I’ve mentioned before how much I enjoyed Just Ask Leadership by Gary B. Cohen. He talks in the book about a conversation he had with Robert Fry (former executive vice president of L.L. Bean), when he asked him “What is the single most powerful question you’ve ever been asked in your career?” He explains the answer:
The answer came to him immediately, but before he shared it, he provided the context. His company measured everything, which is a fairly standard practice for companies that have grown up in the direct marketing industry. But when an outside consultant asked, “What are the top two or three key measurements to know that you’re reaching your goals?” the executive committee fell silent. According to Bob, “As you looked around the table you could sense a fear of not knowing. Each of us had plenty of key performance indicators in our departments, but none that as a company we could all agree on were the most important. It was totally shocking how a company this well organized and planned could be stumped by such a straightforward question.”
So my question for you, church leaders, is what would your answer be? What are the top two or three more important things that you measure? Is it attendance? Baptisms? Money in the offering plate? Or perhaps you measure the depth at which people are becoming more Christ-like or the success at making disciples? If so, exactly how do you measure that?
I wonder if we should be measuring community impact? What if the success of a local church was measured by whether unwed teen pregnancies went down in that community? Or divorce rates were reduced? Or graduation rates went up? Or poverty was eliminated?
I personally don’t think every church will have the same measurements. But I do think it is important to wrestle with the question. And…to be in agreement with your leadership team about your answer.
18 Comments
Thanks for this post. I believe the Lord is going to start something new in my community. This post confirmed the passion he has placed on my heart. At the same time the post floored me as I realize there is no area of my life where I could answer this question.
GGGGREAT QUESTION!!! GREAT Question. Great.
I think attendance is a little incomplete. As we all know attendance does not mean they're a growing disciple of Christ, right? Can we somehow measure growth in Christ? Love for the Lord? Sacrifice for others? Dying to self? Fruit of the Spirit? That would be ideal.
Also, I agree that there's something to measuring poverty. Although perhaps a little sensational. Because we are called to help those in need, orphans & widows, serve the poor, etc. Which I don't think we make as big of a priority as Jesus does, in my opinion.
What do you think?
This is almost certainly the single most thought-provoking blog post I've ever read.
"and teach them to obey everything I've commanded you"… such as go i to all the world and
ake disciples.
Point is… the goal is to replicate disciplers. So measure the 'Pauls' –,the mentors, the modelers. And if you want an idea what your future numbers will be , measure the 'Timothys'.
Tim,
My head hurts!! In a good way. I'm passing this on to our leadership team.
Grace Freak Dan
Good job Tim for messing with our heads again!
For the past 6 months or so, I have thought about similar topics. One of the things I have asked myself is… how do we the church, define a disciple?
I think I start with what the perceived greatest problem, challenge, need in our community is and filter it through this… "what would be Jesus' respond to this problem?" Then as a church we need to have a discipleship strategy that moves us closer to that response/ solution. In that you will have immediate responses [food from food pantry, ministries to the single moms, homeless, troubled marriages, addictions, etc.]… while leading them on the longer journey of transforming their communities and the causes of these challenges, problems, etc.
By doing this, in the long term, our communities should start seeing less poverty, less unwed mothers, less divorces, etc.
I wonder what LL Bean finally came up with?
I wonder what we will finally come up with?
Success is doing what Jesus commanded us to do: make disciples, teaching them to obey the things He commanded. Disciples are not the number of conversions or attenders or even good people. Disciples are those who are manifesting His image and nature, revealing the power of His kingdom to this world.
Thanks for keeping the right questions in front of the Church and driving us to the right kinds of conversations! Great post Tim!
I'm not a pastor. Just thought I should state that in advance.
But this post totally hurts my head!
It seems like there are two different perspectives to be considered.
How do you measure if you're reaching your goals?
Church (the corporation) goals… or Church (the body) goals?
Because while in a perfect world they'd be the same in this world I think they sometimes aren't. Church the Corporation has goals that aim to keep it "in business." If the corporation goes out of business, then what? And Church the Corporation often has to provide what the people "want" to receive tithes and boost attendance.
While Church the Body has other goals. Like moving people to live and act like Christ. To be more Christlike. (Church the Body isn't worried about paying for buildings, lighting, heat, salaries, etc). And didn't Christ generally rub "the religious leaders" the wrong way? Didn't he question the status quo, religious activities and general beliefs of his day?
I'm not a problem causer.
I'm just a wife and mom who grew up in the church and lately finds it to be very corporate, watered down (sermons that don't push people out of their comfort zones, small groups that don't really DIG into the word) and finding it hard to attend. It just doesn't feel REAL anymore. GOD feels real. But the church (corporation) doesn't seem to be lining up with the church (Christ).
Obviously I'm confused.
Just thought writing it down and sharing it here could lead to some clarity.
Tim – love this post. I've been playing in around with the "metrics" of a transformed life for a while. I come up with things like: a person is more apt to serve others in Jesus' name…more apt to serve first (and to lead, speak, teach, opine, prevaricate second)…more apt to make sure that other peoples' legitimate needs are being met…a person is clearly growing in love, hope and faith…becoming healthier…wiser…freer…growing in concern over the "least of these"…and the kicker is that an interdependent community of people like this are growing stronger together…giving all glory to Jesus…worshiping him…praying to him…seeking to be massively invaded by His Spirit.
I think we have a real problem in the church with measurements. I loved Reggie McNeal's book (Missional Renaissance) on changing the scorecard for the church.
By the way, I tend to measure the wrong things too.
But I do think its healthy when the team agrees on measurements.
–Terrace Crawford
http://www.terracecrawford.com
http://www.twitter.com/terracecrawford
Borrowing from the academic world, assessments ultimately measure the quantity outcomes (graduates), and their quality outcomes (GPA). Admittedly it has flaws to be constantly working on, but those two types of measurements keep everyone focused on the mission/goals.
In the Church, graduates are the disciplers — the Paul's.
And in the academic world, the key driver being measured, is FTE… full-time equivalent student based on the number of hours of training.
Again, the system can have flaws such as the proverbial Career Student… always taking more & more training but never leaving the friendly confines of the academic 4 walls. Do we see that tendency inside the Church as well? Measure the Timothys actively committed to the core-training… including OJT beyond the walls.
Are we the local church actually accomplishing the Great Commission in our microcosm? [ie, go ye pervasively throughout our location, location, location?] Measure the percentage of homes/families within the shadow of our steeple, who have optimally heard/seen the gospel. [Notice I said optimally. Doorhangers and bullhorns don't count.]
As a Worship Pastor, our team grapples with this every Easter as we plan and build our services from the end-forward. Do we harvest contact information so we can manually cultivate or just let God's Spirit organically duplicate… both/and is where we always land, but measuring that is THE question at hand
I work in the business world as a consultant, helping small companies with strategic planning. I am trying to help my Church using similar tools to identify and success at achieving our mission.
Key metrics is a critical part of the strategic planning process and I like to have the organization identify 9-12 that act like the dash board of your car. You can glance down at the dash board and see how you are doing. How is the organization running. Are you making progress towards your mission?
But the question asked here is what are the 2-3 key metrics the tell us we are achieving our mission! I see alot of agreement that our mission is make diciples. The problem is we don't turn blue when we become a diciple so diciples aren't that easy to identify and count! Also, becoming a disiple is a journey with Christ and so when are we as individual there?
Part 2
Now on metrics there are direct metrics and indirect metrics and direct are the best but not always available so then we use indirect metrics. If we can actually get a count disiples then we should use that. An indirect count of disiples might be number of attenders, because we believe that the more people that attend, the more disciples we will create. Indirect metrics require an assumption of a relationship that should be verified before the metric is used. Impact on the community is also an indirect metric as it assumes that if we have more diciples then we will impact the community in greater ways. It also shows some maturity of the disiple in that the diciple is not just coming to Sunday worship, they are actively loving others, their community.
I could go on but this is a blog not a class.
Count how many cigarette butts are in the church parking lot on Sunday morning.
That last reply was an inside joke. Actually you pastors and staff members of churches, still trying to entertain people into the kingdom and trying to leverage pop culture and whatever other new things you guys think you're doing, still dont get it. If you have to ask the question, how do we measure it or determine our success, that tells me something and it should tell you something. Really if you're goal is to reach souls for Christ, then you won't really know for sure until you get to heaven man. Stop wasting energy, and time, and surveys. You guys still don't get it. I'm not sure why I even visit these blogs. I guess it's entertaining.