Why do we use registration cards?

If you've ever attended Grace Church you know that we regularly use registration cards; but have you ever wondered why?

Keeping track of a church congregation has its challenges. A church isn't like a theater which is only concerned about the number of people. In the church context, we're concerned about who was in church and we want to communicate with them. I've visited churches that have approached this using various methods, but each has something designed to try and connect with the congregation.

At Grace we use registration cards in several capacities:

1. It's an attender's way of letting us know they were here. Purposely, the responsibility of communicating that to us is on the onus of the individual. We're here to serve each attender, but they need to let us know who they are in order for us to be able to care for you. As you might imagine, the number of registration cards we received each week relfects about 100 less people than the actual number of people in the Auditorium.

2. We use the address information on the registration card to keep the church database up to date, or at least we try to; there are times when a new address slips by. One misconception is that by marking your new e-mail address on the card, your subscription to the weekly eBulletin and Pastor Scott's weekly e-mail updates will automatically be updated. Since those e-mail list subscriptions are fully automated, they can be updated on the church website.

3. The registration cards can be used to communicate information to the church office, whether it's signing up for an upcoming class or informing the Pastors of an upcoming surgery, a prayer request or other need.

How do we process/utilize the cards?
After an individual/family have attended 4 out of 6 worship services (submitting a registration card at each one) they are entered into the church database as a regular attender. With this designation, they'll be assigned a deacon as part of our deacon/pastoral care ministry. That's where the registration cards become important. It is a real challenge, if impossible, to care for people we about whom we know little.

One day each week, usually on Wednesday, a group of the staff and Pastors gather and pray for the various requests that were written on the registration cards from that Sunday. In addition to praying for the requests, we send encouragement cards to different individuals to let them know we prayed for them.

Hopefully that sheds a little more light on why we ask for the registration cards to be filled out each week.