Beginning in December 2021, we started evaluating a new software program called ChurchTrac. This began about nine months ago as a search for an accounting program better suited to the fund accounting needs of a church, Valley Bible Church in particular. At the beginning of January, it was decided to move forward with ChurchTrac (CT) as our new accounting software. But as a bonus, CT offers much more. It contains a complete database of all our members and regular attenders, and can be used for planning worship services, scheduling nursery workers and other volunteers, a church calendar, planning events, streamlining sign-ups, and much more. For a quick overview of CT, check out this introductory video.

Hopefully, you can see why we are excited about the possibilities afforded by this new software. But not all the features in this package are needed at this point. We will slowly begin to roll out different features as we see a need for them.

One of the features we will start with is its communication abilities. Pastors and team leaders can now easily send either emails or SMS text messages to anyone in the church. These messages may be church-wide to everyone, or smaller groups such as the teens or nursery workers. It will be easy to schedule volunteers for Sunday services including nursery workers, A/V Team, Monitors, Greeters, and everyone else scheduled to help on a Sunday morning. Invites will go out to everyone who is scheduled, and those folks can accept or decline the invite. If someone declines, then we immediately know that we need to find someone else to fill that spot. If they accept, the software will automatically send out a reminder the day before .

To facilitate the communication features of CT you will need to know a couple of things:

SMS Messaging

Just so you know messages are from us, the SMS # for VBC is (844) 390-3182.

This is the phone number from which you will receive all VBC messaging texts.

Initially, you will receive 2 messages:

One that says:

“FROM: VALLEY BIBLE CHURCH – CEDAR CITY, UT: We use this # to send out important msgs.

Reply YES to confirm or STOP to opt-out.”

When you receive this first text, please SAVE the number in your contacts so you can easily recognize future messages from VBC.

A second message is an actual message from the church.

 Emails

Emails that come from the church will be from vbcfamily@churchtracmail.com or admin@vbcfamily.com. Please check your junk mail, promotion, spam,

or other folders where these emails may be redirected. Be sure to tag them as emails you want to be delivered to your regular Inbox

(add to your safe senders list).

Soon we will be making more announcements and rolling out some of the new features in ChurchTrac. Stay Tuned……..