What should I do about the box score?
Rich from Living Hope Community Church in Valparaiso, Indiana wrote me last night. He said:
As a fan and sometime visitor of Granger, I’ve enjoyed keeping up with what’s going on via your blog. One of my favorite features was always the weekly "box score" post sharing the attendance and goings on of the past weekend’s services. It gave me a chance to cheer for what God’s doing through you guys! Did you decide to discontinue that feature, or did it just slip off the radar screen? The most recent one I can find is from August…
Rich is correct. I put the "box score" on hiatus. Frankly, I was getting tired of responding to the whiny people who continued to complain about me sharing our attendance numbers. And, since it didn’t seem like those posts were beneficial to folks, I decided to pull them and see if anyone reacted. Rich did. What do you think? Do you want these posts back? If so, I’ll reintroduce the box score and ignore the whiny people.
Keep it going! Forget the whiners!
Ignore the whiny people. I like to cheer you on.
Tony,
BRING IT BACK DUDE! The whiny people who complain about the numbers–they are people who go to churches who have no numbers!!!
NUMBERS MATTER TO GOD! Forget them and go for it! Boast about what God is doing in your church!!!
I loved it!!! It gave us hope!!!
The “It gave us hope!!!” comment is true for me, too. It’s one of the reasons I love Granger. :)
It’s also been really interesting to me to see how the attendance patterns look across the various weekend services & how you guys have adjusted the schedule over time.
I was greatly encouraged by seeing the box score, Tony, and I would definitely like to see it return. Another aspect that I really liked about it was the %increase/decrease from the same weekend one year ago. I am in a community of 10,000 and it would be a hard stretch to reach “Granger numbers” at this point, but those percentages are something I can shoot for and relate to! Forward your whiny responses to me, I’ll be happy to take care of them for you! :)
Numbers are people and people matter to God! My vote is ignore the whiners. They can find another blog to read on Mondays…
Tony,
I have been lurking your blog for months. I am a faithful reader and listener to your podcast. I also dig the “box score.” I too cheered the kingdom win each time I read it.
Keep up the great work!
Tom
Bring it back! I too keep up with what’s going on at GCC through your blog and those stats remind me of how far we’ve come and how far we have to go in reaching folks who don’t know Jesus!
The Bible records numbers all over the place so I agree with others – please keep posting the numbers.
I LOVE the Box Score. I did notice that it was missing, but I thought that it was because you were so busy travelling and doing that little conference of yours…hehehe. Please bring it back.
Tony,
I enjoy the box score too!! I thought that it was soooo valuable, I adapted it to fit my First Impressions Team @ NewLife. In my monthly vision casting to the team, I send them our own box score. We are tracking the number of guests we have each month. It motivates the team to keep doing what they are so gifted to do…and that is to reach out to our guests. If you hadn’t done your own box score, I would have felt that it may have been “unacceptable” to track our own. I read somewhere that numbers represent souls….was that Mark Waltz or you?? Anyway, it’s true. Bring it back!
Bring it back.
Box score, 31. Whiny people, 10.
Tony,
Numbers = those being impacted by the Word of God. Keep it going!
Bring it back man. For the love…
Keep up the good work Tony. We love ya in Charlotte.
In addition to the numbers, I love reading your synopsis of the message and music. It’s important for me to find out what other churches are doing and Granger is on my radar…
Bring back the numbers! I always enjoyed seeing how things were trending with you guys – how were numbers were up, how many were going to which service, etc.
I find them encouraging. There are many times, when we have an ‘off’ week in attendance that it can be discouraging. As a pastor of a small church (250 average), 4 families on vacation can leave a huge gap in the auditorium. I then read your blog that takes a look back at last year and what you were doing and it puts things in perspective. As in Proverbs, a wise man plants in the right season. We do different things in the year to reach our community but there are very definite plowing, sowing and harvesting seasons in the life of a church. You help to keep us stay focused. All that to say this, keep up the great work, you guys are encouraging those in ways you may never realize!
Keep up the good news man–people need to hear it!
When things go good, we shouldn’t be ashamed, besides it’s not about us anyway!
Show us the numbers!
Where are the whiny people saying DON’T show us the numbers?
The numbers are valuable to me because they add validity to things I learned at an ICC or through a GCC experience. When I present something to co-workers and say, “This is something we should try!” they always want proof that it worked for whoever I got the idea from. I love coming back with statements like, “Well, they had an 11% increase in attendance from the same weekend last year, so they must be doing something right.”