Michael Visser
Founder, Parable
Michael Visser is the founder of Parable. Before building it, he served as head of data analytics for a 30,000-member, ten-campus church — where he watched capable pastors lose people they never knew were drifting, because the answers were buried across eight Planning Center products.
He writes about church data, Planning Center reporting, and the practical work of noticing people before they disappear. Parable is his attempt to make sure the next person looking for connection does not fall through the cracks.
Articles by Michael Visser
Volunteer and Serving Reports in Planning Center Services
What Services actually shows you about volunteer health: scheduled vs declined, the matrix, blockouts, and how far you can get on serving frequency.
Exporting Data from Planning Center: CSV, the API, and When to Stop
What each Planning Center product exports, how the API really behaves under load, and an honest look at what building your own sync costs to maintain.
Planning Center Data for Data Teams: What Building on the API Actually Costs
The Planning Center API is well documented and free. Here is what building your own warehouse on it really involves: id spaces, incremental sync, history.
The Church Dashboard: What Belongs on It, and How to Build One from Planning Center
The thirteen metrics worth putting on a church dashboard, which ones lead and which lag, and how to build the whole thing from Planning Center data.
7 Church Health Metrics Your Board Should See Every Month
The seven church health metrics a board should see monthly: what each measures, where each comes from in Planning Center, and what to do when it moves.
How to Measure Member Engagement in Planning Center (Without Turning People Into Scores)
Engagement spans several Planning Center products: the manual method, five datasets in one workbook, and how to interpret it responsibly.
How to Export Planning Center Data to Google Sheets (And What Breaks)
How to export Planning Center data to Google Sheets: which products export CSV, the step-by-step import and person-ID match, and where it goes wrong.
Multi-Site Reporting in Planning Center: Why Your Campus Numbers Never Line Up
Campus is modelled differently in every Planning Center product. How to get per-campus attendance and giving out of PCO, and where the roll-up breaks.
First-Time Guest Tracking: The Two Numbers That Prove It Worked
First-time guest tracking in Planning Center: how to record a guest properly, and the two rates that matter. 48-hour follow-up and four-week return.
Planning Center Lists: A Power User's Guide (With 15 List Rules Worth Copying)
How Lists actually work in Planning Center People: rules, all/any/none logic, refresh behaviour, plus 15 ready-made list recipes and where Lists stop.
Planning Center Dashboards: What They Show, and Where the Number Stops
Planning Center dashboards put widgets from every product on one screen and share them with your team. What they show, who sees them, where they stop.
Small Group Metrics: The Five That Tell You If Groups Are Working
Small group metrics worth tracking: participation rate, attendance consistency, group size, time-to-group, and where each lives in Planning Center.
Who Gave Last Year But Not This Year: Finding Lapsed Givers in Planning Center
Planning Center Giving has no lapsed-givers report. Here's the two-export method for finding lapsed givers in Planning Center and cleaning the list.
Lists, Reports and Dashboards: What Each One Is Actually For in Planning Center
Planning Center lists vs reports vs dashboards: a list finds people, a report prints them, a dashboard tracks a number. Which one answers which question.
How to Measure Volunteer Engagement in Six Metrics
How to measure volunteer engagement: six metrics, the formula for each, and where Planning Center Services records the data it won't report back.
Planning Center Check-Ins Reports: What Your Kids' Check-In Data Knows
Planning Center Check-Ins reports cover one event at a time: rosters, headcounts, first timers. What they show, what they miss, and how to read them.
Volunteers Don't Quit. They Stop Being Available.
How to measure volunteer engagement at church: Planning Center Services shows declines and blocked dates, not who is quietly on their way out.
Church Giving Analytics: The Eight Numbers Worth Tracking
Church giving analytics beyond the offering total: participation, concentration, retention, recurring share and fund mix, with formulas and sources.
Planning Center Giving Reports: Every Report You Can Run, and the Three You Can't
Planning Center Giving reports cover donations, donors, statements, pledges and payouts. Here's how to export them, and the questions they can't answer.
Planning Center Has Your Data. Parable Turns It Into Answers.
Planning Center analytics without the export marathon: Parable syncs all eight products every night and answers questions in plain English.
Church Attendance Trends: Telling Seasonality From Decline
Church attendance trends dip every summer. How to separate seasonal church attendance from real decline using same-week-last-year and rolling averages.
Planning Center Attendance Reports: What Each One Actually Returns
Planning Center attendance reports live in four products. Here's what each one returns, how to export per-person history, and what none of them show.
How to Track Church Attendance: Five Methods, Ranked
How to track church attendance: clickers, Headcounts, Check-Ins stations, Groups and an analytics layer. What each costs and what each can answer.
The Reports Planning Center Can't Run (And Why)
Planning Center reports run inside one product at a time, so questions that cross two, like givers who also serve, have no report. Here's why, and what works.
Planning Center Reports: What Every Product Can and Can't Answer
Planning Center reports live inside one product at a time. What each product answers natively, where the wall is, and the three ways churches get past it.
Church Metrics That Matter: The Nine Beyond Sunday Headcount
The church metrics that matter count people, not totals. Nine beyond Sunday headcount, how each is computed, and where they live in Planning Center.
How to Find Out Who Stopped Coming to Your Church
Find out who stopped coming to church by comparing each household's attendance rhythm across two windows, not by watching your weekly total.
I Know What It Feels Like to Be Invisible at Church
Parable is church analytics for Planning Center, built by people who spent years inside church databases. The founder's story, and why it exists.
Planning Center Reporting: What You Can't See (And Why It Matters)
Planning Center reporting is scoped to one product and one moment in time. Here are the five limitations that hide drift, and what to do about them.
Why We Built Parable: Transforming Church Care Through Intentional Insights
Parable is ministry intelligence for churches on Planning Center. Why we built it: to surface the people quietly slipping through the cracks.