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Monday, February 17, 2014

Steve Norman: The Numbers Game


Measure the right things and know why you're doing it.

I didn't start caring about church attendance until I was in junior high. In order to boost the numbers at our Wednesday night youth service, the junior high and senior high pastors held a competition between their respective groups to see which one could invite the most friends to church. The prize? The winning pastor would get to shave the losing pastor's head.
  
I remember employing similar bribe and prize-based tactics when I was a student ministry intern in college. I want to believe it wasn't underhanded. After all, God wanted the kids' friends to hear about Jesus, right? And the more students who came to church increased the odds they would hear, receive, and accept the message. And the more this happened, the greater assurance I had that I was a decent communicator, leader, and evangelist, right?

That was 20 years ago. I no longer twist people's arms to get them to invite their friends to church. I do, however, note how many of them actually show up. We have a whole system for it, actually: a guest relations team that counts attendance in the auditorium, in the children's area, and notes the students and volunteers at our junior and senior high events. It goes into a report that gets emailed to dozens of leaders and directors at our five campuses to let everyone know how we did this week. We want to let them know which campuses went up, which went down, how this week compared to the same week, last year, etc. Every Tuesday, they get an email with "The Count."

I don't have a problem with "The Count." Tracking numbers can be a helpful tool for identifying emerging trends, both positive and negative, in the life of our church. However, in order to make "The Count" serve us, rather than become its slave, it's necessary to answer a few critical questions. Keep reading

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