Membership forms
without the paper
Build membership questionnaires, sign-ups and claims forms yourself. Every answer is saved in the Database and exports to Excel in one click.
Paper forms, and where they end up
Every church has a church membership form somewhere. Usually it is a photocopy of a photocopy, filled in by hand, passed to a steward and then kept in a folder that only one person can find. The same goes for the sign-up sheet for the harvest supper, the expenses claim and the questionnaire the circuit sent round last spring. The answers exist; they just aren’t anywhere useful.
The Chrestos Database lets you build those forms yourself, online, as many as you need. A membership questionnaire, a church registration form for a new group, an event booking, an expenses claim: each is put together in the Cloud and every answer lands in the Database, ready to read, sort and export to Excel in one click.
Building a form
You don’t need a designer or a developer. Forms are built in the same Chrestos Cloud you use for everything else, and they work the same way as the other tools, so whoever looks after your directory will find their way around quickly. Ask the questions your church actually needs to ask, in your own words. There is no limit on the number of custom forms, so the circuit can have its own and each church can have theirs.
A church event booking is a good place to start. Instead of a sheet on the notice board that gets lost under the next poster, people give their names once and the list keeps itself. When the organiser wants to know how many are coming, or who asked for the vegetarian option, the answer is already there.
Because the answers are stored rather than posted, nothing has to be typed up afterwards. The person who used to transcribe a pile of paper forms into a spreadsheet can spend that evening doing something more rewarding.
A church questionnaire or church survey
Sometimes a circuit simply needs to ask a question of a lot of people at once. Which Sunday suits a joint service? Would anyone use a midweek group? What do members think of the new service times? A church questionnaire built in the Database collects the replies in one place, and the Excel export makes it easy to count them up for the next church council or circuit meeting. A church survey of this kind used to mean a box at the back of church and a long evening with a tally sheet. Now it is a few minutes at a keyboard.
Where it fits
Forms are one half of the Database, our church membership software for Methodist circuits, districts and churches. The other half is the directory: our page on the church member directory explains how people, roles and permissions are kept in one secure list. The Database is part of Chrestos Premium, and we’re always happy to help you set up your first form.
What forms are for
Three of the jobs circuits most often hand over to a form.
Membership
Ask members for the details your church needs, in your own words. Their answers are stored in the Database rather than in a folder in the vestry.
Bookings
Harvest suppers, away days and new groups: build an event booking form for each, and see at a glance who is coming without a sheet of paper.
Expenses
An expenses claims form means the treasurer gets every claim in the same shape, saved in one place and ready to export when the accounts are due.
No limit on
the number of forms
Build one form or fifty. The circuit can have a questionnaire of its own, each church can have its membership form, and a new group can have a registration form the week it starts. They all work in the same way, so nobody has to learn anything twice, and every reply ends up in the same Database as your circuit directory rather than in somebody’s inbox.
Every answer,
one click away
Every answer is stored in the Database, so there is nothing to type up afterwards. When the church council wants the numbers, or the treasurer wants the claims, export the replies to an Excel spreadsheet in one click and get on with the meeting. It’s the same export whether the form had six replies or six hundred, and the original answers stay safely where they were.
See a form
in action
Tell us which forms your church still keeps on paper and we’ll show you one being built, with no obligation.
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Still collecting forms on paper?
Tell us which forms your church relies on, and we’ll show you how they could work online.
Technology for a brighter church