Have you ever heard of the Congregation Health Survey? If the answer is “no” then you are not reading the weekly Bishop’s Notes and I’m telling on you. Ok, I’m bluffing. I really have no way of knowing if you are reading them or not and I don’t tell on people. Besides I was one of those people who had no idea what a Congregation Healthy Survey was so I asked Marc McAlister, Director of Church Health, for the scoop.
The survey which is conducted every two years is one page in length consisting of fifteen questions regarding the congregation, membership, leadership, discipleship and ministry. There are five options for responding ranging from “definitely agree” to “definitely disagree.” The final question of the survey asks if your church is in good, reasonable or not good health.
Who completes the survey? As Marc told me, “The hope is to get the pastor, board chair and delegate from each church to complete the survey but we also get the network leaders, network mentors and National Leadership Team to weigh in so every church has a score. Not every church completed a survey and there are various reasons for that but the more responses we get the more complete a picture we get as to the health of individual churches within our movement.”
And why go to all this trouble? “Two reasons. First, so we can get a snapshot of our movement – where we are at, where we are headed and what needs attention. And secondly, so churches can talk about their results, pick an area where they scored the lowest and start working on it.”
This idea of checking-in every couple of years is the culture that Marc would like to create in our movement, “Where leaders are having an honest conversation every couple of years about where they are at and what needs attention so they have a bright future moving forward.”
If a church is interested in their survey results please contact Marc. Not only will he share your results with the pastor, board and leadership team but he will also help you “unpack” the data. Just give him a call or send an email. As he told me, “I’ll talk with anyone who wants to talk.”
To contact Marc McAlister: marc.mcalister@fmcic.ca