When was the last time you thought about your liver? How about your heart or lungs? It's been a while, right? Me, too.

Well, I thought about my lungs when I had taken a too-long hiatus from cardio recently, but that's my point. We don't think about our internal organs until there's a problem. Our internal systems don't get any attention or recognition on a regular basis.

The internal systems of a church get about the same amount of attention as our internal organs — none, unless there's a symptom of illness.

When was the last time you thought about data entry of visitor cards? How about the process of sending a hospital visit request to the appropriate person? If we hear about a visitor who never received a call from the church or someone who wasn't visited in the hospital, then we're more likely to dig into those areas of the back office.

Here are a few symptoms of the back office that could use some preventative medicine:

1. You have to wait more than 5 minutes for your staff to track down a church member's contact information.

This may indicate your church either doesn't have a church management system (ChMS) or isn't using what you do have effectively. When someone visits, tithes or becomes a member of your church, you should have a streamlined process for getting their contact information into a database.

For smaller churches, that might be an Excel spreadsheet. For larger congregations, you'll want a more robust system. Whatever tool you use, it's important to develop, document and implement a process for getting contact information into a tool where your team can quickly retrieve that data.

A ChMS isn't only for phone numbers and email addresses either. You can store information such as who each person is related to within the church (spouse, children), their birthdate and anniversary, where they serve within the church, what small group they're in, and much more. Your team can use this data to build relationships and disciple members of the congregation.

2. You find out that several messages left on church voicemail over a week ago were never returned.

Mistakes happen and sometimes we forget to check voicemail. However, you'll want to determine if this is an isolated incident or a reoccurring issue.

Who is responsible for checking the main voicemail box? Is your receptionist over that function? If so, find out what happened. Otherwise, designate someone to be responsible for checking voicemail and routing messages to the appropriate staff member.

Ideally, we should follow up with people within one business day. The same concept applies to emails sent to a general church inbox. Responding quickly shows we care and want to serve.

3. A teenager falls and is unconscious at the youth lock-in, and your youth leaders don't have his emergency contact and medical release form.

No one enjoys collecting and filing paperwork for a church event. However, in the case of an emergency, you'll want to know how to get in touch with parents. You'll also rest easier knowing each parent filled out a release form (hey, we don't like to think a lawsuit could happen, but we live in a litigious society).

Make sure your team understands why these documents are so important and the potential consequences if the process isn't followed.

It's easy to focus solely on the outward-facing aspects of ministry such as preaching, singing and announcements from the stage. Those are obviously important and require our attention. However, the systems and processes that support ministry may need some attention, too.

How often do you check in on the health of your support functions?