What is the Church Development Tool?
The Church Development Tool is an extra feature you can switch on in the Marketplace.
It allows you to run a short anonymous survey with your worshipping community. You then get a simple report that gives you a clear picture of demographics, discipleship and evangelism in your church.
The survey results help you to look at your community with fresh eyes and find the opportunities for growth. This could be by building on strengths or addressing gaps. We then match you with resources that will help you with your chosen area of focus.
More about what the Church Development Tool is for and how it could help you and your church.
Timing
The survey is now closed for 2024.
If you used the Church Development Tool in previous years, you will be able to view your survey results from previous years through the Marketplace.
How to enable and access your Church Development Tool
Note: You need to be an editor on AChurchNearYou.com if you are not already. How to become an editor.
To access the Church Development Tool, log in as an editor, open your church in editor view and then click on Marketplace (at the top of the editor menu.)
In the Marketplace you will see a 'Church Development Tool' tile. Click the toggle to switch it on, and then click 'View survey and responses' to find everything you need.
That's it! For more help, watch the video or read the step by step instructions below.
What’s new?
There are two new changes to The Church Development Tool for 2024.
- There is the ability to customise the Church Development Tool for your church by disabling certain new optional questions from the online survey.
- Through your benefice site, you will have the choice to see the results of your churches as individual reports or together in a benefice report.
Step by step instructions
- Log in to AChurchNearYou.com.
- Open your church in editor view, so you can see the editor menu. Show me how.
- Click 'Marketplace' in the editor menu and find the Church Development Tool tile.
If this is your first time accessing the Tool, click or touch the toggle to switch it on.
4. Click the orange button that says 'View survey and responses'.
When you click the button you will enter your Church Development Tool page, where you can find the survey link to distribute and printed copies of the survey to distribute.
Tip: If you don't see the button that says 'View survey and responses' it is because you need to switch the toggle on first.
How do I gather responses?
Finding the survey
On your Church Development Tool page, you can find the survey link to copy and distribute, and download printed copies of the survey to distribute. These are the first items at the top of the page, they are circled below.
Someone who has access to AChurchNearYou.com will need to input paper responses on the online survey link.
Tip: If you want someone else to have access to the Church Development Tool to input paper responses, but don't want them to be able to edit any parts of your site, get them set up as a Champion.
Choosing optional questions
You can customise the Church Development Tool for your church by disabling certain optional questions from the online survey. To do this, click on the orange button circled below.
You can then choose to disable the following optional questions. To do this, click on the edit button for the question you would like to remove from the online survey.
Untick the check box to disable the question from the online survey and click save.
Repeat this process with any of the other questions you would like to remove from the online survey.
Note: By disabling these questions, they are only being removed from the online survey. All questions will continue to appear in any PDF copies of the survey. Therefore, if you are using the PDF copy of the survey you will need to inform your church community to skip any of the optional questions you do not wish for them to answer.
Inviting participation
On your Church Development Tool page we provide a range of resources you can use to help explain about the survey to your congregation and why you’re doing it, available to use if you want, including text you can include in notices and newsletters, template PowerPoint slides and a poster with a QR code to your unique survey link.
These resources are a little further down the page after the survey link.
It’s up to you how you invite people to fill out the survey, but we know people are more likely to respond when there is a dedicated time for filling out the survey during or immediately after your usual activities.
For example, you could talk about the Church Development Tool at one Sunday service, with paper copies available to fill in there and then and the QR code posters displayed so people can complete on mobile there and then. Alongside this, you could leave the survey open for an additional week, during which you can circulate by email, invite midweek group leaders to share the survey with their group, and give anyone who wasn’t there on the first Sunday a chance to contribute.
How do I see my results and understand them?
At the bottom of your Church Development Tool page, there is a link to view your results and a link to download a document about understanding your results and next steps.
If you want, you can contact your diocesan staff for discipleship or parish support for help interpreting the results and choosing what to focus on.
If you used the Church Development Tool in previous years, you can also access the results from previous years under the Historical data section.
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Can the survey be done for a multi-church benefice?
Yes! This year we are launching a new functionality where you can view the results of the survey either individually by church or for all the churches in a benefice.
This is available through your benefice site.
Visit your benefice site in editor view. Then at the bottom of the side navigation menu you will notice it now has an additional section called ‘Surveys’.
Here you can select the churches within your benefice you would like to see the results for, then click ‘View Results’.
More about using the Church Development Tool, webinars and FAQs.