10% of the church gives, 10% drains, and the other 80%...

A pastor told me that he knows the 10% of his congregation that volunteers and gives and is heavily involved, and the 10% that need counsel and help and can be emotionally draining. And the other 80% show up on Sunday morning and aren't otherwise heard from.

What is it like at your church?

Are more people engaged/known/shepherded? Do you have systems to ensure a pastor or elder is personally connected with every attendee? Do you use small groups as your primary mechanism for personal connection in a large church?

Are visitors engaged immediately, or do people show up 'anonymously' for months before getting connected?

Are you happy with how you are connected to others at your church? Do you wish it was different in any way?

Is engagement the attendee/member's responsibility (whether by helping or asking for help), or is it formally managed by the church staff/leadership?

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Comments

DMB

10% of the church gives, 10% drains, and the other 80%....

Looks like a pastor-centered statement. I don't think that was the intent?

Abram K-J

I'm curious what's prompting the questions?

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/929971#Comment_929971

I'm curious what's prompting the questions?

I'm sure the question behind the question is, 'How can Faithlife help you to help your congregation to better engage and connect with the body of the church?'. Or to put it another way, 'What would you like us to do with with faithlife.com and MinistryTracker?'

Abram K-J

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/930003#Comment_930003

Thanks, Mark.

Bob Pritchett

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/929971#Comment_929971

Mark is right; sorry for the confusion... and yes, it's a pastor centered statement. It was a complement to my other post "Pastors, what do you wish you could do more often?"

I was just giving it what I hoped was a provocative-enough headline to get some attention. :-) Though I really did hear that from a pastor... and it made me curious about what should be the engagement of the other 80%. (At that particular church they don't even have a database of all regular attendees -- the 80% are largely unknown, and I wasn't sure that was desirable, but curious if it was common.)

Abram K-J

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/930114#Comment_930114

Thanks for the reply, Bob. I was not aware of MinistryTracker till now, so will check it out. We don't have a database per se, but we do have a "church list," which amounts to a password-protected phone/email/name directory.

Those percentages don't quite hold true in our congregation, and I'm not even sure those three categories cover everything. I'd be curious to see someone adopt a deliberate, reproducible methodology to classify something like energy/contribution levels in a church, and then try to map percentages onto those categories. Anecdotal stuff can be helpful to me (like the 80-20 rule), but I think something with data-driven research behind it is more useful.

I don't know MinistryTracker at all, but one idea your questions make me ponder is tracking individual/family attendance Sunday morning. That wouldn't fit at all in my context, but I could see how having some numbers there could help. Are there any (subtle?) best practices FL has found for tracking attendance on Sunday mornings without "taking attendance" in a way that feels obtrusive or overbearing?

Mark Barnes

What is it like at your church?

FWIW, none of these questions really suit my context (smallish independent evangelical church in the UK) because we 'connect' to everyone personally as soon as they show up, without needing a system to help.

abondservant

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/930212#Comment_930212

I'm pretty blessed.

My church is small, but most are engaged and helping.

We are small enough that we wouldn't make it if they weren't.