We’ve all heard the phrase, “There’s safety in numbers”. This saying usually conjures up a certain sense or feeling in the one who hears it. In the church world, the phrase can often mean different things. To the new visitor, safety may come from blending into the crowd without being put on the spot or making a commitment. To the church member, the safety might come from the community the church provides. To the Pastor, the ‘numbers’ might be attendance, or giving; some measurement of health. Whatever your perspective is on the phrase – it is the people, the ‘numbers’ if you will, that provide the sense of safety.
Let’s drill in on that last scenario for a second – with the Pastor, the numbers involve some sort of ‘measure’ or ‘metric’, such as giving, or attendance, or involvement in a small group. Here at Fellowship Technologies, providing the ability to record, track, and analyze these metrics is at the heart of what we do. A church is all about the people, and we are all about the church. We provide an exhaustive set of data points whereby a church can better understand ‘the body’ and the effectiveness of their ministries as a whole.
In my role as Director of Data Services I care about each one of these data points; how we collect them, how we retain them, and what we do with them. My belief is that data can be used as a very effective tool to analyze the health of a church. I also believe that data-driven tools like Fellowship One can help make a large church small again in one sense. With a church of 100, it is not difficult to know everyone’s name – to know what is going on in the life of each family. As a church grows, it becomes increasingly difficult without good information. Data Points will never take the place of people – at the very core it is the relationships that really matter – but good data in the right hands at the right time can help make all the difference.
Over a series of blog posts I would like to dig a little deeper into what we are up to in the Data Services realm of Fellowship Technologies. Some of the topics I plan on discussing are Data Conversions, Data Quality, Data Reporting, Data Warehousing, Data Analysis, and Data Mining.
Geoff Whitney