Or it just might help you a lot (read on, trust me).
“Metrics” and “church” are words that one might not typically here in the same sentence during your daily ministry duties, especially since the former is a more “business-y” type word and latter is, well, it is what it is.
But the marriage of the two paradigms is a reasonable relationship, and one that more and more pastors and church leaders (especially those that manage the business-side of things) should consider. It’s no wonder that many seminary graduates regret not getting more “business and administrative” training (or wish their seminaries offered these types of courses) as they are flung into a leadership role that, for all intents and purposes, require them to present at some level some type of “metric”. They simply do not know what they are doing or how to present the mountains of data (or lack thereof) that their congregation, elder board, and ministry staff want (and need) to know.
But metrics is a good thing.
For those that might not be as familiar to the term, a quick wiki-primer is in order:
A ‘metric’ is a standard unit of measure, such as meter or mile for length, or gram or ton for weight, or more generally, part of a system of parameters, or systems of measurement, or a set of ways of quantitatively and periodically measuring, assessing, controlling or selecting a person, process, event, or institution, along with the procedures to carry out measurements and the procedures for the interpretation of the assessment in the light of previous or comparable assessments.
Metrics are usually specialized by the subject area, in which case they are valid only within a software metrics; and vehicle metrics such as miles per gallon. In business, they are sometimes referred to as key performance indicators, such as overall equipment effectiveness, or key risk indicators.
Most simply, metrics, or measurements, can help you determine the overall effectiveness of your ministry, program, initiative, as well as help manage expectations, justify “return on investments”, and provide goal setting, management, and also be used to energize, excite, and enthuse your ministry teams.
Metrics for the church can also provide foundations and strong justification for spiritual pragmatics, like one of the churchs’ all-time-favorites: rebuking.
For example, if one of your ministry leaders is spending oodles of cash with little to no return, a metric can provide ample evidence for the rest of the ministry to ask that person the hard question of why they are doing what they are doing.
And this is pretty obvious, right? You’d do something about that, right? But, as many of you probably already know, sometimes following through with what we know to be right can be difficult, especially if the data is difficult to interpret or gather.
That’s probably what makes ChurchMetrics.com, a new service launch by LifeChurch, so freaking cool. From their blog announcement:
ChurchMetrics helps you keep tabs on attendance, giving, salvations, and baptisms through easy-to-understand charts and reports.
We developed it because we wanted a simple way to monitor patterns in these areas at all of our campuses. We also wanted a simple way to input the data on the weekends without having to pass around and share Excel spreadsheets.
We’ve found that having quick access to this data helps us see where we need to make adjustments to stay on course with our mission.
Also, if you’re anything like me, you’ll especially enjoy the mobile features that allow you to both update and view information from any web enabled mobile phone.
It’s the part in bold that’s most important to remember and is probably the reason you should sign up.
There are few, if any, leaders and pastors who aren’t concerned about staying on course with their mission and vision for the ministry that God has so graciously given them to shepherd and manage. It isn’t even worth my time to remind you of the countless historical stories in the Scriptures where leaders have veered off course because they forgot their mission, their reason for being, and were not able to calculate or manage the slight deviations as such, which resulted in catastrophic returns.
I’m sure they would have loved to have something like ChurchMetrics.com… but don’t go all 2nd Samuel 24 on it.
And don’t be fooled; ChurchMetrics isn’t your all-in-wonder application nor a platform replacement: It was developed with a pretty focused purpose:
To keep ChurchMetrics streamlined and simple, we’ve limited the app to track four core areas: attendance, giving, salvations and baptisms. So instead of trying to replace your contact management system or church membership software, ChurchMetrics is focused on giving you and your team an easy, straightforward place to add, access, and learn from the numbers at your church.
So, take it for a go!
Obviously a lot of other ministries are trying it… why not you?
In addition, here’s a sweet vid they made for it as well:
Introducing ChurchMetrics from ChurchMetrics on Vimeo.
Want a picture walk through as I inputed some data? Start to finish time was 10 minutes (it took more time to edit the pictures in photoshop and get them uploaded to the blog…)
Oh yeah, they have a mobile version. w00t.
