Reporting for Churches - What?

Let's begin by reviewing the made-up "verse" with which I ended last week's post (inspired by Romans 10:14-15): How then will you make good decisions without proper analysis? And how are you to properly analyze information you do not have? And how are you do have that information without effective reporting? And how can you effectively report what you do not track? As it is [not] written, "How beautiful is data which reveals the truth!"

I repeat this to make the point that we decide what data to track and report according to what decisions we need to make. Start with your church's mission. Where are you trying to go? How will you know you are on the right road, headed in the right direction? How will you know when you reach your destination? Most churches already track attendance for worship and education, plus giving and other statistics such as decisions, baptisms, new members, etc. Tracking this data provides vital guidance to the church, like the instrument readings on a car's dashboard. These metrics tell us about our activity (speed, oil pressure, engine RPMs) but they do not tell us where we are going or how we are progressing toward our destination. For that we also need a GPS navigation system.

In the context of church data tracking, the "GPS system" reminds us of our destination (mission) and provides meaningful metrics (milestones) to verify our course and progress. What you measure depends on what you wish to accomplish. If your church values serving, maybe you should start tracking numbers of volunteers and hours served. If community is a core value, how about measuring how many people are in groups/classes and how often they are attending? Perhaps more importantly, how about measuring how effectively the church is raising-up new leaders birthing new groups/classes? Or maybe start asking people to self-report on certain aspects of their spiritual disciplines if the church is pursuing spiritual growth as a goal.

My point is to start with the end product (what you want to accomplish) and work backwards to determine the data you will need to measure your church's progress against your goals. You will probably come up with a list of metrics you never before thought to track.

© Strategic Dimensions 2009