Dials for change
With a rattle and a ring, every churches’ phone will be called, with questions that will shape the future.
Southern Presbytery is running a review, that covers all the churches within its region - whether your church has children currenlty worshipping with you or not.
Cheryl Harray, Kids Friendly Advisor, ensures that the data isn’t for trivial purposes.
“It’s exciting! The main thing is how we can use this information for the future,” she said.
The review’s information will be able to detect patterns of success and failures, that will be analyzed and used for the good of the church.
“We might ask people about their service times and the number of people attending, and that might tell us what times are doing better than others, and perhaps we could help churches think about a service time change,” Harray said.
Cheryl has a hunch that a finding in that data will be that most churches are struggling for volunteers.
“If this is true, then that can help us see the exact problem and know how to fix it!”
Problem spotting isn’t the only thing the review is after.
“We might observe that specific churches are doing better and that’s an indicator of health and growth. We can ask them what they’re doing differently, and that knowledge can better inform other churches,” she said.
Last year Cheryl heard of a churches’ children’s ministry skyrocket from four kids to 30. Jaw-dropping stories like this is significantly valuable for the review.
“If there’s a lot going on we want to learn from you guys!”
“The response to these questions will really help us.”
Churches can be expected to be contacted within the next few weeks, with a report aiming to be presented at the Presbytery Gathering at the end of April.