Karl Vaters: Metrics That Matter: The Missing Element In Assessing Small Church Health

Small Church pastors are often told that if our church isn’t growing it’s because we’re not paying enough attention to the numbers.

That’s not true.

Small Church pastors are very aware of the numbers – sometimes painfully so.

I’ll admit that Small Churches don’t use metrics the way bigger churches do. But it‘s not because the numbers don’t matter to us. And it certainly isn’t because we don’t want our churches to grow. It’s because of something no one ever talks about.

Metrics designed by and for megachurches don’t work in Small Churches.

In a big church, an assessment of last weekend’s services might sound something like this: “we were up 13% from this weekend last year, but the percentage of people attending our small groups has dropped by 7.4%. Let’s hear from the small group pastor about what’s being done to address this issue.”

In a Small Church, attendance assessment will sound more like this: “attendance was down a bit this weekend because the Martinez family is on vacation, the Larsons were out of town for Bill’s father’s funeral, and we’re still in the middle of flu season. But we had that new couple join us who just moved into the neighborhood. I took them out to lunch. They say they might be back next week. I’ll follow up with a phone call tomorrow.” Keep reading