All information collected through the Senior Ministry Inventory is fully confidential.  No third party, including congregations, will ever be provided access to Inventory responses from specific individuals.

Church Resources encourages all Inventory participants to provide their  name, address and all contact information requested, in full confidence that their responses to Inventory questions will be kept safe and not shared with any other person or group—including their congregation.  Following are five considerations for your peace-of-mind.

1. Church Resources guards the confidentiality of your Inventory responses by how we gather and process the data.When you pick up your Inventory you will also receive a 9×12 envelope.  After the Inventory is completed it is placed in the 9×12 envelope and sealed.  This envelope is not opened until it comes to the Church Resources processing center in Huntington Beach, CA.  No person in your congregation can look through your responses.When your Inventory arrives at the Church Resources processing center, the 9×12 envelope is opened along with all other Inventories received during the past week.  The stapled binding is cut off of all Inventories and they are individually scanned and the data processed and scored.
2. Following the processing, all Inventories are prepared for recycling.  This process begins by cross-shredding all Inventory pages and then delivering the confetti-like scraps to a paper recycling plant.  No person will see your Inventory.
3. Church Resources stores the data from your Inventory in electronic form on off-line computer servers.   Only Church Resources’ staff work with this data to prepare your Confidential Report.  No outside person or group has access to this data.
4. The report that is provided to your congregation does not disclose any personal responses from specific individuals.
   Your Congregation Report is only a summary report, an aggregate of all data from all the individuals in your congregation who took the Inventory.  Our promise and commitment to every person who takes the Inventory, and to every pastor in congregations that implement the Inventory, is that we will not attach any individuals name to any personal data.  Your personal data is never shared.
5. Church Resources does not gift or sell your personal information to any third party.  This policy is strictly maintained.

If a person does not want to provide their name and contact information can they still take the Inventory?

Yes, they can still take the Inventory and their responses will be tabulated as part of their Congregation Report. However, if no name is provided, the individual does not receive a Confidential Report that helps them focus on the arenas of life that may need attention as they age.  The Confidential Report is important for this very reason… that it helps individuals focus on the arenas of life that need attention.  We recommend that every person provide their name so that they can receive their own confidential report.

Further, Church Resources’ research policy prohibits adding any name, address or other information to the Inventory.  Adding data “after the fact” is viewed within the research community as massaging the data and is not acceptable.  Consequently, the following policy has been established:
Church Resources Policy:

Church Resources does not add, modify or delete any data collected through our research instruments.  Only the data provided in the original document (Inventory) will be reported.

This policy is strictly maintained in order that everyone who takes the Senior Ministry Inventory will have confidence in their confidential report.
Let me say a word about the nature of the Inventory questions.

Church Resources, together with your congregation, wants to meet the needs of the whole person.  Of course we are deeply concerned with the spiritual needs of a person—that is why one-third of all questions in the Inventory are faith based.  But God also created us with bodies and minds and placed us in communities were we can serve and minister to each other, and every congregation faces the challenge of ministering to the whole person.

The Inventory questions cover eight different life arenas and while they ask for personal information they do not ask for private information.  If you think a question is too private then just don’t answer it.  Choosing not to answer a specific question is O.K.  However, as you take the Senior Ministry Inventory we are confident that you will understand the difference between personal and private questions.

If the Inventory questions are not personal… then the results would be of no personal value…  and that would be tragic.