Attendance Systems
This one should be the lowest-hanging fruit. We’re all probably taking attendance in some way, but what I’m talking about here is having ongoing, detailed attendance information. Not just how many you had each week, but who was there & who wasn’t there.
You should have some clear & systematic ways that you measure attendance. DISCLAIMER: we know the tension that numbers don’t matter, but actually they really do. I’m not advocating that the only important thing your ministry does is grow numerically, but that every student who shows up in your ministry matters & we better be able to track them.
So I would unapologetically say that a ministry shouldn’t be graded based on how many students show up regularly, but if someone does ask us, we should be able to give an accurate answer for how many are showing up & how many are on our roster.
I know, I know…it varies. You have 20 one week & 40 a month later, then it hits 15 again before the year is over. I get it. But that’s what I’m saying…you should know that.
So, you should have a system for how you take & track attendance.
When a student shows up, what happens? How are they greeted? Who greets them? How do you know they showed up?
I’ve seen this done in a bunch of ways before. From pen & paper to apps to iPads. There are a ton of ways you can do this. To be honest, I’m not totally sure one way is better than another. This is one of those things that is probably more contextual.
At the church I volunteer at now, there are a bunch of carts set up with iPads on them. As students enter, they sign in on those iPads & are good to go.
I know some churches who don’t have students do anything. Instead, their small group leaders have a chart they use to mark who is there & turn in. Then the youth leader or an admin puts that info into a database.
Here are a few reasons why this system is so important.
Follow up.
I actually talk more about some of these systems in the next link, but you can’t have functional follow-up systems if you don’t have the data for them in the first place. And you better have functional follow-up systems.
Run Reports.
I know that numbers aren’t everything, but numbers can definitely tell us a lot of things. Being able to run accurate reports is a VITAL tool in order for you to truly have a pulse on your ministry & to be strategic about where you are going. You cannot run accurate reports without having a good system for attendance & the ability to track things over time. Take a look at this report to give you an idea of how you could use the numbers that taking good attendance can give you.
Find Patterns.
Having a good system for attendance also helps you find the cycles & patterns within your year so that you can plan accordingly. In theory, I’m guessing we can all say when our most attended months & our least attended months are. But could we break down those patterns throughout the year? What if we could? How would that affect the way & the times we might plan events? The things we might teach…which leads me to my last piece here…
Curate Content.
When we have good systems for attendance & are able to run these reports & understand the patterns, it allows us to be MUCH better curators of our content. That might seem like a weird phrase, but all I mean to say is that when we know who is there & how many are there, we can be more strategic when we talk about specific topics.
One final piece about attendance is that you absolutely should be keeping track of your leaders' attendance too.
That’s it for the attendance systems. Click here to head back to the main blog. Click here for more on New Student systems.
Click below to deep dive into another system.
