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[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.22″ global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.25″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” custom_padding=”5px|||||” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.25″ custom_padding=”|||” global_colors_info=”{}” custom_padding__hover=”|||”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.27.4″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” global_colors_info=”{}”]Generate desires to see churches renewed and strengthened. Through the Generate Renewal Grant, churches can work with experienced consultants to help fuel the health of their church ministries. The following article from one of Generate’s partnering consultants has tips that can help strengthen every church.

By The Unstuck Group

Here are four practical reasons to track a church’s health and growth:

  1. Tracking helps develop a shared perspective to keep people pulling in the same direction.
  2. Tracking helps provide a foundation for future planning.
  3. Tracking can provide early warning signs that something is becoming unhealthy.
  4. Tracking provides an opportunity to celebrate life change.

Building a Ministry Health Dashboard

You need a good system for capturing and sharing stories in addition to metrics. You can’t rely solely on stories, though, to know whether your church is healthy. It’s impossible to know everyone’s story—it’s still being written today. The numbers (metrics) will help confirm what you’re hearing in the stories. You need both.

  1. Track key metrics.

Here are five metrics to track:

  • Guests, baptisms or salvations, and attendance to monitor the “front door” of your church
  • Movement on your discipleship path to close your church’s “back door”
  • The number of leaders at every step on the leadership development pathway
  • People volunteering on church ministry teams inside and outside the walls of the church
  • Giving to the mission of the church

Gather this data so you can monitor progress on a monthly basis and review with your leadership teams. (This is an internal dashboard. We don’t recommend this being shared with the congregation or people outside the church. Use it to make sure you’re making progress on all the key parts of your strategy.)

  1. Monitor priority initiatives.

Sunday is always coming. That can make it difficult to keep priority initiatives on track. On your dashboard, you should track each initiative, the primary objective, who is responsible, and the target date for completion. In other words, the entire leadership team should always know the strategic priorities that have everyone’s time and focus.

  1. Assess team behaviors.

The key metrics (point 1) will keep you focused on the results of your ministry strategy. The priority initiatives (point 2) will make sure the main strategic objectives are being completed. The assessment of team behaviors (this point) will help you monitor the health of your culture.

Start by identifying the team behaviors that make up your culture at its healthiest. Then you can assess them every time you review the dashboard with your team.

So if one of your team behaviors is, as an example, “Make bold moves,” you would ask the team, How are we doing with this behavior? If it’s healthy, then color the status green. If you’re doing some things right, but other components need attention, color the status yellow. If the check engine light is turning on because there’s a problem with that behavior, then color the status red. Feel free to do half green and half yellow, or half yellow and half red, if you want five status indicators.

For the entire dashboard, we highly recommend a monthly check-in for key metrics, priority initiatives, and team behaviors.

If you haven’t been monitoring metrics closely in your church, all this may sound overwhelming. Tony Morgan and Amy Anderson broke it down in detail in episode 87 of The Unstuck Church Podcast. Listen to “Reliable Metrics for Church Health and Growth.”

 The Unstuck Group helps leaders grow healthy churches by guiding them through experiences that focus vision, strategy, and action. Its core services include ministry health assessments, strategic planning, and staffing and structure reviews.
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