How Do You Measure the Success of Your Church?
- Posted by: Todd
- Posted on: Mon, June 30, 2008
- Viewed 172
- (38) comments so far
--The number of meetings that take place somewhere besides the church building
--The number of organizations using the church building
--The number of days the pastor doesn’t spend time in the church office but in the community
--The number of emergency finance meetings that take place to reroute money to community ministry
There are about 10 more that you can ponder here at BackyardMissionary.
So… what do you think? Any you really agree or disagree with? What would you add or subtract from the list this class came up with?
W. David Phillips had a great post over at BackyardMissionary.com about how to measure success in the church. He sets it up this way, "At my last doctoral class with Len Sweet last week, he posed a question to us that went something like this: Provide for me the metaphors that will describe how we measure success in the church in the future. We are prone to measure success by how many and how much. And we determine who is a great leader by how many and how much." What he shares next is the list his class came up with. It's a great list to ponder. As David says, your first reaction at some of the things on this list will simply be to react... Some will make you think. Some will push you a little. Many you probably won't agree with. But, thinking through some of these will make for a great Monday morning exercise!
--The number of cigarette butts in the church parking lot.
--The number of pictures on the church wall of unwed mothers holding their newborn babies in their arms for the first time.
--The number of former convicted felons serving in the church
--The number of phone calls from community leaders asking the church’s advice
Comments
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leonard on Mon, June 30, 2008
right Sam numbers are a great way to measure but I did also say that it maters what numbers you count. To use Jesus five thousand and john 6 builds a straw argument.
The post said that we should cout the kind of people we reach. It was not saying get a huge ammout of people and call that success. To bring that into this discussion is not relevant to this post.
Fred on Mon, June 30, 2008
leanard,
you say that Sam is building straw arguments but how so? To claim they are does not make them so. The truth of the matter is that the church is the church of Jesus Christ, not of men. He decides on the “success” or lack of “success” and He alone defines the term. You seem to be doing your best to justify worldly means of using corporate and modern pragmatic techniques to define the worth of a church. The church is successful if it proclaims faithfully the Gospel once delivered to the saints. We preach Christ crucified and nothing else. The rest is up to God.
Your reasoning shows to me that you believe God needs help in evangelising the world. First, that is not the primary function of the church. That is the function of the individual. Jesus did not say to go into all the world to just the Disciples which would have been representative of the church authority or its structure as a institution. He said those words to all the people implying that it was our duty as redeemed people to go out into the world. We are redeemed by God through the proclamation of the Word. Whether anyone is saved is all up to God. We proclaim and He chooses.The institution’s function was to preach the word. Even the Apostles told them to “appoint others to take care of the feeding of the widows for they had another function to concentrate on.
Too many seemed to have imbibed deep into the waters of corporate church doing , complete with all the trappings of polls and numbers. Again—try reading David Wells new book. This may just enlighten you. We need to understand the church historically and how it functioned, where it went wrong and what path we should take. The one that you and others propose is a failing path, no matter what its “success” appears to be and how one “feels” it should be done.
I believe if the church in America is declining in numbers it is because it is unfaithful to the Scripture , instead listening to the corporate and media world for wisdom and guidance.
DanielR on Mon, June 30, 2008
North of Ft. Worth, kind of in the middle of nowhere at the intersection of Highways 377 and 1171 almost every time I drive that way there’s a man preaching the word of God to anyone who will listen. He looks like a perfectly normal gentleman, of course I’m sure some think he’s looney just by his actions, but he feels called the share the Gospel and he does so most afternoons. I think part of it may be that he just enjoys reading scripture. Is his ministry successful? If you’re counting numbers you’d have to say no, I’ve never seen anyone stop and listen or talk to him. Do you think God considers the man’s ministry a failure or a waste of time?
Numbers and counting things may not be a good way to measure if a ministry is fruitful or successful, but if not then what is? Ministry should strive to be fruitful, shouldn’t it? And in order to gauge whether you’re being successful at anything you’ve got to be able to measure success in some way.
CS on Mon, June 30, 2008
DanielR:
“Is his ministry successful? If you’re counting numbers you’d have to say no, I’ve never seen anyone stop and listen or talk to him. Do you think God considers the man’s ministry a failure or a waste of time?”
Is he being obedient in following the Great Commission, in going into the world to preach the Gospel to everyone? (Mark 16:15) He may not be making disciples or baptizing people (at least, we can’t tell with this peripheral information), but is he obedient to God?
—
CS
Leonard on Mon, June 30, 2008
Hi Fred,
I say Sam builds a straw argument in that the post is not about using large numbers to identify success, it is about people. The number of people who are hurting your church is ministering to, the number of places your church impacts its communities, the number of people who have been restored… This post is not about big churches or any church measuring itself by counting large numbers of people in attendance.
So when we make that the argument not only do we drift from the topic… which might include things like how have you encountered these people, does your church minister to a variety of folks, is your pastor free to minister within the community… Instead we have to discuss why Jesus had 5000 one day and not the next… Does God need our help to evangelize? It is not that these are bad topics they are just not the topic.
You surmise my doctrine based upon a couple sentences I wrote? With all due respect to you, I am sure you are good but I don’t think you’re that good. You cannot possibly know what I believe about salvation from the words I wrote. With all due respect as well sir, you have no idea the path I propose for the church.
DanielR on Mon, June 30, 2008
CS, I believe he is being obedient to God. He is going into the world and preaching the Gospel.
But again, if you had to answer the question (not that we always have to) would you say his ministry efforts are “successful”?
Honestly, I don’t think he’s worried about it one way or the other. I think he just truly enjoys doing it.
Fred on Mon, June 30, 2008
“Honestly, I don’t think he’s worried about it one way or the other.”
Bingo! That is what I believe the proper response should be. Be faithful to the word and them you will not have to worry about the outcome. When we try to hard to measure it , I believe it appears we are tryng to do something in our own power. The measurement should be in faithfulness, not the number of cigarette butts lying around.
We think in corporate business terms far to much.
Pastor J on Mon, June 30, 2008
I measured success in my youth ministry this way:
when I left, were my students and workers able to continue on without me or did the ministry just fall apart and dissipate waiting on the next minister to come along.
Thankfully on my last church, when God called me to leave, the students were setting up times to meet to have their Monday night bible study by themselves if they had to.
That is when I knew that the ministry was not built on me, but on God….
Dave Bailey on Mon, June 30, 2008
It’s amazing to me how compelled we, as believers, are to correct each other rather than just sharing insight, faith, experience and hope… and letting “our yes simply be yes” and other’s “yes, simply be yes” (obscure Bible reference - hope you make the connection http://www.mondaymorninginsight.com/images/smileys/grin.gif
The article was about a heart that was committed to touching people previously untouched by the gospel and the “metaphors” of how that would inconvenience and complicate your life.
Immediately the comments begin to “strain at a gnat” and argue over words and who has the right perspective…
Is it any wonder that we have difficulty communicating the wonder of Christ and the glory of the Good News when often it seems as though it’s just another way of being “right”.
Sigh…
CS on Mon, June 30, 2008
DanielR:
“But again, if you had to answer the question (not that we always have to) would you say his ministry efforts are “successful”? “
Again, that depends on your definition of “success.” If you define success in the way as demonstrated in the article, no, the man falls short, since cigarette butts and unwed mothers are not surrounding him (I say that tongue-in-cheek). If you define success as obedience to God, as I believe it should be, yes, he is wildly successful.
Dave Bailey:
“It’s amazing to me how compelled we, as believers, are to correct each other rather than just sharing insight, faith, experience and hope…”
I didn’t see much of that happening here, just commenting in response to Todd’s question and the article. Sorry if you got that impression. However, there are subjects and times where we should correct each other, and we cannot dismiss those corrections to just “let our yes be yes.”
—
CS
Peter Hamm on Tue, July 01, 2008
“When we try to hard to measure it , I believe it appears we are tryng to do something in our own power.”
On the day of Pentecost amazing things happened, the fact of the matter is that people were changed forever by God Himself. Everyone was in awe…
...but SOMEBODY counted!
The point might be this. One church in town might measure success by how good and sound the preaching is. That the preacher for instance might have crafted the most excellent 3 point sermons in town, and delivered them well, and everybody in the church can answer what they supposedly believe very well.
However, what about the church across town that that first church might think is too “liberal” or too “modern” (even though their stated beliefs about Jesus are not unorthodox, just their methods are), but they feed the hungry in their town, they take care of the orphans and widows, and put feet to their faith. And then that second church finds addicts, unwed mothers, and the disenfranchised of society showing up at their doors.
I want to be a part of that second church.
Fred on Tue, July 01, 2008
I do not believe that the count at Pentecost was there to show us how successful , in a pragmatic way, Peter’s sermon was. I believe that the Holy Spirit gave the count to show how the preaching of the Gospel was moving quickly and substantially through the proclamation of the word and the movement by the Holy Spirit. It was for our benefit, not for showing us how to measure things. I think that misses the point.
Again I want to point out that we all measure things. We measure to determine things. But there is also a point when we measure that we are measuring in our own own power and by way of a Western philosophy called pragmatism. When David counted the people God became angry at him. Why? One reason ,because he did not want David to become proud and self-sufficient in his thinking.
I believe wisdom is needed here. The reason I and some others post against it so sharply is because of the trend of this whole site to be pragmatic—not because we believe it is intrinsically wrong to measure things. It is the why we measure and that leads to what we believe the primary function of the church is . If peoples lives are being changed for the better—then great. No one is against that. But know that it doesn’t necessarily take the church to make peoples lives better. What needs to be known is—-are they changed by God through the Gospel message and are we faithfully delivering the message once delivered. If we are doing that, then that leads to changed hearts and that leads to changed lives and that in turn leads to lives that make a difference in the lives of others. Mesuring outcomes does not change anything except looking for a way to achieve that outcome. Again, that , according to Scripture is by delivering the Gospel message so that God changes outcomes through redeemed lives. If we are measuring to see if we are delivering the Gospel so that the Holy Spirit can do His work—then I say great!
This may be simplistic—but God gets all the glory this way-truly—not just in words. We are just so accustomed to technique in our technical world that we believe that God needs our technical help and expertise to accomplish His goals . Everybody is an expert today so we measure and poll and apply another new updated technique to accomplsh what we wish to happen. That is our strength. But God works best when we are weak—for then He is strong.
Peter Hamm on Tue, July 01, 2008
There is a lot of wisdom in what you say, Fred.
But let us not let our reliance on God keep us from doing the things we are called to do with all the excellence, authenticity, and passion we can muster. David slew Goliath because he relied on God… the God who made him a really great shot with a sling!
You write [If we are measuring to see if we are delivering the Gospel so that the Holy Spirit can do His work—then I say great!] I think that is a great statement, and I wish that more people realized that churches like mine are actually trying to do that, not just come up with an excuse to have a motorcycle in church or what have you…
chad Johnston on Tue, July 01, 2008
Dave Bailey…cheers! I normally dont even read comments on posts like this, just because of what you said. Looks like to me, if any of these guys are pastors, they’re spending way too much time in the office….
May we lose our lust for being right…
chad
Leonard Lee on Tue, July 01, 2008
Fred, I agree with Peter there is a lot of wisdom in your words, but most of the guys around here already felt that way. Here is the rub for me. The article clearly stated that is was NOT about counting numbers for pride sake but rather to ask; “What could we count to see if our church is on mission.” You know, making disciples as Jesus said to do. Here is the quote; “Provide for me the metaphors that will describe how we measure success in the church in the future. We are prone to measure success by how many and how much. And we determine who is a great leader by how many and how much.”
The problem is that instead of actually discussing the original post we have to discuss how bad it is or how prone to pride we are when we count. We use bad analogies in Scripture like John 6 and like Jeremiah to prove how bad it is and then people assume they know what we think or believe based on a few sentences. This is happening with nearly every post here at MMI.
What could have been and should have been a great discussion on how the church is engaging people ( I know you don’t think that is the churches job, just preach the word) gets hijacked by people who read their own judgmental insight into a post. So much so that even though it is not about measuring success by counting big numbers… Guess what we end up discussing.
r
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