Lesson 2: Get Your Stats

Once the senior leader is in place (the GM in baseball, the president in a company, or the lead pastor in a church), the right data has to be continually gathered. In baseball, this is the vast field of sabermetrics, where player stats are broken down into seemingly every conceivable category. One of the most common errors of a leadership team that has worked well together for many years is to begin to trust too much in the wisdom of the team. Having a great team is only half of what is needed for making great decisions. The other half of the equation is the right data. The following kinds of stats are examples for a church or ministry:

• Weekly attendance for the last two years or longer, if the records are accurate
• Number of adults
• Number of children
• Average age of adult attendee
• Number of faith professions last year
• Number of baptisms last year
• Number of donors
• Average household giving
• Budget percentages (e.g., salaries, facilities, missions)
• Debt (e.g., facilities)
• Number of full- and part-time staff members (ideally one staff for every one hundred people)
• Ages of full- and part-time staff members
• Total number of members (ideally much less than total attendance)
• Number of new members last year
• Membership process
• Communications process and software (internal and external)
• Size of eldership (more than seven elders requires multiple elder teams)
• Number of paid and unpaid elders
• Age and tenure of each elder
• Compensation scale review
• Salary and benefits review
• Job descriptions and personal playbooks
• Performance reviews
• Personality profiles and entrepreneurial aptitude of senior leaders
• Number of men on staff who have young children and wives who work outside the home
• Number of services
• Attendance per service at each campus (ideally any service over 80 percent capacity triggers a new service)
• Number of small groups
• Total number of people in small groups
• Format of small groups (e.g., are they sermon based or another format?)
• Midweek classes and their attendance
• How many weeks a year does the preaching pastor preach?
• Who preaches when he is out?
• How many weeks a year should he be preaching?

To be continued.