HOW ABOUT CHURCH ANALYTICS?

 

"Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." Matthew 4:19.

Hello Friends:

Welcome to the Soulwinnersr.us website. I entitled my post today, "How About Church Analytics?” With this post I’m going away from my normal direct evangelism emphasis to an indirect evangelism emphasis.

Analytics have become a large part of our lives. Professional and college sports have embraced statistics to make calculated analytical decisions. They go against the grain of old-school coaches and front office workers making decisions based on “gut feelings”.

Whether we like it or not, analytics also plays a large role in marketing on all types of media. Being a senior citizen now I’m totally tired of hundreds of Medicare ads, phone calls, and mailings. Medicare companies spend millions of dollars for these ads based on the fact that analytics has told them they will get a certain “bang for their buck”.

So, I’m posing the question whether there should be “church analytics”. I’m half-joking and half-serious in posing my query about this. I’m half-joking because I know that church leaders, and even members, would likely never embrace such an outlier activity, and they would likely say that the Holy Spirit is their only guide.

But I’m also half-serious because I think the way churches are run perhaps might benefit from a motivation to improve their decision-making processes, that they not just rely on “gut-feelings”. I think it would also help a seeker to have a better chance of finding a good church home.

I’m not speaking about seeker-sensitive decisions here. I’ve been in churches where these decisions led to a watering down of the gospel message, perhaps focusing on aesthetics rather than substance.

If analytics were to be used in evaluating churches and church decision-making, what would be some important criteria or statistics to use?

Following are some criteria that I think might be important if there were rankings, perhaps on a 1-10 scale:

1. Love: Churches are ranked how many times leadership in each month states the importance of the verses, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind”, and, “your neighbor as yourself.” All church decisions are made with these verses as a guide.
2. Evangelism: Churches are ranked how many times leadership in each month states the importance of the verses, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations”, and, “you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” Churches would also be ranked how many evangelism classes they have each year. All church decisions, especially evangelism efforts, are made with the thought whether the decision will bolster or hinder the church’s role in fulfilling The Great Commission.
3. Discipleship: Churches are ranked how many classes and/or individual sessions they have each month to teach disciples, including newly converted disciples and older ones. Churches don’t only focus on Sunday morning sermons as the vehicle for discipleship.
4. Church Member Community: Churches are ranked how many times each month leadership and members visit church members outside the church building. Extra points are given if the pastor, leaders, and members that are visiting other members live in the local community.
5. Local Community: Churches are ranked how many visits leadership and members make to local community people and events. Extra points are given if the pastor, leaders, and members that visit the local community and events live in the local community.
6. God’s Word: Churches are ranked by the evidence that the pastor deeply loves God’s Word, teaches it very fluently, and doesn’t compromise it.
7. Addressing Issues: Churches are ranked by evidence that the pastor and leadership only address member shortcomings when there is evidence of open sin, open resistance, or open laziness in doing the work of the church.

There you have it. What do you think about church analytics? Do you think they will ever be in our future? And do you think they would be helpful for a seeker to find a good church?

See you next time,
Arlen