Youth Ministry

Use Connection Card Pro to Accelerate your Youth Ministry!

Use Connection Card Pro to Accelerate your Youth Ministry!

In 2009, a youth pastor at a small church plant saw a need for attendance tracking within their youth ministry. A youth ministry which was seeing 50 to 60 students each week, 80% of whom had no prior connection to a church. A youth ministry which was averaging twice the normal attendance of the church’s Sunday services. Students were inviting their unchurched friends each week. It was important to collect contact information in case of emergency and to follow up with families. Recording attendance was also important to understand the trends and growth.

That youth ministry was already doing both of these things - but they involved paper cards with teenaged handwriting and a 5 page list of names with checkmarks that was manually updated each week in Excel. It was a burdensome task on all fronts, especially when the church had only two full time staff - the pastor, and the youth pastor.

As they began their search for a software / hardware solution, they quickly realized that everything available at the time was either thousands of dollars upfront or hundreds of dollars per month. Instead, that youth pastor took it upon himself to create his own software.

Using a laptop, an old Mac Mini, and a barcode scanner, Connection Card Pro was born. Within a couple months, it became an extremely useful tool within that youth ministry. Each student was given a plastic Connection Card with a unique barcode. As an incentive for them to bring their Connection Cards and swipe the card to sign in each week, they were rewarded on a credits system. The credits were built-in to the software, automatically granting credits to their account each week they attended. The software also had a very basic point-of-sale screen, where students could redeem their credits for free snacks and drinks. Everything was automated.

When a new guest arrived, rather than being handed a card, the new guest would see one of the leaders, who would ask for their information and enter it into a computer, directly into Connection Card Pro. Not only did this improve efficiency and recordkeeping, but it also tremendously improved the personal connection between students and leaders. Eventually, student leaders would begin entering this information - forming bonds between students, creating community, and encouraging them to stay connected.

Though Connection Card Pro has come a long way since then and has become a complete solution for the entire church, youth ministry is still at the heart of Connection Card Pro. All of those original features are still part of Connection Card Pro today, although greatly improved.

If you’re looking for a complete solution to use in your youth ministry for student database, follow-up tracking, attendance, check-in, even a points system - Connection Card Pro is the best fit for your youth ministry. If the rest of your church isn’t ready for Connection Card Pro yet, that’s alright! If one ministry begins using Connection Card Pro, it’s easy to expand your account to other areas of the church.

Sign up today for a free trial and start using Connection Card Pro to accelerate your youth ministry.



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Connection Card Pro is a Youth Ministry Management Software Platform