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.

1. Service Attendance
2. Salvations
3. Baptisms
4. Online Traffic
5. Time on Site
6. Online Views
7. Social Shares
8. Video Subscriptions
9. Organic Likes
10. Newsletter Subscriptions
11. Group Attendance
12. Connection Cards
13. Membership Participation
14. Giving per Person
15. Community Service Engagement

 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 t...