Which church metrics still matter?

Lee Stephenson: Hey, everyone, welcome to the Unfiltered podcast. Lee Stephenson here, executive director of Church Planting with Converge.

Danny Parmelee: I’m Danny Parmelee. And I oversee Church Planting for Converge MidAmerica.

Lee Stephenson: And we’re gonna talk a little bit about metrics today. I know we’ve done this conversation previously. But I do think, Danny, there’s a little bit of a unique time that we are in that some of the standard metrics that we would coach guys to, hey, you need to know this, you need to watch this, it’s changed, at least for the time being now that we’re in the season of COVID. And don’t know 100% when we’ll kind of get back to normal whether or not there’ll be a normal, so it may be just living in a new normal in a way. Let’s talk a little bit about what are some of the things that we’re seeing change. Let’s start maybe first of all, like, what are basic metrics that we said, this is a must you got to do this pre-COVID? Now, you’re, we would kind of go, I don’t know if it matters as much.

Danny Parmelee: Yeah, well, it used to be budgets, butts and buildings were definitely the at least the key indicators that people were always looking at. And so maybe there’s some of those that will remain the same, but let’s just throw out there right away that the butts in the seats, that counting which, again, it’s just, it’s just the easiest. And so that’s usually why we do it. If we’re to kind of gauge some things on you, you kind of can’t do that anymore. And if you are doing it, it’s just really, always not the best indicator for a couple of different reasons.

Lee Stephenson: Yeah, well, let’s talk about those reasons. You know, first of all, there are still places in the country, it’s almost impossible getting anybody to show up, if you do is probably 25% in certain areas of the country of what they’re even allowed to do, if they can places in the Northeast, places on the West Coast. And so it’s hard to indicate or no like for us, even in Orlando, where we’re located in Orlando is called Medical City. And we’ve got state of the art hospitals, a lot of healthcare workers. Most of them that go to our church haven’t shown back up yet because of COVID. And just they have a higher exposure rate. So that they want to protect us a little bit. Our numbers have stayed somewhere between 50 to 60% depending on the week that we’re at of where we were pre-COVID. So it’s hard to count attendance numbers and have any level of sense of like, are we growing? Are we staying the same? Have we shrunk? So in my mind like there’s a level of it’s kind of like this seems meaningless in a certain way.

Danny Parmelee: Right. Well, I would say that I think that before attendance actually could be somewhat of an indicator of engagement. And the reason that it could is because everybody was essentially meeting at the same time, Sunday mornings. And so if you were getting a certain amount of people that were showing up consistently on Sunday mornings, it was at least somewhat of an indicator of your overall engagement. Where now, you can’t both positive or negative, I say that in the negative sense, like you might have 25% that’s showing up for your in-person services, and you’re thinking this is horrible, like the church is headed, you know, in the worst direction. I mean, we have just lost everybody, where that might not be true, you actually might have a fully engaged church, you could have even grown as a church, you’re continuing to grow. But you have 25% showing up so you can kind of mark it that way. Flipside, I’ve seen people counting even online engagement, and they’re like, wow, this is absolutely amazing. You know, before COVID, we were only, you know, averaging 80 people now we have 400 or 500 views on our online stream, we are just killing it. But online views also does not equal engagement, because again, you might have someone who’s checking in, you might have someone who’s accidentally stumbling upon it. And they’re not even watching the whole thing. So again, that number doesn’t equal engagement. And that’s really what I think when we talk about metrics that we’re trying to get at is you’re trying to measure that engagement and the impact that you’re having,

Lee Stephenson: What I hear you, I hear you, right, you’re saying don’t count all the online engagement into attendance.

Danny Parmelee: I know that there’s some different things out there. And here’s how you can calculate it. And if you have one person watching, it means that someone’s looking over their shoulder, so multiply it by two and detta detta. I just think that right now, people’s habits of consumption are just all over the map. And so I don’t think it’s worth the mental energy, OK? Maybe you jot it down somewhere. So you yourself are kind of looking, you know, week in and week out. I just don’t think it’s your number one indicator, and you could be wasting a lot of time chasing after a number that is somewhat meaningless. So, yeah, so if I had a church planter that said, Hey, Danny, here’s the thing, Um, I don’t know how many people are tuning in, because I’m not gonna go to YouTube, Facebook, you know, Instagram, you know, whatever platform else they’re streaming through the web. I’m not going to take the time to kind of add all those people. I’d be like, OK, totally OK. Like, I’m actually OK with you doing that. I think you still should count the people that are in seats for now, you know, just kind of kind of to be able to see.

Lee Stephenson: I open up our service and watch it from the computer, my iPhone and my iPad just to boost our numbers

Danny Parmelee: There you go. There you go. So

Lee Stephenson: I mean, it’ll be an interesting article this year when Outreach magazine puts out their 100 fastest-growing churches. How do they count that this year?

Danny Parmelee: Yeah, well, we all know that with Outreach magazine, those are self-reported numbers anyways that aren’t really verified. So I, like you, I’m going to be very interested to see how they come up with that number. And that is not to discount that you’re having an impact online in reaching potentially people that you wouldn’t have even reached before. I am 100% in agreement that online is important. And that and that it’s, you know, reaching more people than maybe that you think but just not getting so fixated on the number because when we’re honest, as pastors, a lot of times the numbers have more to do with ourselves and our own ego and our own insecurities that we’re hoping to just kind of like, Oh, my gosh, am I’m doing something right? Like someone’s listening, all this work is worth it. And there is probably a certain amount of time right now, where you’re just having to be faithful. And you’re really trusting these results that you’re not seeing, you know, kind of up to the Lord.

Lee Stephenson: Yes. So it’s just not an honest metric as much as it used to be in this day and time of COVID. And online engagement, knowing three seconds could count as an engagement. So but I would say on the budget side of things, I don’t think that’s changed. You know, I think like, what we were talking about is one thing you do need to figure out, encountering a key metric is engagement. More than ever, it’s not about the content that a church is delivering. It is more about the conversation that the church is creating, and so conversation equals engagement. And I think there’s a couple different things that you can pay attention to. One, pay attention to your numbers, budget, but specifically, I would look at giving units. Is our giving units decreasing? Is our giving units increasing? And if it’s increasing, it’s at least showing you the fact that more people are buying into the mission, the vision behind the church than before.

Danny Parmelee: Yeah, I absolutely agree with that. And it sounds weird to say, like, yeah, budget’s still a really important one to pay attention to. And I know that we just, you know, we got done with a couple episodes, specifically about budget and how to spend money, but this is really looking at it for the engagement factor that because I’ll tell you what, if someone’s just kind of perusing online, or an accidental three-second click, yeah, they’re probably not the person that is, you know, setting up their weekly or monthly, you know, donation or tithe to the church. But you are able to monitor that a little bit more. And I know that for a lot of church planters, there was certain question marks with certain families, you know, are they still here? Or are they not here? And one of the ways that they were able to even just kind of determine that is to look at giving. And, of course, yes, you can do phone calls with people. But everyone right now, if they haven’t showed up for a couple of weeks, all they have to say is Oh, yeah, yeah, we’re engaged. We’re just not, you know, we’re not showing up on Sunday, because we’re concerned about COVID. Well, that’s where, again, people that are still giving, they’re still it’s an indicator, not an absolute, but an indicator that they’re, you know, still with you, so to speak.

Lee Stephenson: And then I think another metric that’s important to measure is impact. And impact is part of how are we creating conversation? How do you measure impact when only 50% of your congregation may be actually showing up in person?

Danny Parmelee: Yes, certainly not as easy as just counting people that are in the seats and this is where story is kind of important. And I know that it can lean on anecdotal type of things, but you are looking for that quality. You want to hear the stories of where people are saying, Hey, here’s the message that I heard and here’s how it changed my life or if people are still involved in meeting together with small groups, even if it’s virtually. Yeah, you know what, we’re still meeting together in our small groups, and this person was going through a difficult time. And so we prayed for them. We helped them. You had talked about how, you know, benevolence just amongst people directly what’s happening. So when those types of things are happening, then the church is actually being the church. And I think it’s something that should be so celebrated because it’s like, oh, my goodness, it wasn’t even some sort of program, some sort of ministry that’s like, Okay, this is what we do. We’re but the church was acting as the church. And so when you hear these stories, I think it’s important for you as a pastor, first of all, that you’re encouraged that the church has been the church, but then you also share those because the more that you share those types of stories, the more it encourages other people to act, and to be the church throughout the week in no matter what the context is.

Lee Stephenson: Great, great, I think to even count, like, who’s in some type of discipleship process, whether or not that’s, you know, a virtual group that needs to resume or whether or not there’s a small group that happens to be gathering outside in a driveway. Like, those are great stories to be able to capture, you know, to continue what you’re talking about, and share those because sometimes those ideas will spark other ideas within your people. And all of a sudden, you find out we’ve got five garage small groups that are meeting and they’re all bundled up in their parkas sitting around a fireplace or something like that, you know, depending on what part of the country not necessarily true here in Florida, but the, you know, those are meaningful things that are immeasurable, really, when it comes to the health and movement of your church. How are people connecting with other people and growing in their own personal discipleship process?

Danny Parmelee: Yeah. And I would say that, um, you know, I am a big fan of surveys, not to over survey people, but it may be an opportunity to just survey your people and to ask, you know, just a few different general questions like, Hey, you know, are you coming in person? Are you coming online? Are you meeting in a small group virtually? Are you in a disciple? So that you can get, no, of course, you’re not going to have 100% participation in that. But it again, it’ll give you at least a little bit of a have a pulse on that. And then you may have some open-ended questions on there because then it can be a learning experience for you. What do you, what would you hope for the church to, you know, to react or behave or however you want to phrase that question? You know, where can we grow to help meet your needs, as well too. Or what are some things that you think you can offer during this time? And that, again, will just feed the conversation of engagement so that people don’t think that this is kind of like an extended snow day, like, Oh, you just get it off. No one has to be a Christian or do church during this time. Everyone will just take off for the next, you know, 12 months or 18 months. So yeah, so I think that’s an important one.

Lee Stephenson: Do you think we can still count today in our metric booklet or ideas, things like personal commitments to the Lord and baptisms?

Danny Parmelee: Yeah, I actually think that, um, that not only can you count them, you should even again, if it’s a little bit difficult to do that. So even for online, because if you are counting it, then it does make you even to think through your follow-up process. So if you, yourself are going, yeah, we’re counting commitments to Christ. OK, well, then you’re probably thinking as you’re creating your online service, am I giving a direct invitation? If I’m giving a direct invitation, am I also asking people to do something to respond to it. So it used to be in the service, fill out this card, but now it’s like, hey, text this number, or, you know, put it in the chat or email this person directly, let us know that you made this commitment, and it just kind of keeps at the forefront, the important part of, you know, reaching people for Christ.

Lee Stephenson: Absolutely. And I think you can even do baptisms, you know, at people’s homes. May be cold, in the bathtub, you know. I mean, there are a lot of different ways you can even do baptisms that don’t necessarily have to take place, specifically in the baptismal at the church building. You know.

Danny Parmelee: I have seen drive up baptism, um, you know, not personally but you know, saw some on social media that some people had done that so that was a creative way to do it. Baptism is kind of one of those weird things anyways, but yeah, you might as well go for it.

Lee Stephenson: Is that called a car wash?

Danny Parmelee: Yeah, exactly. Roll the windows down. It was a family conversion.

Lee Stephenson: But I want to encourage our pastors and planters that are dialed in today to also set some metrics for you on the personal side, meaning set some things that are going to keep you accountable to make sure that you’re actually focusing on the things that really matter. For instance, are you actually focused more on just creating more content and pushing content? Or are you actually looking at creating conversation that’s meaningful and caring for people? And so maybe it’s like, I need to set a certain number, and I need to count and maybe I’m gonna if I have a staff team or leadership team, I’m going to have them do this with me that we’re going to make X amount of phone calls per week, and just yeah, call through our church, call through our community just, Hey, I’m just calling from so and so church, and I just want to check in and see how you’re doing. Um, is there anything we can be praying for you about in this season? Also, maybe it’s handwritten notes of like, I’m gonna send out five handwritten notes to people within my sphere of influence or within my congregation every single week just to have that personal interaction and care this season.

Danny Parmelee: That’s great. I think that’s just even in general important in maybe a small shift in the goal setting. So a lot of times as church planters or even with your team, you’re setting, you used to set goals that you would accomplish that were outside of your control. So in other words, like, yes, this year, we want to have an Easter service with 500 people that attend. Well, you can’t control that. But if you set up goals this year exactly, like you said, I love, like handwritten notes. Set your challenge and maybe you share that challenge with some of your other staff or volunteers, like I want to, you know, write 10 handwritten notes a week. Well, that’s totally in your control, doesn’t matter if the entire country is shut down. You still have control over that I want to make this many phone calls or this many Zoom calls, or, you know, we want to raise up this many leaders even, and we’re gonna raise up those leaders by doing Zoom cohorts or leadership cohorts or something like that.

Lee Stephenson: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, it’s been a fun conversation talking about COVID metrics versus pre-COVID metrics in the church and church planting, and I hope this has been insightful and helpful to our listeners as well. Until next episode, y’all, keep it real.