From Paper Sign-Ins to 279 Shepherding Contacts: A Year at Georgetown Church of Christ

Georgetown Church of Christ sits in Georgetown, Ohio — a town of roughly 4,000 in Brown County. On a typical Sunday, GCC welcomes around 487 people across two worship services — drawn from Georgetown and the rural Brown County around it. About 800 members are active in the church's life; another 300 or so are on the rolls. Six staff — a Lead Minister, three other ministers, and two office staff — hold it all together.

Lead Minister Jason Galley has been at GCC for 29 years. He grew up in Cincinnati, attended Cincinnati Bible College, and started at GCC as the Youth Pastor before moving through several roles into the lead chair. GCC is the only full-time ministry he's ever served. (His parents, who now live near Georgetown, attend the church.)

A year ago, GCC was averaging 350 to 400 on a Sunday and was tracking attendance with paper "Who's Who in the Pew" sheets that maybe half the room signed. They had previously used their locally-hosted church-management software for attendance, until the vendor pulled the feature from the local product to push customers to its cloud version. GCC — especially on the finance side — wasn't ready to move to the cloud. They tried another online attendance platform next, but members struggled to use it. That's when Rodney Tinsky, an Elder at GCC, began building YouMatter to solve their specific problem: an attendance and shepherding system simple enough that any member could check themselves in.

GCC went live on YouMatter in May 2025. We spoke with Jason about the year that followed. The numbers are striking, but a careful word up front: a lot of factors shape a church's growth, and we're not claiming YouMatter caused any of it. What follows is what Jason saw, in his own words.

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How big is GCC, and what does a typical Sunday look like?

GCC averages around 487 in attendance for 2026. We're blessed to offer two worship services, children's ministry programming for babies through 6th grade, as well as student and adult Bible fellowship classes. We have a strong volunteer base serving worship teams, sound and tech teams, greeting teams, valet parking teams, security teams, nursery through elementary teachers and volunteers, and adult Bible teachers.

Before YouMatter, how were you tracking attendance, family contacts, and follow-up?

We were using the old "Who's Who in the Pew" tablets of paper. Maybe a touch over 50 percent signed in. We tried to make personal connections with visitors, and our follow-up was based on those personal connections.

What was the moment or pain point that made you start looking for a different system?

We were convicted that the current system was failing and had to be changed to show genuine love and concern to both visiting families and families that were going out the back door. An all-church survey helped us drill down on the current state of our ministries, and we discovered that our plan to assimilate people into a deeper walk with Jesus had big gaps.

What made you actually decide to use YouMatter?

We were determined to develop a plan to track attendance well and create a system to intentionally make shepherding contact for the whole church. And one of our Elders, Rodney Tinsky, was passionate about helping us accomplish this.

How long did it take to feel like the system was actually working? What did the learning curve look like?

We saw immediate results in tracking attendance and identifying missing people. Members had to learn how to check in on their phones. But what really accelerated the percentage of those checking in was the decision to recruit and train volunteers to use tablets and check people in.

What part of getting started was easier than expected? What was harder?

Once the clear plan and clear action steps were communicated, the process took off.

Which features do you and the staff use the most? Which one would you genuinely struggle to give up?

As a pastor, I really appreciate the feature of identifying people who have missed three weeks consecutively. This helps me make pastoral touches hoping to support and encourage families who aren't connecting regularly. I also really appreciate the shepherding platform that helps us systemize making contacts and record those contacts for prayer and follow-up.

Can you share a specific example where YouMatter helped you do member care or follow-up better than you could have before?

As a result of the shepherding platform, I have been empowered with up-to-date and current prayer concerns — not only for the 20-plus people on my personal call list, but I have access to the concerns of all the other recorded contacts. I believe the increase in our intentional and personal contacts has resulted in member retention and recurring attendance.

Has YouMatter changed how the calling team or shepherding team operates? In what way?

The shepherding team now has a systemized plan with a clear way to report and track contacts. This has inherently added some accountability to our plan as well. We can measure who is and isn't making contacts.

If you could quantify the impact — families contacted that otherwise wouldn't have been, visitors retained — what would that look like?

I'm confident that we are making more shepherding contacts than we ever have. In the past 17 weeks we have made 279 shepherding contacts.

What would you say to another small-church pastor who's still on spreadsheets, or on another management system that doesn't fit?

YouMatter would be a huge assistance in helping you and your leadership team systemize a clear and intentional shepherding contact plan for your church. And it is a perfect tool for tracking attendance.

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A note on the numbers

A year ago, GCC averaged 350-400 on a Sunday. Today they average 487. They've logged 279 shepherding contacts in the last 17 weeks alone — about 16 a week, week after week. We don't know how much of the attendance growth to attribute to the shepherding work. Jason's own answer above is the cleanest read: "the increase in our intentional and personal contacts have resulted in member retention and recurring attendance." What's clear is that the team has a system now where it didn't before, and the work is getting measured.

Visitor capture is the other half of the picture. Jason's concern at the start was that visiting families were "going out the back door" — that the church didn't know they had been there, didn't have their information, and had no way to follow up. With YouMatter, visitor information is captured as part of the attendance flow. GCC logged around 150 visitor check-ins in 2025 alone, with multiple new visitors quietly checking themselves in each Sunday — without anyone having to ask.

If you're a pastor still working off paper sheets or wrestling with church-management software that doesn't quite fit your shepherding workflow, you're not alone. YouMatter was built for churches like GCC — small enough that every face matters, intentional enough to want a system that keeps track of all of them. Take a look at how YouMatter handles attendance and shepherding, or reach out to talk through whether it might fit your church.

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Rodney Tinsky is an Elder at Georgetown Church of Christ and the developer of YouMatter, a church-management platform built specifically for small-church attendance tracking and shepherding workflows.