ICYMI — REACHRIGHT shares "Your Church's Follow-Up Strategy Is Broken (Here's How to Fix It)" (43-minute watch), on rebuilding visitor follow-up. From their own studies and client assessments, Thomas says churches with a weak system see about one in ten first-time visitors stay, while the best reach about 25% according to their research. His fix is a formula — prompt, personal, pleasant — plus two specific actions: put an incentive on the connect card, and have whoever preached text every first-time guest the same day.

Editor's note: REACHRIGHT sells church websites and marketing. This podcast episode sounds more like marketing for increasing membership in a social organization than a church, which may be off-putting. Thomas gives away his own follow-up templates and says on air that the goodwill is the point. The 10%-versus-25% range is their in-house figure, not outside research. Thomas pastors a church of about 300 — the same-day text is a practice at that scale.

ICYMI — Life.Church Open Network shares "Event Planning" (free resource), five downloadable guides contributed by Highlands Resources: an Event Debrief, Registration Checklist, Project Manager Checklist, Timeline and Checklist, and a Food and Drink hints sheet. The page calls them "pre- and post- event resources for staff and volunteers." If your team is heading into a fall kickoff or Christmas without a written run-of-show, this costs nothing to start from.

Editor's note: Hosted on Life.Church's Open Network but credited on the page to Highlands Resources, with thanks to Grow — Life.Church is the library, not the author. The page carries no publication date, so we run it as ICYMI: an evergreen resource rather than news.

Churchfront shares "How Smart Churches Are Rethinking Broadcast" (59-minute watch), a conference session where broadcast director Stephen Shepherd argues the live stream is no longer the growth engine churches treated it as in 2020. His theme throughout: gear is rarely the bottleneck. He points to churches that bought cameras when the real fix was front lighting, calls matching cameras "a nice thing to have. It's not a requirement," and tells churches running PTZs to build presets and let the pastor preach inside a fixed frame.

Editor's note: This is Churchfront's own conference, and the description links their AV services and premium training. Shepherd's background is large-church, but what he actually recommends costs nothing: audit lighting before buying cameras, train the operators you have, point every camera at the sermon. His suggestion to skip streaming entirely — record the sermon well, post it Sunday evening — may be the most useful idea here for a thin volunteer team.

ICYMI — Planning Center shares "3 Focus Areas for a Successful Groups Ministry Launch" (5-minute read), Savannah Frye's prep list for the fall ministry season: set up groups and events, communicate with members, then check how it is going. The practical core is reuse — duplicate groups instead of rebuilding them yearly, and unarchive last year's to restore members, resources, chat, and events at once. She also suggests pinning discussion guides, enabling RSVPs, and watching multi-group reports for fading engagement.

Editor's note: A Planning Center product post — the steps describe their Groups and Church Center tools, so it lands best if you already use them. The habits travel anywhere: reuse last year's structure, and check attendance while the term is still running. For an interesting counterpoint on small groups, check out this Instagram post by Sheldon Andrus

The Lead Pastor shares "2026's Best Church Giving Software, Compared & Ranked" (10-minute read), Joshua Gordon's ranked roundup of ten giving platforms, each with a stated best use — Donorbox for customizable forms, Subsplash for secure online donations, ChMeetings for all-in-one management, Tithe.ly for pledge campaigns. Entry pricing runs from Anedot at $0/month and ChMeetings at $12 up to Donorbox at $150, with Givelify charging 2.9% + $0.30 per donation. Several list a free plan.

Editor's note: The page states "We review tools independently, and commissions help fund our testing," so treat the ranking as a shortlist, not a verdict. For a first platform the useful columns are the free-plan and per-transaction rows — at low giving volumes, a percentage cut versus a monthly floor moves more money than any feature list.

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