Last week in our Roundtable on Reports, we talked about different ways to use group reports.  If you're interested in more, here's the podcast.  It's Episode 13.

Typically, you probably think of group reports as enrollment rosters or group attendance.  Of course, those are important because they help you see how well the ministry is doing.  But, data can also be a life-saver for dealing with two challenges that every church faces during this season of the ministry year.  Let's personalize those and see how group reports can come to the rescue.

If you've ever created reports in software, you know that it can be challenging.  So, last week we started our fall Rountable on the topic of reports.  Check out episode 12 in the Roundtable Podcast to view the entire briefing.

A few weeks ago, in a blog post entitled Groups consistency, I talked about using attendance as a sign that points to faithfulness.  And faithfulness is a pre-requisite character quality for choosing leaders who multiply the ministry.  (2 Timothy 2:2)

In the same way, attendance is a sign for pastors and church staff that something may be going on in a person's life they are called to shepherd.

In discipleship discussions, we often quote 2 Timothy 2:2 as a pillar text for understanding discipleship that multiplies disciples.  The idea, of course, is that Paul invested in training Timothy and was encouraging him to invest in other people who would invest in others.  

Notice the adjective that Paul uses to describe the people in whom Timothy was to invest his time.  Depending on your translation, the word is generally reliable (NIV, NLT), or faithful (ESV, NASB, KJV).  It is someone in whom you trust.

Matthew 6:21 says, "where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."  So, one sign of how much an individual or family treasures your church is their giving.  

Because it was the week before Christmas and because of the craziness of Covid, you might have missed the biggest release of 2020.  I introduced it as our Digital Assistant - Scheduled Reports.  That was just over two months ago.  There wasn't a lot of fanfare, we just offered it quietly as a gift. 

Some good news - It's finally November, 2020. 

We're on the last lap of this most unique year. Many churches have started and are starting to meet for large group worship on Sunday again.  Many will still wait a couple more months or longer. Some have restarted and had to go back to just live stream due to a Covid outbreak in their community.  But, whenever the time is right for your church, you're going to want a way to track the comeback. 

The Dashboard release last fall brings all kinds of efficiencies to accessing what you need as soon as you login.  The most visual of the these is the Metric Card.  In this post, I'm going to take you step by step adding two of the most common reports used by pastors and staff to the Metrics Card. You'll see how to do this so that even pastors and staff that don't need access to giving can have the giving summary on their dashboard as soon as they login.