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Church Voice Feedback
Summer 2026
Thank you to all who participated in the survey, this is some of what you have told us over the last three months! WATCH VIDEO HERE
Transcript:
Hey there, St. Andrews. Pastor Matt. A few months ago, ⁓ we initiated a program where we're getting feedback from the church and the school. On the school side, the feedback mechanism is called parent pulse. On the church side, it's called church voice. ⁓ And what we do is we record data, we get data back, and every three months we take a take a minute to sit down and evaluate it. Although many of you have probably gotten messages from us.

Matthew (00:28)
As we look at a lot of the data and we see something to pray for, or do we want to thank you for something, ⁓ or if there's something we want some clarification on, we can contact you and you can remain anonymous. And you can contact us and still remain anonymous, which is a really, a really cool thing. ⁓ but we've come across our first three months of using this, and I wanted to give you some updates ⁓ from what we've found so far. what's been really interesting is that our high scores and low scores.

Matthew (00:56)
don't have a whole lot of divergence. So ⁓ on the scale of of you know kind of negative 100 to 100 is kind of what they use and negative to the positive. ⁓ our high scores are about between 92 and 94 and our low scores are between 83 and 84. So they're kind of they're kind of right there. But some of the things that you have said that we're doing well is most of you have really indicated that you enjoy the worship experience. You you feel like the music is nourishing.

Matthew (01:25)
You're enjoying the preaching. And then most of you, I'm very grateful for this, have have indicated that you enjoy your interactions with our church staff. And that makes me feel very good ⁓ because that's what we want to have happen. The areas of some questions where we found we need some work ⁓ is we really need to start helping people use their gifts, discover and use their gifts. We've we've had some mechanisms to do that, but we need to do better at that and to make that more expansive. So I I totally agree with that, and I'm grateful for.

Matthew (01:55)
For that feedback. ⁓ The other thing is that we seem to be pretty inwardly focused. So, ⁓ what we've we've gotten from you is that we really could use a bigger emphasis on getting the word of Jesus Christ out to our neighbors, out into the community. And my sense is, and that maybe we'll include this in the next survey, people just kind of need to know how to do that or what some good ways to do that would be. ⁓ and so I think that's definitely something we can work on. some of the stuff that we've done in response to some of the feedback, a lot of it having to do with communication.

Matthew (02:25)
⁓ with the massive monthly email came out as a result of people telling us they want more communication from us. ⁓ as far as getting a faith out of the church and into the home and into everyday life. We started instituting the car ride questions. you can also engage with the sermon from last week and next week with how the sausage is made. ⁓ and we've really tried to revamp our communication systems and we brought on Krista Nevy to help with communication. And I

Matthew (02:52)
I think that we've made some great improvements and Krista is doing a fantastic job. Something that we're in the process of working on is really revamping our member check-in and getting information from visitors. We have a system now where we didn't have that before. ⁓ And what we're finding is that we're able to connect with visitors much better, much more fluidly, ⁓ and ⁓ and really ⁓ grateful for that. Had some great meetings with with the members or I'm sorry, visitors as a result of people kind of filling up that that the form when they come in.

Matthew (03:22)
What we're planning on doing ⁓ to ⁓ really try to increase our our ability to grow on our faith and take the faith home with us is really modifying the 11 a.m. service to use a divine service as a a background for it, but really to have that be a discipleship service where we really get into the small catechism and teach a lot of the basics of the faith. We're looking at Sunday school and what are some ways we can tie Sunday school in with the services. We have a great group of teachers and people really involved in Sunday school. We're grateful for them.

Matthew (03:52)
And then we're we're really trying to streamline how it is that we bring volunteers in ⁓ to work in the worship services, to be part of that worship experience that people find very positive. And we'll make it more positive by kind of bringing people into that. So those are just some of the basics. There's always lots of stuff going on behind the scenes. I will say a couple of things. One is we're so grateful for your feedback. Whether it's good or bad doesn't matter. We don't know. If we don't know, we can't do anything about it.

Matthew (04:18)
You know, if we I always say if you don't, if you can't name what the issue is, you can't really change it. So you help us do that ⁓ with your good feedback and also your challenging feedback. it's all appreciated. The other thing I would say is that we when we talk to the people at Church Voice, they say on average they expect to get about a 33% ⁓ return rate or 30% return rate on the questionnaires that get sent out. And we're below that. And I think I think we should be better than that. we're we're at about a 22% return rate ⁓ as far as people taking the survey and getting it back to us.

Matthew (04:48)
And I would challenge you if if you've got the survey and didn't fill it out, didn't take the time to fill it out, I'm gonna challenge you on that because as we've gone through our strategic plan, communication is one of the big pillars that we've been working on. And as a as a staff, as a church, as a school, we've been working very hard on communicating with you. And we really, really need you to return that favor and communicate with us. So ⁓ if you get that survey, we're gonna there'll be another round coming out here in the next few weeks for the next three months.

Matthew (05:14)
And when you get that survey, please make every effort to take some time to fill it out. But for those of you who did, you're making a difference. I can't thank you enough. And let me know if you have any questions or any thoughts. ⁓ but we're always we're always trying to get better so we can serve the Lord better together and connect people to the church, to the community, and to Christ. Thanks.