Today on the Blog, we’re continuing a series of posts on metrics for the church. In my last post we talked about 6 Front Door Metrics [See that post here].

Today, we move to Assimilation Metrics or what I call Side Door Metrics; if you will. Friends come in the side door right?

 

 

I. The 1st 5 metrics are related to Attendance.

I mean, they have to actually attend in order to be engaged and discipled right?

Track Weekly/Accumulate Monthly: – Answers “How Many are Coming?”

1. On Campus Attendance – Total # of people on campus each Sunday. Worship Attendance plus children not in the Main Worship Service. Answers Growth Rate.
2. Worship Attendance – Total # of people in the Worship and Word experience. Answers Growth Rate.
3. % of Seating Capacity – You need to keep tabs on this by service and in total. Anything over 80% seems full. Keep tabs on Seating Capacity’s cousin Parking Capacity. These are useful in determining when it may be time to add overflow, another service and/or add’tl parking, etc.

In addition to above, add these monthly – Answers “Who’s Coming?”

4. % Kids to On Campus Attendance
5. % Students to On Campus Attendance

If you’re not attracting and engaging kids and students (young families) you’ll become irrelevant to the culture and become less effective in reaching the community. If these %’s are not at healthy levels or growing, then you should be directing attention/focus here.

Quarterly:

6. I like to look at the 5 above compared to the previous quarter, the same quarter last year and the YTD current year vs. YTD last year. Are you progressing or regressing? In addition, I like to compare these to Internal Goals and Available External Benchmarks. What changes may be needed?

 

II. Moving to the next level – Of those attending, who and how many are making decisions for Christ? (That’s what we’re here for right?)

Track Weekly/Accumulate Monthly:

1. # of Salvations – Are these going up/down over time?
2. # of Baptisms – How many are actually following thru on their very first step of obedience after professing Christ? This is also a ministry opportunity for those who have not followed thru.

In addition to the 2 above, add these monthly or at least once a quarter – I believe these are more insightful:

3. Ratio of Salvations to Attendance. – Thom Rainer suggested a healthy ratio is 12 for the year for every 100 in attendance. So, if you’re averaging 500 per week, you should see 60 Salvations for the year, or 5 per month on average. Celebrate each one.

Useful in watching the ratio as attendance goes up, does this ratio follow? Indicative of growth from unchurched or transfer growth. Or, is it some other reason.

4. % of Baptisms to Salvations – How are you doing in terms of those professing Christ? Are they following thru on baptism? I’m not sure what is deemed healthy here, but the higher ratio the better right? If it’s say less than 80%, I’d think it needs looking into. Why are they not following thru?

5. % Baptisms to Attendance – Tony Morgan of the Unstuck Group says Above Average Churches are in the 9 to 15% range.

So if you’re averaging 500 in attendance, you should be baptizing anywhere from 45 to 75 people to be considered an Above Average Church.

On a quarterly basis:

Compare the above 5 to prior quarter, years, Goals and Benchmarks as previously described.

You could also take a look at Salvations and Baptisms in terms of who. – % Salv and Baptisms that are Kids and Students. A significant portion of total salvations and baptisms should be in these two segments. Anyway, if you track it, at least you’ll know.

 

That’s it.

In my next post, we’ll dive into Metrics for Small Groups. See that post here.