As a church leader, your goal is to connect people to Christ. You want to see your community discover who Jesus is and what it looks like to follow Him.
But let’s be honest: No matter the size of your church, it’s not always clear which metrics you should keep track of to keep an eye on where people are at in their spiritual journey and how effective your ministry currently is.
The metrics every church tracks will be unique, as your vision for the impact you want to make in your community is unique. However, if you want to make genuine connections and get an idea of how healthy your church is, there are a few metrics we highly recommend you keep a close eye on.
Here are 7 metrics you should be tracking in your church:
1) Lapsed Attendance
In other words, when someone stops coming to church.
Metrics may sound like you are converting people into a pile of data and numbers, but metrics can help you uncover areas of opportunity that will help you make genuine connections.
For instance, when you track your attendance intentionally, you can uncover individual lapsed attendance patterns. Of course, this could be for a number of reasons, such as an unexpected illness, a move, or some other personal reason. When you track lapsed attendance, you will know when to reach out and offer pastoral care to people who may have otherwise fallen through the cracks.
2) Overall Giving
Giving is a crucial area to track for any church. As this is the primary way your church is funded, tracking giving and budgeting accordingly is a key part of stewarding your ministry’s resources well.
Put simply, you can’t ignore your finances and just “hope for the best.” Regular giving is an indicator of the financial health of your church and determines what financial resources you have available to give back to your community and congregation through the ministries you provide.
3) Lapsed Giving
Along with your overall giving, lapsed giving is a metric to help you track giving on a personal, pastoral level. Halted giving can be a sign of something happening in other areas of an individual’s or family’s life. Oftentimes changing jobs, losing a job, or some other life change can mean a change in finances.
If someone in your church changes or pauses their giving habits, this could be a sign that they have other circumstances happening in their lives. By noting this metric, you can make sure your church is offering support when they need it the most.
4) Digital and Physical Attendance
When it comes to measuring the health of your church, you can’t ignore this one! While attendance is not the only metric to indicate the health and impact of your ministry, it is one of the big ones to pay attention to. It’s important to keep track of how many people are engaging with your church in-person and online.
Tracking attendance will help you see patterns across the year, look honestly about where your church is at from an attendance perspective (growing, declining, or stagnant), and make strategy decisions accordingly.
5) Engagement: Are people taking next steps?
We’ve all talked from the stage about the next steps guests and visitors can take to get more connected, but do you know how many people take that step? Whether it’s stopping by a welcome desk, signing up for a class, meeting with a pastor, giving, or signing-up to serve, engagement is a crucial metric to consider, especially alongside attendance trends.
This is exactly why attendance isn’t the only metric that matters in ministry. Since our goal is to connect people to Jesus and help them take steps with Him in their life, seeing people take action is a crucial part of our purpose as a church.
6) Baptisms and Salvations
It’s always exciting when someone makes a profession of faith or is baptized! You may already have a plan to follow-up or mark the day for them (if not, you should!). But it’s important to keep track of the number of baptisms and salvations in a year.
By tracking the number of baptisms and salvation that occur as a result of your church’s ministry, you can track your true effectiveness and celebrate them with your members, staff, and with the individuals themselves!
7) Vision-Specific Wins
What is your unique vision as a church? How are you tracking the metrics related to that vision?
For example, if you support missionaries abroad or have a ministry that impacts your community, you should track their effectiveness. If your church has a focus on foster care, you should track the number of children your people have helped and share those metrics often.
One Church Software is a church management software that allows you to track and read all these metrics and more! Once you are tracking these metrics, it’s time to connect the information to actions that will help you care for people better. One Church Software allows you to track connections and can prompt you to follow-up or automate those actions on your behalf.
If you don’t have a church management system or are considering switching, you can try One Church Software FREE for 30 days to see all the ways it can help you care for your members, empower your volunteers, and serve your community.