What is church attendance software?
Whether you’re a church with a full-time staff or simply want to track your own attendance, it’s essential that you’ve set up your computer system to streamline this task. If you don’t have access to professional software and the money for the custom coding, consider giving your church members their own smartphones.
According to By the Book, basic church attendance software:
Service records attendance for other groups
And stores the history of church attendance
With over 200 listings, Capterra’s directory is a goldmine of information. Of the 70 products on Capterra that are listed with an emphasis on church management, almost 30 have been rated four stars or better and feature attendance tracking.
ChMS bridges the gap between technology and ministry, giving your church’s leaders a unified approach to church attendance tracking. Our set of features include check-in, group management, volunteer management, directories, and donation tracking. When these systems work in unison with the Church Management System, you can easily see what’s going on at your church by receiving weekly reports.
Why use church attendance software?
Are members of your church all getting older? Has your church lost 20 members in the last six months? Have you noticed that one of your regular members hasn’t been showing up to their usual spot for a while because their “81 Dodge Diplomat finally broke down?”
Looking to schedule church attendance? Church attendance software can help answer all of those questions!
We all know that declining attendance is never a good sign. But, at least it’s somewhere to start. It could be because there is a steady decrease in the population of your city or maybe one innocent possum died as they’re ventilating and people have just decided to stay away.
The first issue might not be so difficult to figure out, but if the later issues become more complex and impossible to fix on your own, the time saved just by knowing this early can get you out of a rut. You’ll be able to see which issues are worth spending your time and money on and which ones are not.
When a church is so large it’s difficult to keep track of who’s attending and what the numbers look like, an attendance tracking app like ours can make all the difference.
Patricia Lotich, founder of Smart Church Management, vividly remembers when she was struggling to accurately understand the headcount using the One, Two, Buckle My Shoe technique.
How does church attendance software work?
It’s difficult to accurately estimate how many people will attend an event.
You’ll find these inflated numbers in churches that use a model of estimating attendance. One example of such a model is the one Thom Rainer researched, where they inflated numbers by more than 30%.
Nowadays, a lot of churches conduct an “estimated count” one time in the year. This means that they only count the people that happen to show up at their service during this one day. Afterward, they use that number as the “average” for the entire year.
The average number of people entering or exiting a space is different than the headcount. You can see how these numbers can be skewed by varying times and events within the day.
Some online tools require cooperation from your congregation.
Whether you want accurate information or not, people will be required to sign in to access the content on our website.
There are many methods of recording attendance. Connection cards, guest books, kiosks, and the old “Hey, I know that guy!” methods are just a few.
Churches are now using mobile apps for their programs and usage tracking, making it easier for members to find if they’re going regularly.
ChurchMetrics is an app that tracks attendance, donations, volunteers, and more. It even has custom fields-perfect for churches.
Once someone is included in your directory, they will already be included in your future visits.
The church attendance software can work hard for you. All you’ll have to do is get the required data.
Crunching the Numbers
Church attendance software is great for business intelligence. It can take the numbers from your church and produce reports that would take a lot of time to come up with yourself. In addition, you’ll be able to find out which service was most popular for members versus families, or how much attendance changed over one month.
The more you know
Some people say that church leaders should spend more time developing a leadership presence and focusing on being content with how well they’re doing rather than chasing popularity or worrying about numbers.
Church attendance is an important factor in relation to preaching the gospel. But because so many churches have a lot of information to process each day, pastors will be better able to lead their church effectively if they have software that allows them to easily track their congregation’s attendance.
Church attendance tracking is a basic feature in most church software packages. Which one has worked best for you?
