Blog

March 14, 2019

Seven Years in Business

This Sunday, March 17, we will complete our seventh year in business. Alisha recently took a digital trip down memory lane and looked at the first iteration of our OCS Website, what you would have viewed seven years ago. Boy, have we come a long, long way!

While you can read on our site a brief synopsis of our business, we thought we'd give a little more background on how we got here. Online Church Solutions (OCS) was an idea Mark had while in Ireland almost a year prior to launch—though we didn't know at the time when that launch would happen—and he even came up with the name. We had built many church and ministry websites throughout Ireland during our 4.5 missionary years, work that was a starting point for understanding what churches wanted. We got to watch in real time how their staff and volunteers would create, use, and update their ministry websites.

Launched as website builder with two website templates, OCS included a couple of Tools and optional Podcasting (Did you know we've been hosting stand-alone sermon podcasts with a Sermon Player as Podcast Your Sermons since 2005?). Very shortly after launch came:

• Two more website templates
• Group Texting
• A Giving Option
• and later on, Email Newsletter

When we launched we had plans for a Membership Database and a couple of other tools, but that was it. We hadn’t even heard of "ChMS" or Church Managment Software. Now we offer 18 tools including the Website Builder, with just a few more to come. 

This means we're starting our eighth business year and excited to share this year what we've built in the new OCS 3.0. We're looking forward to God's blessing of many more years in business and are so thankful to be working with our clients in Christian ministry.

March 07, 2019

OCS 3.0 Coming Soon

In the coming weeks and months, the new OCS 3.0 will be rolling out, one tool at a time. You’ll see greater power, tremendous simplification, and fuller connectedness among the tools, making it even easier for you to build a webpage, send a group text, or use any of our tools.

The Website Builder is going through a complete ground-up rebuild to give you better control, while all other tools are being upgraded and optimized. OCS and PYS (Podcast Your Sermons, our own sermon hosting service since 2005) are becoming better integrated. Even the entire Admin Control Panel is being improved.

The result of Mark’s year-long research and development push for updating and refreshing each tool began with our original 2012 vision for providing churches with Service, Speed and Style, all for a ministry-minded price. Your input and feedback over the last seven years have helped us grow from a “church website company” to a “church website and church management software (ChMS) company.”

We’re very excited to share our hard work with you throughout this year. Keep an eye out for the first 3.0 tool release very soon, and we can’t wait to hear what you think!

February 12, 2019

It's Time to Get Ready for Vacation Bible School (VBS)

It may be February (I'm looking out the window at snow!), but it's time for churches to begin to plan for their Vacation Bible School or Camp. Many churches will soon begin early registration, and we have several tools in our church management software that work with your VBS planning and management. From tracking payments and registration, to group text notifications, child check-in, and more, our tools can help keep you on task because you know these months go fast.

So check out all the details at our post, "VBS: Plan, Communicate, Promote and Organize with Our Software"

January 29, 2019

January 2019 Newsletter

Check out Push Notifications for browsers and Android, upgrade to the Church Membership Database, and more in our January Newsletter.

January 24, 2019

New Feature: Pledge Tracking

Record and automatically track giving pledges with our latest upgrade. Pledges for your church's special fund or ministry work can be weekly, monthly, yearly, and even per designation. A church may have a weekly pledge for tithes, but also a yearly pledge for a building fund.

Quickly run reports to see total pledges per year and designation, and also see how your church members are doing with their individual pledges.

You will find this latest upgrade in the Giving (Online and Other) section.

January 18, 2019

Closed for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day 2019

We will be closed on Monday, January 21 in honor of the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday. We will reopen on Tuesday, January 22.

January 07, 2019

Limited Availability on January 8

So we'll have limited availability for emergencies only on Tuesday, January 8 for a very special reason: we're celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary.

Back to work on Wednesday, January 9!

Older Blog Entries