Blog Viewer

Every Monday morning the Church Community Builder leadership team gathers to review our numbers from the previous week. Like you, we are passionate about what we do because of the chance to make an impact in this world we live in. The stories we hear about churches we have helped is what truly inspires us, not numbers, statistics, and data.

However, we can often use the human elements of ministry as an excuse for ignoring important numbers. Data, statistics, and numbers directly reflect what is happening within and through your ministry. Our “weekly numbers review” is what helps us really know that we are making a measurable difference in the lives of those who serve with us and the churches we partner with.

A few weeks ago, we released a FREE download (available on our Facebook page) that explains how your church can use the important numbers to measure the health of your church community.

Here are the 9 areas we covered which help you assess health via church member engagement and retention:

1. Attendance.
   An accurate understanding of attendance data gives a high-level overview of what’s going on.
2. Volunteers.
   By tracking and ministering to volunteers, churches can reduce unnecessary turnover. Regular contact with this group will avert crises.
3. Missional Participation.
   By recording service project participation, you can invite people to participate in other ministry options that match these interests and abilities, as indicated by their individual track record.
4. Online Activity.
   The availability of website analytics makes it easy to know what the people in your church community are viewing and what they are missing (or ignoring!).
5. Financial Giving.
   Though the analysis of financial data can be a touchy subject, there are some valuable trends that can be identified in the frequency and consistency of an individual’s giving pattern.
6. Event Outcomes.
   You can learn a lot if you will track participation by individual as well as what happens AFTER an event.
7. Assimilation.
   Following people along a growth path allows you to discover the differences between the behaviors of members and attendees.
8. Growth.
   Spiritual development can be measured by getting to know people, revealing each person’s propensity for obeying God.
9. Attrition.
   Learning and recording why people have left the church can help us adjust and create a better future.

By tracking these 9 key areas, you will learn what needs to happen in order to increase the retention of people and the health of your church. You can learn more about each factor and how your church can specifically improve upon each one by downloading the full free resource The Numbers Game.

Of these 9 areas, what surprised you? Is there any area that you hadn’t considered tracking before?