Religion

DALLAS — On any given Sunday, about 5,000 kids come into the children's ministry at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas.

Families form lines and check in at 32 kiosks spread among the church's six entrances, swiping "Quick Passes" at the self-service machines. Parents register the kids for classes, then a kiosk spits out sticky name badges for both parent and child with identifying information: child's and parent's names, classroom and any food allergies.

About a dozen of the kiosks have volunteers standing by to help families who have forgotten their digitized cards.

Badges in hand, parents walk their kids to one of 85 classrooms for a Bible-focused story hour, playtime or worship before they themselves head off for services in Prestonwood's main sanctuary.

"This was essential to us," Prestonwood executive pastor Mike Buster said of the technology to ensure children's safety. "Volunteers are at every entrance making sure everyone has a badge."

Prestonwood relies on special computer software designed for churches to keep track of who is where — not just which children should go home with which parents.

Beyond keeping kids safe, congregants get a virtual town square where they can go online to request counseling on a variety of spiritual and personal matters or sign up their children for Bible study or sports leagues.

Buster said the software helps church leaders retain a sort of intimacy among the 27,000-member congregation.

"We want to make Prestonwood not feel like a big church but a small town," he said.

To build its ecclesiastical nerve center, the church turned to Fellowship Technologies.

The Irving, Texas, firm grew out of tech efforts at a church in Grapevine, Texas, in 2004 and has bloomed into a data and software company catering to 870 churches in 46 states and eight countries.

Using the Internet, Fellowship Tech helps churches digitize operations just like a secular business would — from wristbands for children in day care (think hospitals) to tracking which members stop attending (try dropping your cable service) to monitoring tithing levels (just as the American Cancer Society might contact someone who stopped giving).

LifeChurch.tv of Edmond, Okla., is another Fellowship Technologies customer.

The church ministers to 19,000 people through 12 campuses and the Internet. With such a far-flung congregation, it's vital to keep track of new members by archiving the cards they fill out detailing interests and contact information.

"It keeps people from slipping through the cracks," said Suzy Crisswell, systems administrator for the 12-year-old church. "They will get a phone call, saying ... 'Thanks for visiting.' It makes people feel important and wanted."

For users, Fellowship Tech's software helps lessen the perception that members often become anonymous in megachurches.

"Big churches can do big things," points out Jeff Pelletier, the company's vice president for sales and marketing. Churches "can use technology to care for you even better."

Churches of all sizes became digitized as the general business world did in the last 25 years. But megachurches — those with more than 2,000 members — are an especially fruitful market.

And megachurches really began to grow in the last 20 years, according to "Megachurches Today," a report released in 2005 by the Hartford Institute for Religion Research in Hartford, Conn.

What would become Fellowship Tech got its start in 1999, when Fellowship Church developed a program to meet its own technology needs.

By 2003, the church decided to spin off the program and called on then-member Jeff Hook, a former executive at Farmers Branch, Texas-based i2 Technologies Inc., to help.

Raising $2.5 million from outside investors, he became the newly minted company's chief executive.

The company's Web-based program gives churches an interactive administrative system rather than serving as just a repository of "one-way information," Pelletier said.

"Churches have buckets of data that don't cross-pollinate," he explained, citing things as simple as a member's phone number being updated in the pastor's database but not in the one for the children's ministry.

Next month, the company will roll out a service allowing churches to more deeply slice and dice data on members.

Churches have long had some administrative functions; in the past, they could be handled by ledgers and contribution statements, said Phill Martin, deputy chief executive of the National Association of Church Business Administration in Richardson, Texas.

But in the 52 years since his organization's founding, Martin said, churches have had to become more businesslike. With budgets in the tens of millions, many churches now employ administrators.

"If a church is strong spiritually but doesn't have a strong administrative function, it probably will spin out of control and blow up," said David Tebeau, a retired AT&T employee who is now the administrator for Church in the City in Rowlett, Texas, a 1,400-member church founded in 1981.

Companies like Fellowship Tech capitalize on the growing professionalism.

The company originated the term "Return on Ministry," referring to the focus on measuring church metrics such as how many people attend services and how deeply involved they are in the church: Do they tithe regularly? Do they advance from attending Bible study to leading it?

By measuring such things, said Hook, the church can ensure it's fulfilling its mission to members.

Keeping track of member data also helps monitor the church's bottom line.

In the year since LifeChurch.tv bought Fellowship Tech's software, online tithing has increased about 15 percent.

"It made giving much more convenient," because members can donate online, including using PayPal, said John Davis, the church's central group leader for logistics.

Since the Internal Revenue Service already requires churches to track donations, the software makes their work more efficient, Hook said.

"Sometimes people are concerned about some personal information being tracked, but much of that personal information is on the Web in other places," he said. "Plus, (the software) has a great deal of built-in security that protects the information better than a paper-based system."

Despite growing up as a preacher's kid, Hook said, he initially didn't want to take on the Fellowship Tech project: "I was interested in the million-dollar deal, not selling software to churches."

But the 49-year-old said he felt guided by God to pursue the venture.

"My mind opened in, like, 24 different ways" with ideas on how to use technology to benefit other churches, he said.

Hook has found mixing religion and business can sometimes be tricky.

Should his company sell to churches that don't conform to traditional tenets? "Some have a limited view of Christianity," he said. But "I'm no holy roller."

When a company sales rep objected to selling the software to a gay church, Hook stepped in to make the sale.

He said he understands why the rep was uncomfortable, but "I'm not going to set myself up as God."

In some ways, it seems the company's Christian values transcend religious doctrine. "We hired a Sikh employee who loves it here," Hook said.

The ability to balance religion and business has helped the company succeed.

Looking to hire additional programmers, Hook has asked the Sikh employee for recommendations.

"I told him, 'They don't have to be Christian, but they do need to be good programmers."'