K.I.S.S. – Keep It Statistically Simply

By Michael Sove

Last week I talked about keeping things simple as far as reports from cell leaders.  Joel and Jeff did a great job the last few days talking about good programs that are available for recording and tracking data to see how you are doing in your ministry to people and where they are in your equipping process.

We are a mid-sized church that has used Excellerate for the last four years.  It has proven very useful for us.  Everything is integrated in this system.  All information on the people you are tracking is in one place.  Whenever we as staff make contacts on people, we put pertinent notes in the system.  The basic reports are adequate and the people at Excellerate are helpful in creating reports specific to your needs.

Regardless of the tool that you use, it will be important to have a consistent way of gathering the information.  We don’t have this integrated with our web page, so our leaders receive an e-mail from our church secretary on the day on which their cell meets.  This e-mail contains the list of the names of those who are in their cell.  All they have to do is place an “x” next to the names of those who were in attendance, and give us the names of new attendees.  The secretary goes in and updates the database.  Every Monday I review the information she has received from the previous week and if we haven’t heard from one of the leaders she contacts them.  Most of the people send it back without hesitation because we have kept it simple.

Once you have the information it is important to use it.  Whenever I meet with a cell leader or a coach I always have their report that shows the last few months of attendance from their cell or network as well as where people are in the discipleship process.  This information is invaluable.

In our weekly staff meetings we focus on some of these reports as well but pay close attention to first time guests and those who are new to our church.  Remember the bottom line is this, “It’s all about people and developing people for the Glory of God” so whatever you do, don’t just gather information to gather information, use the information you gather.

Comments?

Michael

Excellerate

by Jeff Tunnell

We use Excellerate software for entering cell group information and it includes a financial component for tracking donations along with producing end-of-year tax receipts ready for mailing.  The “behind the scenes” platform is Microsoft Access.  The depth of this software has been more than we need most of the time and requires a good working knowledge of data-base software parameters.  The web interface is functional and works well in both directions:  you need to IMPORT the information entered by cell leaders via your website on the internet and after updating data in the office computer, it is necessary to EXPORT the new status of cells back to the website server.  This allows each leader to access current records of their cell online at the church website.  All of this is via password protected access.  Go to www.bigbearchristiancenter.org and pull down the LIGHTHOUSES menu, select LOCATE ONE to see the exported information for some of our cells.

Reports are produced fairly easily and can convert the data into graphs of growth to demonstrate to one cell leader, or the entire body of cells, what is happening in numbers or percentages.  You can review one cell, a district or the whole church quite easily.  Selection criteria for reporting is vast and only limited by data you decide to collect!  If you know how to write SQL you can make this program serve you completely.  Printing color or black & white graphs (at least 14 different kinds in 2D or 3D) is a boon that helps people relate to the data.  Reports are email-able which is helpful for sending requested information to inquiring cell leaders.  Directories can be made for one cell or the whole church and can include photos of individuals or families.

Email is integrated into the program but is rather clumsy.  You can export an email address report for any group that you have pre-selected and paste the records into your own email program also.

This is a Cadillac of programs (or is it Lexus by now?) but you’ll need someone to coach you at first if you are new at database collection and manipulation.  Training from the company is available.  If you are an Excellerate user I would appreciate your additional comments for the good of our readers.  If you feel I have left something out, please add.  If I have not represented the program well enough, please clean up my mess!

Questions?  Comments? (Please)

Cell Reporting Software

JOELby Joel Comiskey

People often ask me to recommend a software program for doing cell reporting more effectively. I first like to remind them:

1. Statistical software for reporting won’t make leaders turn in their reports. This requires persistence and accountability.

2. Find something that is simple and user-friendly rather than complex and cumbersome

3. Use what works for you. In other words, only change if your current system isn’t working.

Here are a few options:

Microsoft Excel

Microsoft Excel is easy to use and adequate for most situations. The great thing about Excel is that it’s easy to make print-outs to pass out to everyone on the coaching team. The weakness is data base storage—specifically tracking each member’s name and progress in the training track. After collecting all the individual cell reports, someone has to place the data in an easy to read excel file. Example of collected data below: .

 

Actual Cells that Met Attendance Conversions Goal: new groups Visitors in cells Contact of Leaders
        Acu-mulated. Actual Act. Goal   Personal or Telephone contact Coaching Meeting
Pastor David Sanborn 15 12 79 2 0 15 17 3 7 7
Pastor Earl Clugh 22 15 109 0 0 22 27 7 10 4
Pastor Tom Scott 6 6 40 1 0 6 7 4 2 3
TOTAL 43 33 228 3 1 51 80 20 19 14

Weekly Report of Medium Range Cell Church (report small pastoral team)

 

Cells that Met Attendance Conversions Goal: new groups Visitors in cells Contact of Leaders
      Acu-mulated. Actual Act. Goal   Personal or Telephone contact Coaching Meeting
Jane Campbell 1 5 0 0 1 1 0 1 0
Andy Mack 1 6 0 0 1 2 0 3 0
Jim Johnson 1 10 0 0 1 1 0 0 0
Nancy Correll 1 7 1 0 1 2 4 1 0
Tim Duncan 1 5 0 0 1 1 1 0 0
Kirk Miller 1 12 1 0 1 1 0 0 0
John Jones 1 7 0 0 1 1 0 1 0
TOTAL 7 45 2 0 7 2 6 19 14

Weekly Report of Cell Church Plant (lone pastor with small group leader team)

Excellerate

Excellerate is a data software system that is designed for cell based churches (http://www.msdweb.com/ )Their web site states: “Excellerate was designed with Bethany World Prayer Center, one of the leading cell churches in America, and refined by hundreds of other cell churches around the world, to be a comprehensive, user-friendly solution for churches with small groups.” Excellerate will help you streamline the management and effectiveness of your small group church in all areas including:

  • Small group management, reporting, leader development…
  • Member tracking, counselings, development, follow-up…
  • Classes, Organizations, Contributions, Pledges

The two strong points that stand out:

  1. The ability to track each member’s progress on the training track
  2. The ability to store loads of data about each person.

Churchteams

Churchteams software (www.churchteams.com) is all about simplifying the small group reporting experience. It’s extremely simple to use but powerful in its application. Churchteams software is entirely web-based. That is, the church doesn’t own the software but leases it on a yearly basis. The church places a link on the home website that redirects itself to churchteam’s website. Members, leaders, coaches, and pastors can access the church’s small group information at this website (although members can see less information than those in higher levels of leadership).

I was very impressed by how Churchteams has designed the reporting system. Emails are automatically sent out to the leaders reminding them to fill in their reports. Leaders need to only click ONE link in the email that will sign them in and bring up the report page. If the leader doesn’t fill in the report, the email will be send two days later, etc., until the leader fills in the report.

Churches pay an annual fee to use this software based on the number of church members. I personally like this software and find it adequate for most situations.

Perhaps you’re using another software reporting systen that works for you. Please share it with us.

 

Joel

Why We Require Particular Cell Reports

mario

by Mario Vega

The statistics we manage in Elim are:

• Number of leaders. We don’t count the number of cells but the number of leaders. Cell ministry follows a leadership strategy. The leaders are more decisive than the cells. Therefore, we are interested in knowing how many leaders we have. Multiplication will depend on it.

• Attendance. We ask for a report on both the cell members as well as the visitors. In this way, we know who are the new poeple who are being reached with the gospel.

• Conversions. If evangelism is one of the core purposes of the cell, we can only know if that purpose is being achieved by the reports received.

• Visits. A person receiving Jesus is not enough. He/she must be grafted into the life of the church. Visits during the first weeks after the conversion are vital to affirm that person is strong in the faith, and we want to know that the visit actually occurred.

• Baptism in water. We believe that this is an essential step in sealing the person’s conversion, so we want to know about it.

As you can tell by the type of data we collect, our our main priorities are evangelization and then the consolidation of the new believers. These are not only the aspects that are managed in statistics but they are the ones that we are constantly evaluating. We emphasize their importance by assigning each aspect a percentage weight.

Comments?

Mario

Translation into Spanish:

Las estadsticas y su justificación.

Los datos estadsticos que llevamos en Elim son los siguientes:

• Número de lderes. No contamos el número de células sino de lderes. El trabajo celular sigue una estrategia de liderazgo. Los lderes son más decisivos que las células. Por tanto, nos interesa conocer con cuántos lderes se cuenta. De ello dependerá la multiplicación.

• Asistencia. Tanto de los hermanos miembros del núcleo de la célula como de invitados. Con ello, se sabe la cantidad de personas que están siendo alcanzadas con el evangelio.

• Conversiones. Si un propósito de las células es la evangelización, solo se puede saber si ese propósito se está logrando por medio de este control.

• Visitas. No basta con que una persona reciba a Jesús. Se le debe injertar en la vida de iglesia. Las visitas durante las primeras semanas después de la conversión son vitales para afirmar a esa persona en la fe.

• Bautismos en agua. Este es el paso final con el que se sella una conversión. El bautismo en agua es un paso más allá en la nueva vida de un creyente.

Por el tipo de datos que recogemos es evidente que nuestros grandes prioridades son la evangelización y la consolidación de los nuevos creyentes. No solamente son estos los aspectos que se llevan en estadsticas sino que son también los que se evalúan. Al asignarle a cada uno de estos aspectos un porcentaje de evaluación, se enfatiza su importancia.

Statistics and their justification.

Keep Reporting Simple

By Michael Sove

I have tried many different reports over the years and have come to the conclusion that simple is better.  If you are like the average cell leader, you do not like filling out reports, but some basic reporting is critical for leadership to get the overall picture of how things are going.

There is one thing I ask of all my Life Group (cell) leaders on a weekly basis.  I ask them to give us the names of those who attended their gathering.  Turning in the names is simple, not a lot to ask for from leaders, but it speaks volumes.  Some of the questions that get answered by seeing the names of those in attendance are as follows:

Did the Life Group (cell) meet this week? – This shows us if groups are meeting consistently and how we are doing overall.  If a group is cancelling often this will be a red flag and can be caught and responded to quickly.

How many were in attendance? –  This gives us a feel for whether a group is growing, struggling, or stagnant and gives a sense of the core strength of that group.

Were there new people in attendance?  Since we track first time guests and are trying to connect unconnected people, we can see immediately if connections are being made.

Who is being consistent in attendance?  This can help us spot potential leaders as well as help us see if a person has dropped out of participation in a group.

Once I know how many people are involved in our groups on a weekly basis, we compare the total with total worship attendance to see how we’re doing as far as percentage involved in our Life Groups.  We want that percentage to be going up over time.

Where this all comes together is in the monthly coaching meeting.  I and the other coaches meet each leader for a face to face meeting and it is at that meeting we look at other issues like who is being discipled and where are they in the process.  The basic report of who attended their cell becomes the springboard of many of our coaching follow-up questions.

Keeping the initial week to week reporting from the cell group leaders simple helps streamline the reporting process and is appreciated as well by busy leaders.  Obviously what you ask for may vary based on what you are trying to measure.  I have found simple to be better.  Use the K.I.S.S. principle and keep it statistically simple and you’ll be glad you did.

What works for you?

Michael