Attendance Tracking - from the beginning

[bbishop-grace]

Even before getting info into PowerChurch what is a good way to track who is and who is not there on Sunday morning. Only a small percentage of our folks take part in an Adult SS program so I'm referring to keeping up with folks in the main worship services.

We are currently running 3 services and too many people are falling through the cracks by no one noticing if they are not at church for several Sundays in a row.

[NeilZ]

Even before getting info into PowerChurch what is a good way to track who is and who is not there on Sunday morning. Only a small percentage of our folks take part in an Adult SS program so I'm referring to keeping up with folks in the main worship services.

We are currently running 3 services and too many people are falling through the cracks by no one noticing if they are not at church for several Sundays in a row.

I've mentioned this elsewhere, but here at APC we use what we call a 'Friendship Pad'. Its also called attendence pads, or pew pads. This is a printed sheet with spaces for name, address, phone and email, and a set of columns that can be checked off by the person in the pew stating that they are a "member', 'attends regularly' (not a member), 'Visitor', 'New Resident', 'Wish to join', etc.

We've bought ours at Cokesbury.com:
http://www.cokesbury.com/search.aspx?sc ... pid=022630
Pad cover:
http://www.cokesbury.com/search.aspx?sc ... pid=232227

I've also seen them at www.church-supplies.com.
http://www.church-supplies.com/detail.asp?NodeID=30752
Pad covers: http://www.church-supplies.com/detail.asp?NodeID=30867

These are then collected and reviewed by our Evangelism/Outreach committee, visitors noted, and then they are passed on to me. I go through and update the attendence using the update feature of PC+.

In order to do this, however, you need to have the activity setup (say 101 - Sunday Services), and it needs to be added to every member, and visitor who comes and signs in. This way you can track visitors who have worshiped frequently, and you can then invite them to a membership class. Or, track members who have not attended lately, and you can then follow up by congregational care, etc.

Another feature of these is that we pass them from the center aisle to the end of the pew, then ask that they be passed back to the center. In this way each person can then attach a name to the other person in the pew and the congregation can get to know each other by name, rather than just by sight.