About Our Ministry

E-Church Essentials, LLC is the parent ministry of AssessME.org. We are both a business and a ministry. in 2002, God called us to help churches make disciples of Jesus Christ, and then to assess, equip and mobilize those disciples into effective ministry service.

“In 2002, God called us to help churches make disciples, then to assess, equip and mobilize them into effective ministry service”.

We began developing our assessment tools in the year 2000. In 2003, we launched E-Church Essentials, LLC along with our E-Church Network, the world’s first multi-module eChurch platform. Of all the modules offered by the E-Church Network, our assessment module was by far the most popular. So, in 2005, we launched our assessment module as a stand-alone program called AssessME.org. Then, in 2015, with the advent of html5 and CSS3 internet technologies, the time had come to rebuild our E-Church Network. As we considered the enormous cost of rebuilding the E-Church Network, we also faced the truth that AssessME.org’s growth was quickly outpacing that of the E-Church Network. So, in 2015, we decided to close the E-Church Network and put all our resources behind AssessME.org. We now serve many thousands of churches in 36 countries.

How We Implement Our Mission:

We provide churches with both the disciple-making systems and volunteer mobilization processes that they often lack. Our programs include the following five essential assessments:

AssessME.org Client Map

Is your church on our map? Locate our thousands of U.S. client ministries. We also support client churches within 36 countries.

Please Contact Us

Please contact us. We value communication with both prospective clients and current client churches…we never charge for our support!

Meet Our Assessment Designer and Owner of AssessME.org

David’s Mission is to Help Church Leaders Make and Mobilize More Disciples of Jesus Christ.

David A. Posthuma

David A Posthuma is the author and designer of AssessME.org and its assessments. Additionally, David has authored the Pastoral Resource books entitled: “Made for a Mission” and “eShift”. David has also written dozens of published ministry resource magazine articles. David excels at systems design, new ministry development, team building, and church consultation.

He graduated from Calvin College, Grand Rapids, MI with a B.A. in Education & Religion; Trinity International University, Deerfield, IL with an M.Div.; and earned post-graduate Clinical Certifications from Mac Neal Hospital, Chicago.

David has planted two churches, revitalized a dying Chicago church and a declining church in Michigan. David also launched a mega-church College and Career ministry and managed a church merger. He serves regularly as a speaker, conducting leadership workshops, and as a church consultant.

What Clients Say About AssessME.org

Ruth Ott
Community Bible Church
Ruth Ott (Top-40 Largest Churches)

“We have partnered with AssessME.org since 2010. AssessME.org has been very useful to help our people better understand how they have been uniquely designed by God.
Read More

Ruth OttConnections Pastor
Rob Perry
Life Pointe Church
Robb Perry, Executive Pastor

We started using AssessME.org way back in 2011 or 2012 with an initial purchase of 500 assessments.   Earlier this year, we bought another 500 packs and activated that CCB integration.  The integration is wonderful because it did away with us having to manually check AssessMe for results and update CCB profiles.
Read More

Rob PerryExecutive Pastor
Michele Gerbrandt
Crossroads Church
Michele Gerbrandt, GoServe Director

We are a multisite church who has used CCB now for almost 9 years. We also use AssessME.org for our congregation to explore their spiritual gifts and as a part of our discipleship process.
Read More
 

Michele GerbrandtgoServe and Communications Director
Mickey Eckles
Mid-Cities Community Church
Pastor Mickey Eckles

I’m writing briefly to tell you about our experience with AssessME.org and CCB. We used to do spiritual gifts testing on paper, and as you well know, that’s hard to keep up with. We love that the AssessME.org tool allows for use of the charismatic gifts, automatic integration into our database is key.
Read More

Mickey EcklesAdult Ministries Pastor
Fair Haven Ministries
Fair Haven Ministries
Pastor Tom Elenbaas

To Our Partners in Ministry:

At Fair Haven Ministries, we have been using AssessMe.org for a year now, and it’s been wonderful. As we build an equipping ministry, knowing the combination of Leadership Style, Giftedness, Personality, and Skills is highly valuable. It’s so easy for ministry leaders to search in for people whom God has already uniquely designed to fit the areas in which our ministry needs them.
Read More

Fair Haven MinistriesPastor Tom Elenbaas
Bud Darr
Bud Darr, Connections Pastor
North Metro Church

We’ve been using AssessME.org for approximately 16 months now and have found that the assessments have helped us with our discipleship model, as well as, serving opportunities within the church.
Read More

Bud DarrConnections Pastor, North Metro Church
Cincinnati Vineyard Church
Cincinnati Vineyard
Director, Kande Wilson

Thank you for the time, resources and energy you have put into developing the AssessME.org. It fills a void left open by many of the popular personality assessments and spiritual gifts tests out there. They can be helpful to a degree, but lack an overall picture of a person and how they will function in a ministry setting.
Read More

Cincinnati Vineyard ChurchKande Wilson, Director of Connections
Susan Ketcham
Susan Ketcham
Denominational Client: RCA Church Multiplication Division

Dear AssessME.org:

In my position, a major responsibility is to provide dependable assessments for potential church planters for the Reformed Church in America. This assessment tool has become a standard part of our assessment process for two years now.
Read More

Susan KetchamRCA Church Multiplication
Leonard Sweet
Leonard Sweet
Para-Church Leader, Speaker, Author, & Seminary Professor

REGARDING E-CHURCH ESSENTIALS, LLC –

“Ever wonder what it was like to have been on the ground floor with Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com or Pierre Omidyar of eBay.com? Wonder no longer. Join Dave Posthuma of E-Church Essentials and hold on –- the future of the church is forming right before your eyes and under your feet.”
Read More

Leonard SweetChurch Futurist, Author, Teacher & Speaker
Dan Webster
Dan Webster
Para-Church Leader, Speaker, Author, Willow Creek Pastor, Crystal Cathedral Pastor

REGARDING E-CHURCH ESSENTIALS, LLC –

“Dave Posthuma and E-Church Essentials share my passion to train and inspire leaders to live authentic lives of great impact. Rarely do you meet someone as passionate about the church with the technological genius of David A. Posthuma.
Read More

Dan WebsterAuthentic Leadership, Willow Creek, Crystal Cathedral

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An Investment that Pays for Itself Financially

Pew-warmers don’t tend to give much to their local church. Whereas, people who are invested in personal ministry…particularly ministry service that fits their design and calling…are more likely to give sacrificially. Financial gain is never our motivation for mobilizing people into effective ministry service. But, if AssessME.org can help you convert one non-giver into a consistent giver, your AssessME.org budget is covered!

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Community Bible Church
Ruth Ott (Top-40 Largest Churches)

“We have partnered with AssessME.org since 2010. AssessME.org has been very useful to help our people better understand how they have been uniquely designed by God.

Based upon AssessME.org data, we have developed a total church volunteer book, as well as a website where people may select from over 80 different volunteer positions. We also have linked our data with Fellowship One™ and are able to give each member who completes the assessments a list of the top five ministries that would best fit their personality and spiritual gifts.

To date, we have assessed more than 10,000 people for ministry fit. By using the AssessMe.org selection process we have been able to consistently identify leaders to teach classes each semester. If you are looking for a process to equip your members in one easy format, I would recommend AssessME.org.”

Ruth Ott
Connections Pastor – Community Bible Church
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Life Pointe Church
Robb Perry, Executive Pastor

My name is Rob Perry pastor at Lifepointe Church in Raleigh NC.   I understand that you are exploring the services of  AssessME.org and the CCB integration.  We started using AssessME.org way back in 2011 or 2012 with an initial purchase of 500 assessments.   Earlier this year, we bought another 500 packs and activated that CCB integration.  The integration is wonderful because it did away with us having to manually check AssessMe for results and update CCB profiles.  Now, when a person takes the assessment, the results automatically show up in their my.lifepointechurch.com profile (i.e. CCB).  The integration nominal fee was totally worth it.

How do we use the assessments?  We use the results to help equip and develop people who call Lifepointe their church home.    Let me share a few and if you need clarification or want to talk more, feel free to email or call.

  1. As part of a class or teaching series, we have offered assessments to people who wanted to take the next step.  After a person takes the assessment, a leader (volunteer or paid) sits down to review the results and connect the person with opportunities within the church.
  2. The lead pastor has used the tool to pull together people who like to dream and think strategically.  We searched CCB for people who … have attended within the last X timeframe and have a pioneering or strategic leadership style.
  3. Staff leaders and team members have used the results from the ePersonality assessment to understand how their team member is wired and what they can do to maximize that relationship.   This helps carry the church’s mission forward more smoothly.
  4. We use the tool to invite people into special outreach opportunities. As they step into serving, they begin to experience the power of the local church and how you can connect others to Jesus through opportunities that they feel fit them best.  For example, we had a firehouse ask if we could bring our Ice Cream truck to their Open House.  We thought it was a great opportunity and got it ‘covered’.  Well, the team that covered that event said it was very very difficult.  There were lots of people who came to that Fire House event that lost a loved one and coming to this event was therapeutic.  They people covering it were so overwhelmed as they tried to talk to people and hand out ice cream.  The next year, we did the event again.  However, we queried CCB for anyone who is attending who has the  Spiritual Gift of Encouragement (or Pastoral / Encouragement Leadership style).   When the team came back from that event, they said things like … “that was a powerful event”  “I am so glad we were there as a church”  “so many people come who are hurting”  “count me in next time”…    the assessment results made that happen along with the CCB integration.
  5. As we work with our ministry leads, we will only get more and more intentional, and specialized, in leveraging AssessME.org and CCB.   You can’t beat the price of the assessments.  We will also take a look at the NextSteps product as a potential tool to help church members self-feed as part of their spiritual growth.

If I can clarify anything here, please don’t hesitate to reach out.  I know it is a core dump of a lot of misc examples.  Bottom line, we like the partnership and have continued to keep it up!

Rob Perry
Executive Pastor
 
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Crossroads Church
Michele Gerbrandt, GoServe Director

We are a multisite church who has used CCB now for almost 9 years. We also use AssessME.org for our congregation to explore their spiritual gifts and as a part of our discipleship process.

I was so excited when the integration happened, before that I would have to hand enter the results into CCB. This had become overwhelming and not possible to keep up. So, for the one-time $99 fee, I was thrilled to solve that problem. In CCB when we have specific serving positions open, it is great to do a search in CCB on particular gifts and reach out to people. It has really helped with our prayer team and often prayers are not people who speak out. By having people’s spiritual gifts as part of our database is has enriched the data.

If you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Grateful,

Michele Gerbrandt
goServe and Communications Director 
Crossroads Church
 
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Mid-Cities Community Church
Pastor Mickey Eckles

I’m writing briefly to tell you about our experience with AssessME.org and CCB. We used to do spiritual gifts testing on paper, and as you well know, that’s hard to keep up with. We love that the AssessME.org tool allows for use of the charismatic gifts, automatic integration into our database is key. The fact that we also get a leadership assessment, personality profile, and ministry interests on individuals is icing on the cake. It allows us to run reports on all of these profile results and has helped us with recruiting for needs and areas of ministry coverage.

We also use the AssessME.org tool in a big way with leadership development. It has helped us learn more about potential hires, how someone is wired that we are trying to understand better etc. We have a form on CCB that allows people to purchase and complete the AssessME.org profile. Many of our groups use this as part of their small group experience. We are about to start taking all new members through the AssessME.org tool as well. We take about 30-40 people a month through a newcomers process (we call it Connect 4) and AssessME.org is about to be part of that experience for all new people placing membership at Mid-Cities. People love seeing how God has wired them. It also helps us more effectively connect them to serving as well. By the way, David’s book, Made for a Mission, is an excellent read for leaders and in a class setting.

Anyone can go online and register to take the AssessME.org profiles. It’s so great to get automatic integration into our database. We currently have 344 people that have taken the AssessME.org profile, which is about 23% of our regular adult attendance.

Mickey Eckles
Adult Ministries Pastor 
Mid-Cities Community Church
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Fair Haven Ministries
Pastor Tom Elenbaas
Fair Haven Ministries Pastor Tom Elenbaas Fair Haven Ministries Pastor Tom Elenbaas To Our Partners in Ministry: At Fair Haven Ministries, we have been using AssessMe.org for a year now, and it’s been wonderful. As we build an equipping ministry, knowing the combination of Leadership Style, Giftedness, Personality, and Skills is highly valuable. It’s so easy for ministry leaders to search in for people whom God has already uniquely designed to fit the areas in which our ministry needs them. How true it is that God provides the people where he leads in ministry – and AssessMe.org helps to make the connection. The AssessMe.org staff has also been very helpful to us in working with our church management software…. Many of our people…who have taken the assessments have been encouraged, and valued them greatly. One couple found confirmation for a call to move their whole family to Texas for a new church plant. Small Groups have used the assessments to grow deeper in discipleship and service. Ministry Leaders are helping their volunteers to better understand themselves and to help them get involved in areas which are better suited to the way God has uniquely designed them. Fair Haven Ministries even used the assessments with our youth in an intensive discipleship ministry. Our ministry now uses AssessMe.org as a required part of our discipleship process for new members and new leaders. We have also done a whole church series of sermons that revolved around the uniqueness of each member of the body that God uses to change the world, and we used AssessMe.org as a key piece of that series. If you haven’t used it, and particularly if you’re still doing data entry or fiddling with endless paper and binders, I suggest trying it out. Fair Haven Ministries Pastor
 
Tom Elenbaas
Fair Haven Ministries
 
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Susan Ketcham 
Denominational Client: RCA Church Multiplication Division

Dear AssessME.org:

In my position, a major responsibility is to provide dependable assessments for potential church planters for the Reformed Church in America. This assessment tool has become a standard part of our assessment process for two years now. I have found it to be very effective as it helps to paint a picture of the individual and how God has already been at work in their lives, equipping them for the work He has for them to do. I recommend it all the time! Thanks for your fine work. What a blessing to the church!

 
Susan Ketcham
RCA Church Multiplication
Reformed Church in America
 
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Leonard Sweet
Para-Church Leader, Speaker, Author, & Seminary Professor

REGARDING E-CHURCH ESSENTIALS, LLC –

“Ever wonder what it was like to have been on the ground floor with Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com or Pierre Omidyar of eBay.com? Wonder no longer. Join Dave Posthuma of E-Church Essentials and hold on –- the future of the church is forming right before your eyes and under your feet.”

REGARDING THE BOOK eSHIFT –

“I expect this book to stir controversy, but of the best sort: Eye-opening and mind-altering perspectives on what it might mean for the church to embrace the internet today as the primary delivery system for learning and faith development as our Protestant ancestors adopted the book as their primary delivery system in the Reformation Church.”

Leonard Sweet, best-selling author and professor (Drew University, George Fox University), and chief contributor to sermons.com

Leonard Sweet
Church Futurist, Author, Teacher & Speaker
LeonardSweet.com
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Dan Webster
Para-Church Leader, Speaker, Author, Willow Creek Pastor, Crystal Cathedral Pastor

REGARDING E-CHURCH ESSENTIALS, LLC –

“Dave Posthuma and E-Church Essentials share my passion to train and inspire leaders to live authentic lives of great impact. Rarely do you meet someone as passionate about the church with the technological genius of David A. Posthuma. I love how he is helping churches by leading them into the technological future. Pay attention to what he is doing and access his outrageous resource. It will help you as you both grow and organize your church.”

REGARDING THE BOOK eSHIFT –

“The church has been choking for decades on the naive assumption that the world hasn’t changed. eShift provides the necessary Heimlich Maneuver to clear her throat so that the fresh air of life and relevance can return. If you are over 40 this writing will be a wake-up call. If you are under 25 you will shout Hallelujah that someone has finally stated things as they truly are. Either way, eShift is a gift to the church. Let’s hope it’s one that is opened and applied, not ignored.”

Dan Webster
Authentic Leadership, Willow Creek, Crystal Cathedral
Authentic Leadership Inc.
 
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Connections Pastor

 

We’ve been using AssessME.org for approximately 16 months now and have found that the assessments have helped us with our discipleship model, as well as, serving opportunities within the church. We use the assessments on the front end of our process, membership class, to help our body identify and understand not only their spiritual gifts but also, how the gifts can be used in various roles within and outside of the church. Since AssessME.org is directly connected CCB, we can easily search for a specific gift, leadership style or even personality profile to help fill open leadership roles within our discipleship model. 

The assessments are very easy to understand and transferable from a church setting to a business application, which creates additional value in the AssessME.org process.

Blessings,

Bud Darr

Connections Pastor

North Metro Church

678.290.7830x 122

northmetro.org

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