2055-07 Church Health stats re Giving Info

First Onliner:

     I'm closeted here in my office trying to come up with some coherent means to measure the progress of our church. Obviously, I've got the attendance and the offering data as well as numbers regarding baptisms, etc. I'd like to develop a means that would give an indication of the spiritual health of our congregation. I know that sounds a bit odd, but here is my reasoning. One of the things we think we know is that as people mature in Christ, the whole aspect of giving/tithing becomes more likely to be played out in their lives. I'd like to measure that development. However, I'm kind of stuck as just how to proceed. I'm hoping some of you have a stronger mathematical background than I do and can give me a formula or point me in a direction at least.

Second Onliner

        We use what I define as a "Metric Measurement" method in this effort. Or we use subjective "Metric" numbers, as applied consistently for the named period of time, in a Church's pursuit of ascertaining whether our Church attendees (Church family units, etc.) are healthy donors. Or it is a way to determine if our people who attend our Church are faithful in their personal dollar giving to the church
        Attendance relationship, or how many family units are in attendance at the Sunday worship services, factors into this. A potential way to estimate this is to take the total Church AM attendance and divide by four with the result being the estimated number family units. Use the number four because of such factors as number of kids in families offset by the number of singles, etc. Healthy Church members with respect to their personal finances needs to be very generic and impersonal as based strictly on big overview or metric numbers, etc.
         For instance:   If the average family unit (both Husband/Wife usually have monthly income) receives $48,000 a year, or $4.000 monthly. Then a monthly tithe is $400.00, etc. Perhaps establish a weekly amount, or divide $48,000 by 52, etc. ($925 a week) or 92.50 weekly tithe. Comment: we have a conflict of comparing weekly or monthly --- most families give monthly or semi-monthly, etc. and not weekly, etc.
         Analyze the weekly giving reports and come up with such data as: >> the number of families who gave $xxx.00 or more this week >> plus the actual dollars given by this group that week.
         Compute a ratio, or percentage, of the number meeting the above criteria each month compared to the estimated average family units in attendance for the month. Then place this percentage in a weekly graph format.

Third Onliner

        Many years ago, long before computers, and even calculators, a fine old pastor taught me a lesson on the relationship between giving and the spiritual tone of his church. Every Monday morning he would go view the offering figures for last Sunday. He would take a colored pen and make a mark on a graph that was prominently displayed on the wall behind his desk. Joining the lines between the previous week and the current week he would stand back and ponder the year over year results of this multi year graph. He said to me, "son, remember this; people stop giving before they start walking or straying from the faith. This is sign of continued spiritual growth or an early warning - knowing this is your opportunity to address hidden problems."
        Today we have computers, and fancy programs, but the result is the same - financial giving is a "bell-weather" of the spiritual condition or trends within the local Body.

Fourth Onliner:

        I had a similar challenge when I first took this job. I did a donor analysis on our total consistency (all those who call this their church home). As a base for that analysis I set an amount that stated any gift less than $ 500/yr did not constitute an active donor. This amount may not be right or even fair but I wanted to know what percentage of our people were serious givers. The result of that analysis was that 52% of our people didn’t give. That in my mind is a spiritual measurable that was most concerning. This gave our leadership a starting point as to where our spiritual health was and over the next three years our preaching and teaching used our giving stats to challenge our people to more. I would agree that financial stewardship is one of the key measurements as to
Lordship issues in the rest of the areas of your life. Three years later that 52 per cent statistic was reduced to 8 percent using the same base measurement. We had to ask ourselves lots of hard questions before we launched into just trying to fix a giving problem. This issue can be more complex than what is obvious on the surface.

Fifth Onliner:

     We determine our "Giving Ratio" as a starting point? This is defined as the giving amount per total in attendance and we track this over a period time and then we ask ourselves such questions as the following: How many "Giving Units" do we have? How has that tracked with attendance? What percentage of giving do the top 20% of donors provide? How has that changed over time? What is the average age of your congregation compared to the average age of your donors? what about our top 20% of donors? I set up a database that gives me all kinds of data to crunch and charts to analyze. I welcome any other ""Metric Measurement" methods etc. that you may be using.