In today’s episode, we unpack the top 15 metrics that churches should measure in 2020.
Rick Warren has famously said that you can only manage what you measure.
For churches that want to adapt to the new digital world we live in, we must measure the right things.
We hope this conversation helps your church reach more people and grow.
15 Metrics Churches Should Measure in 2020
- Service Attendance
- Salvations
- Baptisms
- Online Traffic
- Time on Site
- Online Views
- Social Shares
- Video Subscriptions
- Organic Likes
- Newsletter Subscriptions
- Group Attendance
- Connection Cards
- Membership Participation
- Giving per Person
- Community Service Engagement
Show Transcript
Thomas Costello 00:00:00 In today’s episode, we unpack the top 15 metrics. Churches should measure in 2020, Rick Warren famously said that you could only manage what you measure for churches that want to adapt to the new digital world that we live in. We must measure the right things. We hope this conversation helps your church reach more people and grow.
You’re listening to the REACHRIGHT podcast. The show dedicated to helping pastors and church leaders reach people the right way, hosted by me, Thomas Costello. And with me as always is my cohost Ian Hyatt. We’re here to help you your church. See more visitors and grow. Hey guys,
Thomas Costello 00:00:59 Welcome to the REACHRIGHT podcast episode number 16, I am your host Thomas Costello. And my co-host as always with me today. Is, is he in high ed? Hey Thomas. And hello all. And man, 16 episodes, huh? 16 deep. What was only a glimmer in our eye when we started as the fun, doing 16 of these so far and got a good topic today, we’ll be talking about 15 metrics that churches should measure in 2020. Um, I think this is an important one because, I don’t know if you know this, but a lot of stuff has changed in 2020 as it really interesting here. So I’ve been under a rock the whole time. I thought I just saw these people in masks outside. I don’t know what’s what’s going on, how long it is not, it’s only, you know, it’s about a week from now nuts.
Thomas Costello 00:01:46 Yeah, but it’s, I think what’s happened though, is that a lot of these changes were things that were in the cards already, for churches, things that were coming down the pike, but 2020 just basically forced our hand. And especially with these things about what churches measure, I think that there were as a lot of people that were really thinking about what we should be measuring as churches. and I think a lot of that has changed for, for churches and I think 2020 and the pandemic and those things that really kind of forced us to, to move on some of these measurement changes. Yeah, indeed it did. And I think that’s, you know, we’re always in this crazy year, I don’t know about you, but I’m always trying to look at the bright side of, okay, what positive, positive things as 2020 drawn out.
Thomas Costello 00:02:29 And I think it’s that it’s forced a lot of churches to, to start looking deeper and measuring things more. And so that’s a good thing. Now let’s just get this out of the way. Um, I am a big believer in measuring things. Anything I can measure. I think that’s one of the big innovations I think that churches have picked up on over the last couple of decades is there’s been a movement towards measuring. I remember first encountering this concept when I read Rick Warren’s purpose driven church, and the talked about how you can only manage what you measure. and I think it’s just really important that we measure things, but I think this conversation’s important today because the things that we measure they need to have changed. Now, I think we still do measure some of the old things. We’ll talk about some of those, but the things that we do measure, like what used to be the end all be all was church attendance of butts in seats.
Thomas Costello 00:03:24 That was the main thing that we measure. and that has, um, while still important. We’ll talk about that probably first year, but what’s still important. It has changed somewhat, I think, and being the chief thing that we measure. And so we have a list of 15 different things that we really think that churches should be looking at here in 20, 20 and beyond. And, so yeah, why don’t I kick us off if that’s okay with you? Cool. All right. So the first one is service attendance. That is something that is the oldest and truest, membership, or kind of number that we measure, different from membership. But it’s the attendance number. I think it’s important to measure because Jesus clearly measured it so many times in scripture. It talks about the number of people that were there, and it talks about that thing. So I think it’s still an important thing that we remembered now, that being said, it is losing its significance as the chief metric that we measure because 2020 prove to us that showing up is more challenging than it’s ever been before now,
Ian Hyatt 00:04:20 Right? Yeah. Yeah. It has been. Yeah. And I think that we’ve talked about this in past episodes here is that, you know, engagement is kind of the new thing. and, and, and that is kind of, if you’re keeping people engaged, they’re attending to a certain degree, whether or not that’s online or physically showing up for things and also doing things online, but it still is very important. I think if you’re a church that’s reopened during this time, and even if you’re like have a limited number that you’re allowing in, or that are allowed in, um, to measure how many people are physically coming, even if it’s not as much as before the pandemic, it’s still very important.
Thomas Costello 00:04:59 And we’re seeing a lot of that change too. Right? So we’re seeing churches that have reopened. I have yet to meet one that says that their attendance is back up to where it was, right pandemic, just because it’s really hard. And so I think the challenge with measuring service attendance is that it’s going to leave you pretty depressed right now, if you’re just comparing where we were in March or in February with where we are here in October of 2020, every single church of the country is about half the size that it used to be. Now, I I’m part of a church here in Hawaii. We haven’t opened yet. I know a lot of our audience has opened a lot of, it’s still a lot of us still haven’t. but there isn’t really any sign of us open it again any time soon, honestly, because we’re waiting, as so many churches in Hawaii meet in schools, we’re waiting for an approval from the board of education. And so there’s all kinds of steps. So if we’re measuring only service attendance, we’re going to leave ourselves pretty depressed. I talked to a lot of depressed pastors right now because that’s what they’re used to measuring. And there’s a certain, encouragement that comes with seeing a full room. And that’s just different. So, I think we, we mentioned number one, as it’s still important to measure it, but maybe back off a little bit in the emphasis you put on service attendance, but why don’t you tackle number two?
Ian Hyatt 00:06:11 Yeah. Agreed. Number two, my, it might be the most important thing. It is the most important thing to the, to the Lord and it shouldn’t be to every pastor and believer in that salvation is of course. And so, um, that’s a big deal. And I think especially during 2020, I mean, you know, and, and I mean, when I say that it’s important in every year, but you know what I mean? I think that just that if we know that people are making a decision, you know, for Jesus and to follow Jesus, that’s huge. And I think a lot of people are looking now more than ever. and that’s just going to measure the health of your church. And even if you’re all online and not physically there, you’re going to know if you’re measuring salvation, that you’re doing a good job of delivering things online through streaming or whatever. And, and that’s a huge thing. I think that that will be, like you said, a lot of pastors are discouraged right now when they look at attendance, if they measure this salvation and that’s in a healthy place and that’s going, that should be some real big room for encouragement.
Thomas Costello 00:07:11 Yeah. It changes everything. I think it’s interesting because, in churches, I don’t know about you. I was a guy that gave a lot of invitations for people in our, in my services. When I was preaching, I would often end with a chance to respond always a way to respond somehow. But a lot of times it was to respond, to make a decision, to follow Jesus and give us salvation, kind of a sermon there at the end. and I think we need to come up with some new methods for doing that and measuring it because like the whole come up to the altar or the raise, your hand or the stand, or what I did a lot of times was the let’s make eye contact and make sure I know we’re praying together on that. Like that, that doesn’t work the same way with an online audience right now.
Thomas Costello 00:07:56 You don’t know if your audience at home is standing or raising their hand. Now I’ve seen some of the online platforms have a raise my hand button that it says, you know, it’s just kind of strange because you’re not really raising your hand, but it’s a, it’s a button. So I think we need to think about this a little bit of how we invite people to make a decision to follow Jesus and especially how do we measure it? I think a lot of times we, we tend to exaggerate those salvation numbers. A lot of churches did because they count and that’s not to discourage what people are doing. I, I know when someone looks up or raises their hand, God’s doing something in their hearts, but are you seeing real life change? Is there evidence that they’re making a decision to change their lives with Jesus as the center of it?
Thomas Costello 00:08:36 I think we need to do more to kind of look deeper into those numbers, but that is a really important one. And maybe one of the ways that you look deeper is looking at number three, the third metric is baptisms. I’ve always felt that the number of baptisms, is an even better indicator of the progress that people are making in their walk, because being baptized is a big step. It would be thinking about it like, like what a, what a huge step that is for someone to, to say that I’m willing to go out in front of this entire community of people and choose to go underwater and say that I was broken and Jesus came into my life and now I’m a new person. Like that’s just a huge step for people to take. And so it really has that, um, where raising your hand or looking up at a pastor when they’re preaching a salvation messages, a little toe in the water, baptism is a real piece of evidence of spiritual engagement that someone has. So, that’s one of those metrics also measured in scripture. It talks about people that are getting baptized. That’s really important. There,
Ian Hyatt 00:09:39 You reminded me of when I let a small group in my living room several years ago, I helped lead a guy to the Lord. And he said that, you know, something along the lines of the sinner’s prayer and made that decision. And I said, okay, the next step is to get baptism and to get baptized and to go all in all. I’m not ready for that yet. And, and sadly enough, to this day, this was years ago, that person has still not been baptized. So I think you’re hitting the nail on the head that shows getting back to point, item number two, salvation that that shows that’s a real good way to measure authentic salvation. So, yeah, that’s true. Good, good. That’s good. Number four leads us to number four, online traffic while I say it leads us to, um, you know, online traffic would be a good place to kind of start measuring things as far as, you know, whether or not someone’s interested in a baptism or making a decision for Jesus, you know, but traffic is going to show also just how many people are staying engaged with your church. And so to measure that specifically on your website, through analytics, we love, I know as a company, Google analytics, we use Google analytics and it tells a lot, it tells not just the amount of people that are hitting your site, but some of the things that they’re doing there. Right?
Thomas Costello 00:10:55 Yeah. I think that the, the challenge with, with online traffic numbers is that it’s not a good tool to compare yourself to other churches and other ministries that are out there. And really, we don’t think any of these metrics should be used as a comparison to other churches. I know a lot of times that we say that, and then when we, you know, the first thing pastors will ask each other is, Hey, how many people show up at your church? Or how big is your church? And really that’s really not helpful, I think, but especially when it comes to online traffic, what it’s good at measuring is seeing your own progress with things of how many people are engaging. And what’s really interesting is I think measuring what people are engaging with on your site, you may find, I think most churches find this is that there’s usually a few pieces of content that are the big drivers of a lot of the interaction on your site.
Thomas Costello 00:11:44 So for us, you know, at red reach, right, for instance, we have, um, Oh, I don’t know, like 400 different blog posts, these and a lot of this content we put out, but I think our traffic is driven by about 95% of our traffic comes from about 10 different blog posts that we’ve written over time there. So it really is important. I think the churches hone in on that, you may have a sermon for instance, that you preached years ago, that just really resonated with people. And for some reason, Google thinks it’s an important thing to, to send people towards and you might get a lot of traffic for that. So the big thing is you look at the specifics of your online traffic and you look at the progress that you’re making. Are you seeing an increase? Are you seeing more and more people getting online? And that actually brings us to number five, which is about
Ian Hyatt 00:12:30 To say that yeah, the time on the site. Exactly.
Thomas Costello 00:12:33 So another really important online metric to look at is time on site. So what isn’t helpful is when you have someone that is on your site and they are there for less than five seconds, and then they never have an interaction with your site again, because what Google looks at when they see that they see that as a bounce, which means that this person wasn’t interested and we should show this website less when people search for that kind of a thing, that’s what it says. So it’s really important that when you engage someone, you engage them for as long as you possibly can on their website. And that just makes sense. If someone is engaged by a sermon that you’ve preached, or they’re interested in signing up for an event, or they want to read more in depth on a blog post that you put out there, they’re going to spend five, a sermon, maybe 30 minutes, but a blog post four or five minutes or an event two or three minutes, they’ll spend some time on the site and that’s a good metric. So this is another one of those things you want to see an increase in this area. Not that you can compare it to, Oh, so-and-so has this much time on their site because all these pieces of content are different, but if you’re seeing more and more people spend longer on your site, engaging with more sermons, engaging with your content, that’s a sign that probably discipleship is happening, that they’re engaging with it for a reason
Ian Hyatt 00:13:48 They’re genuinely interested. If they’re spending time there. That’s good. And that leads us to the next point. So is online views. That’s, that’s going to be another thing you want to measure with your web presence.
Thomas Costello 00:13:58 Yeah. But video views specifically.
Ian Hyatt 00:14:01 Yep, absolutely. Yeah. So video views on your, your messages, your sermons, I guess, particularly, and maybe other video content you’re putting out there, but specifically your, your messages and how many views you’re getting. There is an important thing to measure.
Thomas Costello 00:14:16 Yep, absolutely. It is. I think that this is something that’s been interesting early in the pandemic. I heard so many pastors just thrilled about what was happening. They thought that, um, well, this is going to be great. This whole pandemic thing. Now I’m reaching so many more people and they, they looked at this and I think online video views are very important to measure, but you have to know what those views actually mean, because usually a view is a watching a video for any length of time. Like what you look at your Facebook video views, the first metric they show you is three second video views. Yeah. Three seconds. So I don’t know what kind of discipleship can happen in three seconds, but my guess is not a lot. So,
Ian Hyatt 00:14:59 And maybe heard a God loves you. And then they moved on.
Thomas Costello 00:15:04 I think that it’s a, it’s been said that that’s kind of like when people used to think, wow, you know, I’m getting this many views. We only had 300 people coming to our church. Now we have a thousand people watching us every week online. Right. A lot of those are three second video views or 15 second video views. And that’s kind of like measuring your church attendance by how many people drive by your church building in a given week. Right. That’s the same thing. It’s they didn’t engage with your content. So be careful with this one. I think the thing to look for with this is, again, it’s back to the, the views, but you want, you want it for a certain amount of time, and I’m not saying that you don’t count it unless they listened to every single bit of it. There’s a lot of people that it might skip your worship portion and get into the, the message part there’s people that might tune out and click off during the announcements at the end of the service. That’s okay. Don’t feel like if they’re not watching for 39 minutes or however long your service is that it doesn’t count, but I think you have to really look deeper into that number, but views is very important.
Ian Hyatt 00:16:03 Yeah. And it lets you know how visible you are, are out there as well. So that’s a good positive to it for sure. Yeah.
Thomas Costello 00:16:09 Absolutely. Seventh one is social shares. I think this is probably one of the most important online metrics is not the number of views. But I think what it really is is when someone is not willing just to consume your content or watching a sermon or interact with the sermon themselves, but they’re willing to share it with somebody else. They’re willing to share a blog post or an encouraging scripture or whatever piece of content you’ve put out there on social media when they share it. That’s important. Think of it the same way you do with someone, about your church. If someone comes to your church, that’s great. But if someone’s bringing their friends and telling their family, Hey, you have to come. I really am engaged with this church here. That really is a whole nother level. Right. So I think social shares
Ian Hyatt 00:16:51 Really important, but that means, I mean, yeah, they had no problem sharing, either a sermon or some content of yours with all 500 of their Facebook friends. And that’s a big step. I know, I don’t often I might read something that I enjoyed or see something online, but I’m, I’m not quite, you know, I don’t want to share it with everyone. So if they’re sharing it, that’s a big deal. And I know a lot of the churches we serve when we help them with websites, you know, any content that’s important, sermon content, a blog or whatever it is on there, we make it very easy for someone to share that because we know how valuable that is. and it takes you viral as well.
Thomas Costello 00:17:27 Maybe add one quick thing to that too. I think that social shares, it’s one thing for people to share your sermons or a blog post or an event that kind of thing don’t get caught up in just those kinds of pieces of content. If you’re making sermon are scripture graphics, for instance, and someone shares it, even if somebody shares a meme, you know, you put out some kind of a funny meme or some kind of a joke and someone shares it, that’s still a win. It’s still somewhat willing to take your brand, the church’s brand and put it out there in front of their friends. It’s kind of a, it’s a, it’s, it’s almost like a little mini testimony in some ways it’s saying I vouch for this content. I think you’d appreciate it too. so I think it’s really valuable to people.
Ian Hyatt 00:18:06 Exactly. It, another valuable thing brings us to number eight and that’s video subscriptions, just like we said with sharing, someone’s really, if they’re sharing, they’re really bought in and they’re interested if they’re subscribing to your video, your YouTube channel, whatever it is, they’re, they’re actually showing that they want to fall. They not only enjoyed it the first time they’re coming back for more they’re they’re gonna, they’re gonna subscribe and keep following you in staying engaged.
Thomas Costello 00:18:32 Yep, absolutely. so it, what subscriptions do on most of the platforms? So whether it be a, a podcast platform, YouTube, any one of those channels is that subscriptions, they raise the likelihood that your content will be presented to that person. Again. Now don’t make the mistake of thinking that if someone subscribes on YouTube, they will automatically see your content at the top of their YouTube feed. That’s not how that works. They really are kind of strict because people take advantage of that. But I think a subscription is a great metric to know that, you’re seeing more and more people that want to regularly engage. I think, in the pandemic world, that is kind of the closest thing. If you’re not able to meet yet, the closest thing to someone who is saying I’m a member of your church is saying that I’m willing to subscribe and why I want to be notified of every time you’re putting out new video content.
Thomas Costello 00:19:21 I think that’s really important. Yeah, that’s good. Cool. number nine is organic likes, organic likes. And so when we say that, that means people that all on their own, they like your, church, they like your content all by themselves and measuring your likes, I think is really important. Now, back in the heyday of Facebook and the social platforms, you had a lot more flexibility with this, where if somebody liked your, your, your page, you would be able to send content to them all the time. And it would be right at the top. Now Facebook has really made a point to try and focus on friends and family and not on organizations and businesses and things like churches. And so they, they really demote a lot of that content. So it’s not as easy to reach people, but like still is something that’s valuable. It’s another way of someone say that I’m kind of part of this community here. Now. We’re not saying with any of these things, that this is a sign of someone making deep spiritual progress, you know, who knows? We don’t know that that’s the case or not, but it is a, a small step, a little commitment, and you shouldn’t be measuring yourself again versus other churches in this area, but just seeing consistent upward movement on this. I think that makes a big difference. Yeah.
Ian Hyatt 00:20:35 Big difference for sure. And then number 10, newsletter subscriptions, this is something much like a video subscription, but it’s funny. Newsletters have kind of come back in a big way this year seen with the, the amount of churches I consult with. here, I’ve heard of newsletters, you know, being brought back to the forefront and, you know, it was kind of before the whole pandemic, something that I think some people thought just in a more traditional or older church might have a newsletter or an online church bulletin or something like that. But now since we’re keeping people engaged online, and with our content more this year with the shutdown and everything, they’ve come back in a big way. And this, again, just like video subscriptions shows that, Hey, we’re following you. Um, we’re a part of your community, just like you were saying.
Thomas Costello 00:21:23 So this is for another podcast, but newsletters in 2020, shouldn’t be just about the events that are happening in your church coming up. Right. That’s not what they’re about. They’re a tool to facilitate discipleship, to deliver content and to keep people engaged with the life of your church, which is a discipleship function, right. So we’re trying to disciple people through our newsletter. So a whole other podcast on that, but I think your number of subscriptions, when someone subscribes to your newsletter, that is a, that is a big step nowadays. I don’t know. It’s kind of like, it’s just, it’s like asking a girl out on a date, basically. It’s a, it’s a big step for them to take that leap because people treat their email address. Like it’s something sacred to them. I don’t know about you. But when I, I see all over the place online opportunities to put in my email address to sign up for updates, to, to get some kind of a free download.
Thomas Costello 00:22:15 And I am very reluctant to do that because I know that it usually puts me on some kind of a list. I start to go into someone’s sales process and I get, go through all those steps there. When someone does that at your church, even though you’re not really trying to sell them something or going with our sales process, it is still a really big step. And it is a commitment when someone does that to say, I am interested in taking our relationship to the next level. So I think that that’s something really important for now. Um, so, and then let’s hit some of the more traditional ones, too. Some of the other metrics that we have measured, but I think group attendance that is still something that’s really important to measure. I know you just measure Sunday morning attendance. It’s really important to measure your midweek group attendance.
Thomas Costello 00:22:58 Most churches, it seems like now have moved away from, a Wednesday night service or a midweek service model and into more of a small group model and having clear numbers of how many groups you have, and even more importantly, how many of your members are, what percentage of your members are engaging in groups during the week? That is really an important number. I see most of the research I’ve seen out there is that that number is frighteningly small, where it’s close to maybe 20% of people that attend churches on Sundays are part of a group during the week. Right. I don’t know if that should surprise us or not, but that is an important thing to measure. As far as people engagement people’s engagement goes, especially in this pandemic season where large groups are kind of frowned upon by smaller groups. Those are really something that we can, we can kind of count up. I think that’s it
Ian Hyatt 00:23:49 Exactly what I was about to say, even in this pandemic season here at it’s actually even more important. I don’t know about your church. My church has seen a decline in small group attendance, virtually, virtually, virtually. So I think a lot of people got sick of doing the zoom, small groups. I know my church, small group, we’re spiritual when we love each other in the Lord, but we just kind of came, the leadership came together and we just, this is kind of, we need to take a break, you know, they get it for everyone. And then, and now we’re meeting again physically in a smaller group setting. And that’s even more valuable because people are craving human interaction after being shut down for so long. So I think it’s a big one to track now and moving forward. And it’s always been, as you said in recent years, it’s been a good measurement of church health, for sure.
Ian Hyatt 00:24:36 So good number 12, another important one connection cards. Maybe not quite as big of a deal as the subscriptions or as an indicator of someone being as bought in, but it is still a big step. If someone fills out an online, I know we’ve talked about this in episodes past on online connection cards are a big deal now since the pandemic. So not just if you’re meeting in person, that’s great, you can still have the connection cards. And actually I know my church, we don’t have physical cards. We’ve moved to even we’re meeting in person, but it’s all a digital experience for someone to fill out that connection card instead of on physical paper. So, but we’ve made that very easy for them to do, but online connection cards after they’ve watched a message or something, say, Hey, have a form that says, did this message encourage you? We want to hear from you. Do you have questions about baptism, salvation, those things. It’s a big way for someone to make that first step to start following your church on a deeper level.
Thomas Costello 00:25:34 I can’t stress this one enough. I think that connection cards are the lifeblood of a growing church. seeing people’s giving their information, so that you can bring them into your assimilation process. It is more important than ever before. And I think measuring how many of those cards hopefully digitally you’re, you’re getting out there. I think there’s still for the right kind of church. There could still be a place for those physical connection cards. But, um, and again, we talked about this in a previous episode, but incentivize, incentivize, incentivize do not expect people to fill out a connection card unless you’re going to give them a reason to do so. And we want to follow up with you is not a good reason to do it. You
Ian Hyatt 00:26:15 Show up on your door, show up on your doorstep.
Thomas Costello 00:26:17 You go, there has to be something that they gained from doing it, whether it’s church swag or a gift card or something, there just needs to be some kind of a reason to do it, but that is so important that you measure and you see a constant growth in those connection cards that you’re receiving. So you can help people get connected that way. So 13 is membership, program participation. So whatever your membership process looks like, or as we call it in our churches apart, partnership process, some churches are moving away from that term membership because it’s big and scary for a lot of people. so, um, whatever you call it though, I think churches need to have a formalized process. We’ve talked about this before, but a formalized process is so important that there is something that people go to their steps that they take to become a part of the life of the church and measuring the number of people that are walking through those steps, whether it’s a coffee with the pastors or pizza with pastors or a four week routes or a class that you go through that people can learn about the life of the church, whatever your process is, you have to have one and you should definitely measure how many people are going through it, whether it’s in-person or online, however you do it, you need to manage.
Ian Hyatt 00:27:32 Yeah, that’s it. Exactly. So another good thing to measure 14 as we near towards the end of this, giving per person. and, and so this would mean the average of what each person in your church has giving. I think that’s a really important thing to calculate. We’ve been talking about how most churches, what we’ve seen the data out there and, and what I’ve seen on the ground level here on the front lines at reach, right, is, most churches, their giving has gone up. It’s not the case for every church, but I think looking at it per person is a good way to measure it.
Thomas Costello 00:28:05 Yeah. I think that that’s, that’s real. That really is the right way to measure it. Um, I’m one of those guys at churches I’ve pastored that I don’t look at the individual gifts of any members. I try to keep that information from myself because I just never wanted to be put in a position where I was, giving some kind of preferential treatment because I knew that are a lot was riding on this person and they’re what they want. So I was always really cautious about that, but I was really specific about knowing what our average gift per person was as a church. And I know what the numbers look like nationally. I think we we’ve, we’ve seen some research on this, that the number is about $1,200 per person and attendance per year. so about a hundred dollars a month per person. And attendance is what the average, gives, in a church there.
Thomas Costello 00:28:56 really what that number means is going to be different for every church. And really it’s so different based on where you are in the country, let alone the world. So a church in, um, rural Texas is going to give a different amount than a church where I am here in Honolulu, Hawaii, a person at a church, there were a cost of living and income and all those things are much higher here in Hawaii than they are in rural Texas. You’re not in rural Texas, but if someone lived in Texas, that’s how that would be. So I think that’s not really helpful to measure that per person in comparison, again, with other churches, but to see an increase in your own church, that is a great way to measure someone’s actual engagement with what’s happening in the life of the church. So if, see, on average that your average member of your church went from a hundred dollars to $115 a month, well, you could probably make some assumptions that there is something happening that people are willing to put their money, where their mouth is, and actually wanting to give more to the mission and what’s happening at the church.
Thomas Costello 00:29:58 So, I know a lot of people, it’s not fashionable to measure finances in a lot of ways. People think it’s unholy. but I think it really is a mem a good measurement of someone it’s an act of worship, right? So Lord, it shows someone’s trusted the Lord and their trust in you to steward what God’s doing. I think that’s, what’s really important for churches there. Exactly. Yeah. Well, let me hit the last one here. number 15 is community service engagement. Um, I think that, that says a lot about someone’s, engagement and their attachment to your church. If they’re willing to put on one of your church’s t-shirts and go out there and serve the community, or however you do community service type projects there, I think it says a lot because they’re giving their time, they’re getting involved with the church’s mission and they’re doing it in the name of your church there.
Thomas Costello 00:30:47 So I know in our church, we did laundry love for years where we took over laundromats. And that was always something that we saw a lot of momentum where we could go in and pay for people’s laundry, no cost to them. and we saw a lot of new people use that as an on-ramp and we really started to measure it, how many people were part of that, how many people gave towards the laundry love ministry. and as that grew, we just saw a lot of momentum there in our church. It was an important thing for us to measure
Ian Hyatt 00:31:14 You. And I have seen this when we’ve, we’ve shared in podcasts past that you and I used to pastor together. We saw that it was a good on-ramp for even someone who doesn’t isn’t following Jesus yet to jump into the life of your church, because there’s a lot of people. For example, like I have family, I had a family member who still does not follow Jesus or know the Lord, but said, and when we were doing ministry, she said, you know, I’m not going to come to your church, but that laundry love thing you guys do, let me know how I can help out. I’d love to do. I love that you’re doing that. And I think other than it being a good way to reach unchurched person or just people that aren’t members yet they could still be believers or whatever is that this has been on the rise of it in 2020. That might sound funny because things are more shut down, but people are longing to get out there and make an impact in their community and get out and physically do some, you know, hands-on, you know, work for the kingdom. And so I think it’s a great thing. And moving forward, too, people are going to really want to get outside themselves and make a, make a big impact where they’re at.
Thomas Costello 00:32:15 Yeah. I think service as a whole community service is one of the least tapped into evangelism methods that we have right now. Now not, I’m not saying evangelizing to the people that you’re serving that definitely has always happened, but I think it’s more fashionable than ever to be involved in community service. And it’s a great way to connect with people. So I saw the same thing at the last church I pastored in Madison, Wisconsin. We’d have people join us for laundry, love that they didn’t even know Jesus. And I guess our philosophy, maybe some pastors are different on this is I don’t mind people putting quarters in the machines, even if they don’t know Jesus for us, you know, that’s still a good thing. And we celebrated that and we, we saw people actually get connected to our church, just as many get connected from serving through laundry love as those that actually served in or were served by laundry love.
Thomas Costello 00:33:03 So I think it really is important, but it’s absolutely something you should measure. And you want to see growth in this area of people that are committed to doing service in your community there. So, so that’s it guys. I think those are a few things that we would, we would take a look at anything to add in. As we wrap up today, I think 15 is a good amount. It’s a nice chunk. You measure these things. You have plenty of things to look at, but measure something, you, you can only manage what you measure. That’s so true. Those words have never been truer. one of the metrics we measure is how many people listen and subscribe to this. so, and share this also. So if you haven’t already, and this has been helpful to you, listen to it, listen to the whole thing. Don’t do it for three seconds and cut out, but especially subscribe and share this. It means the world to us. If it’s been helpful to you, we want to help as many pastors as possible with this. So, until next week, reach people the right way. Amen. Take it easy.
Speaker 1 00:34:02 Thanks for listening to the reach right podcast. We hope this episode will help you reach people the right way, looking for more resources for your church. Check us out online at reach, right studios.com. If this episode has been helpful to you, it would mean the world to us. If you would rate, review and subscribe on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks again for listening. And we’ll see you next week.
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