Behind every statistic captured by the National Church's Annual Return is a human being encountering and worshipping God.
It is because of this that all churches are encouraged to record as accurately as possible as a Pastoral Care priority, recognising the national significance of the information being entered.
Monitoring Attendance
A new Excel spreadsheet is one way of helping record and monitor attendance at services, support you as you complete your Stats for Mission returns at the end of the year.
The spreadsheet enables you to record the attendance data from your services. It is simple to use and doesn't require lots of time to input the data. The spreadsheet then takes that information and creates a range of graphs, and at the end of the year gives you a concise summary of the information that can easily be fed into your Stats for Mission return - hopefully making that a more straightforward task.
Stats for Mission Returns Information
Every year parishes are asked to enter their attendance data via the online system, submitting their information by the 31 January.
The information doesn't need to be entered all in one go; the system is open to accept Easter attendance date immediately after Easter itself. The system is very user friendly and a user guide is available to answer any questions you may have about the questions being asked. If you require access, or need to set up new or additional accounts for your parish, then please contract the Diocesan office.
Charts and Dashboards
The online Parish Returns system also allows you to view charts and download dashboard overviews of the information you have entered. This enables you to see trends and to reflect on future opportunities opening up to you. (Click 'View data' in the menu at the top of the Parish Returns system screen).
As ever, we are grateful for the efforts of so many people in each of our parishes for the work undertaken in seeking to make the annual returns as accurate as possible.