The political landscape can be overwhelming, making it difficult to know who or what one should even be paying attention to. With scores of candidates vying for dozens of elected positions, and the constant debate surrounding local and state policies, how would a pastor know which candidates, elected positions, and/or policies effect the members of his congregation?
In order to educate the voters within our congregations, and to help keep them informed of the elections/candidates/proposed legislation that most directly impacts them — and upon which they can have the most direct impact — we must know which political districts are represented in our congregations and to what degree. This can and should be accomplished without infringing upon the privacy of our members or misusing their personal information.
Most churches employ some sort of database for the purpose of tracking membership and visitors. (FellowshipOne, Breeze, and Pushpay are examples, but there are many more). With tools we have created, and using only the age and address of each individual (names are not necessary), we can determine the distribution of a congregation across the political districts by following the steps below.
- Obtain a list of your church members, their ages, and addresses from your church membership database
- Determine the eligible voters within the congregation (based on age and an in-state address)
- Look up each address in the publicly available state or county database
- Identify the local, state, and federal political districts, as well as the polling precinct (as recorded in the publicly available state or county database) to which each address has been assigned
This information can then easily be compiled to show what percentage of the congregation resides in which political districts.
As an example of what might look like, the analysis of one church located in Prince William County is provided below.
At the county level, this church congregation is distributed across Prince William County’s seven magisterial districts in the following manner:
At the state level, this church’s congregation is distributed across Virginia’s Senate and House of Delegate districts in this fashion:
At the national level, this church’s congregation is distributed across Virginia’s U.S. Congressional districts in this fashion:
This information arms the pastor (or those to whom he delegates the task) with the information necessary to sift through the blizzard of elections, candidates, and proposed legislation and focus energy and effort in those areas most closely connected to the congregation.
Contact us today if you would like our team to help you analyze and organize your congregation in this way.