Our network of Executive Pastors often e-mails one another with questions or ideas that might be helpful for others. One of the recent "e-mail chains" was on the topic of church attendance tracking. There were a number of ideas, but the bottom line is ... If an attendee does not want to be identified, there's nothing you can do. They must complete a communication card, register their children, give during offering (and identify themselves), or respond in some other way.
One of the Executive Pastors in our network is a bit of a comedian. He is always coming up with something funny. I thought his idea was interesting. With his permission, I thought I would share ...
I think we are all going about this tracking thing all wrong. Here is the Brownian Interactive Congregational Tracking System (BICTS).
Phase One: Data Input (Equipment Cost = $00.00)
Tell your high school kids that you will pay them fifty cents a head for every head shot via their cell phone sent to you with the contact information via text mail.
Phase Two: BINGO!
Yes, BINGO! Simply use your new Vista software to arrange the pictures in alphabetical order in 1 inch squares and print them out in a format of 100 per sheet on your color copier. Now give out these sheets to your seniors and provide them tables with comfortable chairs at all of you entrances. Then give prizes for each ten in a row (horizontally, vertically, or diagonally) that they can check off (personal prize). Have them divided into small groups of six to eight seniors to combine their sheets and give the group with the most conformations a "group" prize. Then, you only need to review the group sheets to have a total attendance record.
As you can see by utilizing your current resources you can turn a difficult task into a nifty fund raiser that will engage two major age groups into meaningful ministry.
One of the things our senior pastor has always kept in front of us at Christ's Church of the Valley is our calling to be a "teaching church" here in the northeast. This has resulted in numerous initiatives and activities that are externally focused. Our children's ministry has founded a network of children's ministry leaders in this area. They routinely meet at each other's facilities to share ideas and work on improvement. It's pretty cool! I came up with the idea for Executive Pastor Online largely due to our church's desire to be a teaching church. Hopefully, this website has been a valuable resource to church leaders.
The bottom line ... we want to put ourselves out there to share anything God has taught us along the way!
For a while now we've hosted Pastors' Luncheons on our site. The purpose of these events is to create a forum for ministry leaders in the northeast to gather, share ideas, and in general support each other. Our next Pastors' Luncheon will be here on our site on Wednesday, December 3rd from noon until around 3 p.m. If you are interested please RSVP to my assistant at kathy@moviechurch.com.
We have a special guest for this one. Bob Russell will be joining us to share his experience, take questions, and basically help us to improve our ministries. It will be a blast!
The opening session this morning featured Vince Antonucci, lead pastor of Forefront Church in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Vince is also author of I became a Christian and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt. Vince spoke on God's passion for the lost and developing that same passion in all of us. Eric Olson and the worship team from Mountain Christian Church lead worship. It was a great session. Vince will soon be leaving his current position to plant a church on the Las Vegas strip. To find out more about the plant and Vince's passion for the most broken and lost, check out TheVegasProject.Com.
There were also a number of excellent Workshops hosted throughout the day. I hosted Building Church Infrastructure:
Church leadership is consistently challenged with addressing the internal issues of staff, planning, human resources, finance, information technology, and other functions of the church. Developing the infrastructure to accomplish these functions must be a primary leadership concern.
It was very interesting. There were more than 25 people in the room to hear my "2 cents worth" on the topic.
I very practically boiled it down to these 5 steps:
Adopt the Philosophy
Agree On and Use a "Structured Approach"
Develop a Plan
Execute the Plan
Communicate, Communicate, Communicate
Additionally, today was day 2 for Executive Pastor Online's booth in the exhibit area. Many have stopped by to check out the site and talk to me about the vision for the site. I think we had the best candy in the room, which didn't hurt anything!
Well, day 1 of the Eastern Christian Convention has come to a close. What a day! I must say the convention's leadership has done a great job this year!
Good music and great speaking in the main session was the highlight of the day. I started the day with the privledge of sharing our relationship with the Church Development Fund (CDF). The CDF sponsors LeaderShape 2008, a leadership teaching forum that takes place on the Friday before the start of the convention. Since the CDF was unable to be here this year, they asked that I stand in for them to speak to the group about the CDF and its ministry to churches that need land purchase and building construction financing. It only took me about 10 minutes. I hope I did a good job inspiring the group to invest in the CDF, helping them to help churches to accomplish their missions to reach the lost.
I'm very happy to report that our video team won the "Best Promotional Video" award during the Videopalooza contest. We were treated to a viewing of all the entries tonight. There were a bunch of good ones.
Here's our winning entry ...
The award is a really nice, brand new bottle of Mrs. Butter-Worth's syrup. I can't wait to let the team know they now have this awesome award.
Kevin's Blog 
Additionally, today was day 2 for Executive Pastor Online's booth in the exhibit area. Many have stopped by to check out the site and talk to me about the vision for the site. I think we had the best candy in the room, which didn't hurt anything!