How data unlocked deeper connections for Asbury United Methodist Church

Summary

Church: Asbury United Methodist Church
Type: Protestant (United Methodist) | 2,600+ members
Using Pushpay since: 2017 (ChMS), 2020 (Giving), added Insights
Products: ChurchStaq (Pushpay ChMS + Pushpay Giving + Pushpay Insights)

A 2,600-member church discovered that better data doesn’t just improve operations. It deepens relationships.

KEY RESULTS

• Unified attendance, giving, and engagement data into a single real-time view
• Enabled proactive identification of disengaging members before they leave
• Insights adopted as a core part of the church’s weekly reporting routine

The situation

Asbury United Methodist Church was founded in 1986 by more than 150 members who envisioned a church that would be truly open to all, give generously to its community, and grow faithful followers of Jesus. Nearly four decades later, those principles are still at the center of everything they do. But now they’re doing it with 2,600+ members.

That kind of growth is a blessing and a challenge. The church had been using Pushpay’s ChMS since 2017 and giving since 2020, so the operational foundation was solid. But David Miller, Executive Director, felt a gap. The church could manage its people. What it couldn’t easily do was see the full picture: who was showing up, who was giving, who was serving, and critically, who had quietly stopped doing any of those things.

For a church built on the conviction that everyone matters, not knowing who was slipping away wasn’t just an operational problem. It was a mission problem.

The solution

When Pushpay launched Insights, David saw the missing piece. Insights pulls ChMS and Giving data together into one centralized view, turning raw information into something a pastor or staff member can actually act on.

• Real-time engagement visibility: Attendance, volunteering, and giving data consolidated into a single dashboard, replacing the need to pull reports from multiple places and compare manually.
• Proactive member care: The ability to identify disengaging members before they disappear entirely, giving staff the chance to reach out while the relationship is still warm.
• Strategic planning: Data-informed decisions for event planning, volunteer recruitment, and donor stewardship, grounded in actual trends rather than assumptions.

David described the shift in direct terms: “There’s incredible data mining potential beyond what the ChMS can currently do. It’s like metrics on steroids. We can track attendance and engagement. We can track volunteers and service. And we can track giving and donors in real-time. That’s going to allow us to catch people before they fall through the cracks and they’re gone.”

The results

Asbury’s staff has made Insights part of how they operate week to week. David confirmed that the tool is becoming embedded in their rhythm: “Insights is going to become a major part of our weekly reporting routine here at Asbury.”

The shift is more than operational. For David and his team, every data point represents a person. A drop in attendance isn’t a metric problem. It’s a signal that someone might need a phone call, a visit, or simply to know they were missed.

As David puts it: “Better data means better advances for our congregation and our community as a whole.”

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