While many churches have an empty pew problem, that is not the case at the Renewal Christian Church. Founded in 1972, it is affiliated with the Free Methodist Church of North America, which traces its history back to anti-slavery Methodists of the 19th century, and is a member of the Evangelical Alliance.

Renewal's administration and headquarters are based at the central church in Solihull which is the resource centre for all of the church’s activities. There are currently eight other congregations in England.

With its events calendar full to bursting, the Renewal Christian Church has been expanding its conference centre in Solihull, West Midlands. As Renewal describes itself as a 21st century church, it is highly appropriate that it has chosen Rendezvous, the advanced browser-based conference, meeting room and catering management solution from NFS for the Renewal Conference Centre.

Conference Sales Executive Katie Calter was involved in the decision to replace Microsoft Outlook with Rendezvous. “As the church was growing at a very fast rate and the conference business was becoming more established, we knew that we needed to look at an alternative way of managing our bookings and market the business more proactively.”

After looking at a number of systems, she and her team selected Rendezvous

partly due to highly positive recommendations by other users of the system. But she also felt that Rendezvous, with its powerful functionality and ease of use, would meet her particular needs.  “When we researched the application, we felt it would handle the direction we were looking to go with our processes and reporting and potentially do a great deal more.”

Rendezvous also offers the great advantage of choice: it is available on a licenced or hosted basis. The hosted basis is not only very economical but it saves a great deal on IT costs. With either option, Rendezvous streamlines every step of the business process, ending the paper chase and greatly increasing the efficiency, accuracy and speed of operations.

Smooth implementation

Not surprisingly, Katie viewed the prospect of implementing a new booking system into a busy conference business as “very daunting”, and admits she had no idea of how her team would manage the process. However, her doubts were soon resolved.

“We knew we had made the right choice when the installer/ trainer turned up. He was extremely helpful, patient and knowledgeable and guided us every step of the way.”

As the trainer also had vast experience of church life and traditions, that “made our lives easier”, Katie notes. “We are very pleased that we are now able to combine both our busy churches with a membership of 2,000, our internal activities and our increasing conference business onto one system.”

In terms of facilities, the Renewal Conference Centre offers a range of meeting rooms and suites seating up to 900 people, as well as separate catering areas. 

Renewal is very active in the “live events” marketplace.  Examples of conference centre events include Alpha courses, Bible studies and youth groups, alcoholic recovery meetings and other community based projects as well as church and healing services. Most important, she says, “Rendezvous has transformed the way we work. We are very pleased that we can draw on the wealth of experience and knowledge that the NFS team have in their system and the venue market.”

Going forward, Katie’s sees Renewal’s community outreach going from strength to strength, “with God’s blessing”, she says, as well as Rendezvous’ ability to forecast, cost and plan the business. As the church has building works underway and plans major refurbishment, she is confident that her team has a highly reliable system that can handle both expansion and change.