Ministry Dashboards

Over the last month or so I’ve been hearing lots about Ministry Dashboards. Basically, Ministry Dashboards are about how a church measures and tracks the health of their church.

The post which kicked things off was over at Pro Church Tools, Brady Shearer recommended looking into all kinds of next steps churches should be tracking (you might want to jump down to the section titled “17 ’next steps’”). It’s a thought-provoking list, which includes metrics as diverse as giving and social media engagement.

However, must more helpful are two audio resources from Geneva Push. First up is a short (~15 min) podcast episode on Ministry Dashboards. It’s a good introduction, but worth following up with the longer recording from their conference (the link is broken, so you’ll need to download it through this direct link.

Because of my tech/hacking approach to things, this has got me thinking. I know I’m tracking a lot of this data, though am I using this information to see God’s kingdom growing? To use Tim Clemens words, I’m good at focusing on ‘making pies,’ but how am I doing at running a pie shop? (Though I’m not sure if calling the church a disciple making machine is the best analogy.)