fbpx
Give us a Call at 248.585.9540
6 Areas To Update During Your Church Spring Cleaning
April 11, 2023

Plan an annual church spring cleaning to address updates and improvements that will create enthusiasm and deeper connections.

 

 

As you know, in the life of a church, the days and months can fly by at breakneck speed. As soon as Christmas has passed, you’re already planning the Easter service, and minutes after that wraps, you’re dreaming of Fall Kickoff. 

What about the parts of your church plant or multisite that need regular check-ins to function with excellence? For example, you likely never miss a chance to update your church’s home page, but what about the Staff or About Us pages? Are they still listing that intern who’s now retired? 

Do you have a system for ‘spring cleaning’ areas of the church that can get dusty and neglected? Whether it is a review of your facility or a dust-off of your processes like volunteer retention, there’s no reason to neglect a chance to refresh your facility and systems.

As you take inventory of what projects to tackle, here are several ideas to consider.

 

Man welcomes church visitor

 

6 Areas To Update During Your Church Spring Cleaning

 

1. Website

While the hope is for your in-person hospitality to make a good first impression with guests, your church’s website is key to getting them to come at all. 

Take a detailed look at each page of the church website. Is the information on each page accurate? Here’s a checklist to speed up the process:

  • Is all of your contact info up to date, including your physical address and your mailing address? Check your phone number and email addresses, too.
  • Check the ‘About Us’ page and be sure it gives visitors a comprehensive overview of the church’s mission, vision, core beliefs, history, and any other important information about your church.
  • Run your site through a broken link detector and check for links or images that may be preventing visitors from exploring or engaging with the church’s website. We trust detectors like the ones offered by Ahrefs and Semrush, though there are many others available online. 
  • Check every video and audio clip to ensure they’re working properly and still high quality. Along the same lines, check the photos to make sure they’re accurately displaying a current picture of church life.
  • Is the Give section easily accessed and prominently displayed? 
  • If there isn’t a facility map available on the website, it’s time to have one drawn up. Your visitors might be familiar with the venue if it’s used for other purposes, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into Sunday morning comfort when they’re concerned about delivering kids to their classes, finding bathrooms, and getting a good seat in the worship service—all without having to talk to anyone. A printable map can help them plan their visit. 

By executing this spring cleaning checklist for your website, you’ll be more likely to catch incorrect information and offer an inviting, engaging, and reliable site for visitors and attendees alike. 

Help visitors plan their visit by offering a printable facility map online so they can anticipate the twists and turns of your venue. As a bonus, also consider producing a short and friendly plan-your-visit video.  Click To Tweet

 

2. Facility

Harsh weather can cause damage to the facility. Add to your church spring cleaning list an annual check of the venue, looking for damage, particularly interior issues. Take note of any cracked tiles, stained or torn carpet, scuffs on the walls, burned-out light bulbs, and more. Once complete, talk to your landlord about who is responsible for making necessary repairs.

Pro Tip: Consider blessing your landlord by organizing a church beautification day with volunteers to tackle any repairs needed. 

In addition, review the annual fire safety report notes to be sure that smoke detectors and fire extinguishers have been checked and updated as needed.

Finally, give attendees and visitors confidence by ensuring hand sanitizing stations and other defensive practices, such as no-touch faucets, are functioning properly in the facility.

Renting? Start off strong with this rental checklist—free for you to download.

 

3. Equipment

For portable churches, this portion of the church spring cleaning checklist includes far more than your typical building and AVL equipment. 

Checking and maintaining the equipment that (literally) makes a portable church function is a critical activity on the church calendar. Whether it’s caring for your cases, trailers, or coffee brewers, every item in your portable church or multisite toolkit will benefit from an annual check-up. To get maintenance tips on each of those items, visit our YouTube channel

Own a trailer? Below, check out Jesse’s tips on trailer maintenance. 

 

In addition to checking and maintaining your portable equipment,  include an AVL equipment check on your church spring cleaning list. To ensure all equipment is in safe, working condition, use these guides:

  • Check wiring and connections of AVL systems
  • Inspect projector bulbs and replace as needed
  • Test microphones to make sure they are operational
  • Verify that the audio system is powerful enough for the room size 
  • Check lighting systems to see if repairs need to be made
  • Test instruments used in worship services to make sure they are functioning properly
  • Replace broken or worn-out cables
  • Clean any dust from vent fans and other equipment

With the equipment used weekly and so many people involved, it’s easy to miss important warnings. Making sure to do a thorough check-up of the equipment is crucial and should not be overlooked.

Great AVL: Church Techies Share The AVL Equipment They Don’t Want To Live Without

 

Woman at audio console considers church spring cleaning checklist.

 

4. Volunteer Check-In

As the MVPs of your portable church or multisite, volunteers must have our attention. To make sure their input isn’t overlooked, systematize your volunteer nurturing and use your church spring cleaning as a time to trip the wire and make it happen. Use this checklist to get started:

  • Design and send surveys to assess volunteer satisfaction
  • Ideally, ask team leads to schedule a face-to-face meeting with each volunteer, but use calls or video chats if necessary
  • Host a small celebration to thank volunteers and encourage their continued participation in the fall
  • Hone or set up a system of feedback loops to learn more about how the volunteers are doing throughout the year

Finally, remember that praise is free. Recognize your volunteers’ excellent work publicly whenever possible.

 

5. Calendar

During your church spring cleaning season, gather your core leaders to discuss the calendar for the remainder of the year. Are the fall kick-off activities accounted for? What about summer connection opportunities? 

When each ministry is represented and a visual calendar is available, it’s easy to see if two major events are colliding or if there is a gap that might cause people to lose connection.

Once the calendar is set in stone, the techies need to update the Events section of your website, and the communication folks need to start promoting. 

What about kidsmin? Is Your Children’s Ministry Area Sending The Right Message?

 

6. Follow-Up System

Visitor follow-up is an essential part of any church, particularly for a portable church or multisite that sees many visitors come through their doors. What a shame to miss the chance to connect with a guest. But, by recognizing the needs of visitors and investing in a follow-up system, churches have an opportunity to create impactful connections that will last well beyond just one visit.

How can you determine whether your not your follow-up system is working as intended?

Use your church spring cleaning season to do a careful review of the system’s success. Check the following points:

  • Do you have an ample supply of your first-time visitor gifts?
  • What kind of retention are you seeing for each event, including Sunday mornings and regularly scheduled activities?
  • How is your ChMS functioning? Are people responding to your communication efforts?
  • For visitor follow-up, how many communication attempts are resulting in responses or engagement? Do you have a system for measuring and reporting this critical information?

 

Have you considered recruiting a group of secret shoppers to test your follow-up effectiveness? Create avatars that represent different people in your target audience, including those who engage as a first-time visitor and those who are regular attendees. Ask each volunteer to respond based on your created scenarios, and then elicit detailed feedback about their experience. 

For the ultimate church visitor follow-up assessment, recruit volunteers to take part in a secret shopper experiment. Ask each volunteer to respond based on your created scenarios, and then elicit detailed feedback about their experience. Click To Tweet

 

View of church auditorium before a worship service.

 

CHURCH SPRING CLEANING BRINGS ENTHUSIASM

Taking the time once a year to refresh areas within the church can have a powerful and profound impact on the spiritual health and growth of any congregation. By refreshing the website, facility, equipment, calendar, equipment, and systems, not only will the physical and technological aspects of the church improve but it will also create a renewed enthusiasm amongst members to create and share meaningful change. 

With fresh perspectives come innovative ideas for how to engage visitors and increase involvement which leads to deeper connections with each other as well as God. 

Thankfully, investing in small projects over time helps build a strong foundation that can serve as a cornerstone for years to come.

Has your spring cleaning checklist revealed any areas that need improvement? Whether you are part of a church plant or a new campus, we’d love to help you put your best foot forward. Book a free consultation call with us today.