Tools For Tracking Servant Involvement

It is always a great feeling to look back and see the fruits of hard work. It is inspiring to others and beckons them to join the efforts. It also allows us to see whether we are on track to accomplishing our goals.

With that said, there is great benefit to putting into place effective ways to capture the numbers and the stories (data) along the way so we can effectively share and celebrate how God is working around us. So what are our options?

Tracking Simple Attendance

Sign In Sheet

Yep, good ol' technology of pen and paper works well for capturing attendance. The challenge comes later in the process. If this information is then input into a Church Management System (ChMS), there could be an issue with reading individual handwriting or knowing which Jane Smith attended when you have three Jane Smiths in the ChMS.
If this is an impromptu service event, this will most likely be the only option to use.

Roster

This method requires a little planning and setting up the event in your ChMS. This is a list printed from your ChMS of people whom you know or expect will be serving at a particular event. This is the next best step from a sign-up sheet as it helps eliminate the issues stated above.

Since this still requires a person manually entering the data into the ChMS, it can take a lot of time depending upon the size of the group or the quantity of groups that person in entering. Investing in bar code readers and printing the bar codes on the roster sheet help to greatly reduce the amount of time required as well as the potential for data entry errors.

Check In Kiosk

Think of this as a digital roster. It requires a computer at the service event. When servants arrive, they go to the computer and check in. In addition to automatically marking them in attendance, it can also print a name tag. This provides instantaneous numbers as there is no delay in the process of manually entering the data into the ChMS. This option does require a data connection to your ChMS server. So check with your ChMS provider for details on setting this up.

Web portal for group leader

So you don't have a remote connection to your ChMS, but also don't have the time or personnel to enter this data from multiple groups. Several of the ChMS solutions today offer a web portal or method of accessing their group via a website. On that site/portal the group leader can take the sign in sheet or roster and enter the data directly into the ChMS.

Tracking Hours

This can be the most difficult of the methods for three reasons:

1. It has potential backlash from servants if they feel they are punching the time clock.
2. Church Management Systems are not designed to help the church focus on tracking time.
3. For the most part, people see the value of signing in. However, there is no real incentive for people to sign out.

[Tweet “Remember, most people serve to make a difference not to punch a clock.”]

So, if you have need to track hours, here are some options:

Keep a spreadsheet:

Ouch, yes, I did put this in here as an option. This takes a lot of work and does not tie in to your ChMS.

ChMS Report:

This will require some estimations on your part. Most ChMS solutions allow you to set up an event that has a beginning time and an end time. People can check in to the event. So you can assume that if someone checked in that they stayed for the duration of the event. Your ChMS may have the capability of printing a list of events with their beginning time and ending time.

So if you have a member who participates in an employer program that donate money to the church based on that member's service hours, you could run a report for events where that member served and include the beginning and ending times on the report.

If the employers require the church to verify the service hours, my recommendation as of the writing of this article, is to have the servant submit to you a list of hours that includes the events where she/he served. You can then double check they were in attendance at each.

Tracking Stories

Capturing stories can be time consuming, but it opens up opportunities for others to serve. Here are two methods for compiling the stories to share with your congregations.

Stories captured

This is a matter of observing what it happening. A great way to facilitate this method is to develop your own church news service team. The team can consist of videographers, photographers (several people have cameras with them at all times these days), bloggers, editors, etc. Depending on the size of your church this could be as few as one to two people.

Stories shared

You can provide a form on your website where people can submit their stories of changed lives. A great tool to use for this is www.wufoo.com. It makes it easy to create a web form. Small churches note that you most likely fall into the FREE category in their pricing structure. You can also create a form using Google Apps. Let me know if you are interested in me creating a step-by-step guide for either of these tools.

Sharing and Celebrating

The numbers and stories can be shared in several ways:

• Church blog
• Email newsletter
• Printed newsletter
• Annual report to the church

Summary

Capture attendance of individual servants whenever possible. Avoid the temptation to simply count noses. Counting faces ensures you are measuring the health of individuals. By tracking the attendance of the individuals, you can easily run reports to get the total “noses” when you need that number.

Stories are powerful. Tell the stories of the changed lives of those who were served as well as those who serve. While it should not be the motivation of the church to tell these stories, they will result in more financial giving to the church than the hours tracked and turned into employers. People are drawn to churches where they can make a difference and where lives are being changed.

Question

Have you found a way to easily track hours? What are some tools for capturing numbers and stories that work well for your church? Share your ideas and thoughts in the comments section below.