost of operations and track the growth in their congregations. The growth in the church management software business coincides with the growing trend of using computers for religious activity. In the UK, increased usage of such software is attributed to data management requirements such as

GDPR The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a European Union regulation on data protection and privacy in the EU and the European Economic Area (EEA). The GDPR is an important component of EU privacy law and of human rights law, in parti ...

. Larger systems allow

multi-user Multi-user software is computer software that allows access by multiple users of a computer. Time-sharing systems are multi-user systems. Most batch processing systems for mainframe computers may also be considered "multi-user", to avoid leaving t ...

access, with security options to protect confidentiality. Flexible features to keep and report information on attendance and pastoral visits can help church staff manage members. Using a purpose-made package guards against relying on the knowledge of a specific individual to maintain a custom database. However, different church management applications vary significantly from one another, and what works well for one church may not fit the needs of another. Free open source church management systems are also available.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Church Software Administrative software Christian software Presentation software

Worship presentation software

Church management software

See also

References