If you have not read the section of the site on Church Purpose, please do so now in order for this practicum to be most helpful to you. Click below:
Church Leadership Basics: God’s Purpose for the Church
Why Does a Church Need to Keep Records & Give Reports?
Having a record keeping and reporting system in place can be helpful for churches as a means of:
- legal documentation
- historical preservation
These reasons can be good and necessary but record keeping and reporting can also be a means of:
- accountability – having a standard to measure against
- evaluation – taking the reports and analyzing them
Then, we need to ask how records and reporting align with our church purpose.
For records and reporting to lead to the last two reasons given in line with our church purpose, we need to ask:
What are the objectives we should be measuring?
What records and reporting are needed to be able to measure it?
How are the records and reports used?
In addition to the content on this page, the Steering the Church Toward God’s Purposes Leadership Guide provides some brief input and questions to help us think through the last two questions above in light of our practices.
All Posts about Records and Reporting:
- Record Keeping & Reporting: Measure Your Objectives
- Record Keeping & Reporting: Keep Pulse on Body
- Record Keeping & Reporting: Facilitate Ministry
- Record Keeping & Reporting: Assess Growth
- Church Record Keeping Resources
- Church Records Management
- Transparency in Church Records Management
- Confidentiality in Church Records Management
- Responsibility in Church Records Management
- We’ve Been Hacked!
- Record Keeping & God’s power?
- Record Keeping Based on Human Wisdom
- Records & Reporting Point Back to God’s Grace?
- Record Keeping & Reporting Kept in Check by God’s Grace
- Records Keeping & Spiritual Gifts
- Record Keeping That’s Not Mundane
- Lay It All Before the Lord
- Meaningful Record Keeping
- Whether Good or Bad, Make Records about the Name of the Lord
- Records and Reports from the Resurrection
Like emphasis on how used. Have struggled with some of this kind of stuff being worldly activities in church -unhealthy – thanks for perspective.
Chet, Record Keeping and Reporting can provide some healthy input for churches desiring to line up with God’s purposes and design for the Church. They should never be used in ways that puff up or put down for then it becomes all about us rather than God’s mission, heart, and power which does become unhealthy.
Well spoken. Agree. JB
l agree with all the listed points and also records serves as an indices to check compliance and vulnerability of members.
Yes, there are multiple ways to use records. A big key is the purpose for which we use those kinds of records and how we communicate the results and otherwise use them.