Lately I've been getting lots of questions about my experience with Arena. The last set of questions were particularly well thought out so I got permission from the good people (Zana and Win) at Christ Chapel Bible Church to share their questions and my responses with anyone who is interested. I guess this post will only be of interest to other churches that are also curious about Arena... and I hope this information is helpful to anyone who is looking to upgrade their existing ChMS.
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Q: Please share with me the dynamics of your church demographically, type of government, size of staff and congregation, etc.
We have 8 services on two campuses (2 Sat and 6 on Sunday) with about 3200 attending one campus and about 3200 on the other. Our senior pastor answers to the elders, of which he is one, however the running of the church is basically left up to the pastor’s staff. I think it is correct to say that the elders direct the vision of the church. I believe we have about 120 full and part time staff (including the maintenance staff for the two campuses).
Q: What database, etc. were you using prior to Arena? Shelby?
We were using ShelbyV5 – for both Membership and Shelby Financials. The Shelby Financials was (and still is) on an entirely different server and database, and is fully disconnected from our ShelbyV5 Membership system. We’re planning on turning the ShelbyV5 Membership system off in January. Our entire staff has now been using Arena since April and only a small contingent is still using ShelbyV5 Membership to manage weekly contributions. With the recent release of Arena 2.0, we’re working toward moving to Arena Contributions before the start of the year.
Q: What prompted your initial interest in Arena? Which features interested you the most?
We’ve known about Arena (previously called Solomon) through Jon Edmiston and David Turner of Christ’s Church of the Valley (CCV), the original developers, for several years now and have even based some of our own systems (Web Prayer and Involvement Tracking) on code that later evolved into Arena. I like to think we (Phil James, our IT Director and me) were one of the groups that kept pushing Jon Edmiston and David Turner to share Arena in some fashion. Prior to the official news of Shelby obtaining Arena, we had investigated and eventually ruled out several options for moving forward with a new, more modern Church Management System (ChMS) including:
- The possibility of partnering with a large church in Illinois using their system – their system was not as sophisticated as Arena (then called Solomon) and I believe they were essentially unable to partner at that time.
- We investigated using Fellowship One – we were not quite satisfied with having our data beyond our control, relying on the internet, the hard costs, and having to be constrained to do ministry one way. I think mostly we still wanted to be able to develop modules for what ever ChMS platform we would select.
- We beta tested using Microsoft CRM 3.0 as a platform for a custom ChMS – this is a very costly and difficult challenge at this point in CRM’s lifecycle.
- We also considered developing our own custom ChMS built on top of DotNetNuke, a very popular and decent ASP.NET web application framework. This option can be risky unless you’re planning on becoming a software shop (not something we really want to do).
Ultimately what we like the most about Arena is:
A) It is an extremely functional, beautifully designed, beautiful looking, web based, intuitive, easy to use core ChMS system that was written by a church for a church and is now supported by a company that has a proven track record.
B) It is fully extensible and modular allowing us to write custom add-on modules that seamlessly integrate with the core product.
C) The vision of a community of developers from many churches all working toward one purpose (His kingdom on earth) and sharing modules they write with each other. And this is not just a vision – it is now a reality!
Q: Can you share with me some of the process you went through to decide to go with Arena? (Research, presentation to church leadership, etc.)
We kept our leadership informed during our investigation in each of the four bullet items mentioned above. We were nearing the end of the last item’s investigation cycle (custom ChMS on DNN) and were about to go down this path when we received the news that Arena (CCV’s Solomon) was becoming a Shelby product. We shared our ABC beliefs (above) with our leadership and they gave us the green light.
Q: When did you implement Arena? Please explain the process, procedure, personnel needed and feedback on how it went initially.
I did some minor testing in January and then me and a part time data analyst implemented Arena in February and spent about a month cleaning data (mostly Shelby profiles) and learning how we would roll it out to the staff. We unveiled Arena to several key departments in March and shortly afterwards brought in the Arena trainer to train our key administration staff. We then created a one hour “class/presentation” and had our part time analyst and another gifted administrator train all staff over the course of two weeks. After another month or two of using Arena, answering questions, and implementing several additional features, we decided to tackle rebuilding our website inside Arena so that later implementation of other functionality (Promotions, Event Registration, Newsletters, Small Group management, Web Prayer, Involvement Tracking, etc) would integrate easily and seamlessly. We completed the website project in August and then began rolling out web content editing (or CMS; another really nice feature of Arena) so that each ministry/department now updates their own web pages.
Q: Please share with me your feedback on Arena’s support system and training, etc.
Arena’s support center has done a pretty decent job considering they’re a new division and they’re working with a new “product”. From what I hear, their training and even their deployment/implementation strategy has evolved quite a bit since we used them early this year. The Arena Community (http://community.arenachms.com) has also been doing a pretty fine job of providing complimentary support.
Q: Please share with me the positives that you have seen from the transition to Arena.
I can say without a doubt in my mind that the number one “positive” has been that staff is now using the system (Arena) – and they use it all the time. Previously only a handful of people were using ShelbyV5 (for whatever reason – ranging from ‘too confusing or complex’ to ‘too cumbersome’). Also, with all the utility features you get with Arena Tags (emailing, labels, word mail merge, etc), people have thrown out their old spreadsheets or contact lists, and they are maintaining data in Arena now. I’ve seen many ministries increase the amount of communication they have with their larger "teams" and staff are now keeping their web pages up to date. Several ministries now share various important documents with their teams/leaders via the website and other ministries have been including video on their web pages (not a bad idea considering how media capable the internet is).
Q: What were some of the negatives that you have encountered?
It’s not so much negatives as much as it is disappointments or missed expectations. Some of the more “advanced” web integration pieces are not fully documented yet in such a way that would allow you to read, digest and then plan. At the moment, their documentation in this area are basically all “recipes” – click here, type there, click here, select this, click that. You cannot use those documents to understand what that piece of the system is for or why you should even consider using it. It’s been pretty frustrating but we’ve communicated this to Arena and I think they are now getting the message loud and clear.
Another thing to consider is this: when you see all that Arena is capable of, you don’t really know what it takes to make it all happen. Rolling out each new piece of Arena can be a small or large project – especially if you’re an established church whose “machine” is already running a full speed. It can require a fair amount of effort to get with each effected ministry and implement new (or different) functionality.
Q: You mentioned that you were implementing the new update on Arena when I spoke with you. Can you explain about how often those updates occur and what changes are typically included in the updates.
We just upgraded to Arena 2.0 (2007.2) and there was an Arena 1.1 release in the spring. It sounds like they will be doing releases 2-4 times per year and a release may be both upgrades or new features as well as patches (bug fixes).
Q: Please share with me what it takes for you to maintain Arena on a daily, weekly basis. (IT staff needed, etc.)
Well, I’d say we are in a sort of equilibrium with Arena and the staff. For the things our staff has been using Arena for, they really don’t come to our department for assistance, and in this state, Arena does not really require any IT team resources except the occasional ‘can you give this new employee the permission to access X Y or Z’. I guess that would be our “maintenance” state. On the other hand, we’re still implementing more Arena features as mentioned, and that is definitely taking nearly all of my 28 hours per week (I’m only a part time employee). For this role, one only needs a technical systems analyst or integrator (or similar) to continue rolling out Arena’s out-of-the-box functionality - with occasional involvement from the Communication department’s web designer(s) for things involving new websites, styles, etc. If you plan on developing your own custom Arena modules you’ll need an ASP.NET C# programmer with about 3 years experience and access to the Arena Community Developer “package” from Arena.
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