Growing Your Church Into A New Building
Tuesday, May 6th, 2008Planning to acquire a building usually arises out of the need to expand because your congregation is growing. If you plan to get a loan then make sure you start to keep adequate membership and attendance records. Lenders typically want to evaluate a few years worth of data. This doesn’t even require fancy software; you can actually start out by using an Excel Spreadsheet. Some quick tips:
Membership Records
1. Keep an active list of members by creating a system to add members to the list as they join
2. Separate adult members from children
3. Update the list at least annually.
Attendance Records
1. Track attendance at all services by doing rough counts
2. Create a log of members that give by entering the information from the offering envelopes onto a spreadsheet for each service.
3. You can determine the average number of people that give by counting giving statements that are sent out each year for taxes.
