Youth Ministry Software
Published Thursday, February 17, 2005 by CL | E-mail this post
Does anyone have any reccomendations on youth ministry software. I have been using Youth Assistant but I have found it has some limitations (or is it me that is limited?). I am really just interested in something that is user-friendly, something "even a cave man could use. " Anyboby have any favorites or ideas, for a man with a limited budget?
Not a Youth Ministry sofeware but a good Bible study tool and it is free check out www.e-sword.net
CL,
Sorry its taken so long to respond to your question...
I have heard of a program called Youth Glue. I have never seen it in action, but I think I recall seeing it in Group Mag. or something like that. It looks like it would be worth checking out.
Also, YS has a book out from a few years back, that has a CD-Rom in the back of the book, I think it's called Youth Track.
I haven't really used either program, and well, I guess I probably need too.
What's the best way to keep track of YG attendance, and info on our kids?
I've found that Outlook (Entourage for MAC) works fine, but it can become very tedious if you have a group over fifty.
One suggestion is to find that person in your church who really knows how to use Excel of Access. Have them build you several worksheets, one where you input the kids name, address, b-day, age, and any other catagory you can think of. Then on the other sheets you can have your data breakdown and information. Like how many 15 year olds, when they joined the group, what kids live in which zip codes, blah, blah. The possibilities are endless and it would provide you with the ultimate flexibility since things aren't hardcoded in like in a YouthTracker software. Access would be more powerful, but it requires a little more technical skill to setup.
I have used the demo version of YouthTracker, and I wasn't impressed....it was a few years ago though.
Not exactly on the same lines ... but Nelson has a Youth Ministers Sourcebook that I bought and it looks like it has lots of good ideas. Thankfully, it comes with a CD-ROM of the material for customizing the lessons / ideas.
I designed www.youthtracker.net to be simple to use yet powerful. We've employed it throughout our entire organization at Youth Dynamics and it has been getting excellent reviews from users. YouthTracker.net is a subscription based service so you can use it from any computer that's connected to the internet. It allows your students to sign themselves in at events and tracks your staff, local schools, students, events, families and more. You never have to worry about downloading updates, backing up your data, or going over your limit of users. There is a demo available at www.youthtracker.net
-- Mark