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How Do You Measure the Success of Your Church?
Orginally published on Monday, June 30, 2008 at 7:14 AM
by Todd Rhoades
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
--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?
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There are 38 Comments:
Hi... I'm Todd Rhoades. I'm a Christ-follower, husband, father and I love to connect leaders with other leaders. Hopefully you'll find something here at MMI you like and will return often. If you want, you can find out more about me or follow my every step on Twitter.
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Post Your Comments:By chance, I blogged about this, at least on a week 2 week basis,
check it out at DavidFoster.tv
I think success of a local church is determined by God Himself, not us. The question is not whether we are succesful or not but rather , are we true to the Word of God in our preaching and ministry.
Success is a subjective term and is being used, as I see it, to mean ,"do people like it and are they coming to church”. It is pragmatic first and foremost. This is not Biblical. David Wells’ new book, The Courage to be Protestant is an excellent critique on this mindset. He explores its very foundations and beginnings and compares it wuith what Scripture actally teaches.
the church doing what God has designed us to do? great post!
Great list. thanks for the post.
“Number of unwed mothers… Number of convicts...Number of...whatever” All of the items on the list are still about numbers.
Jesus already gave us the metric. It is simply the one thing He commanded us to do… make disciples!
I count the number of families that did not have a church home before connecting at Trinity Family. I count success not by overall attendance, but how many previously unchurched families are now attending.
I believe that if we counted that way, we’d probably rearrange what churches we considered successful.
I think numbers is a great way to measure success. Jesus said make disciples… How many? As many as possible, from every tribe and nation… I think counting disciples we are making is awesome. I also think counting the number of people the church is reaching out to, who may not have been there efore your church engaged them, the number of people who typically would have run to Jesus but run from the church and are now running to Jesus because of your church… This is all a part of making disciples. God seemed content to count the numbers more than once in the bible.
My soap box is not churches that count to measure success (see impact) but churches that have nothing to count. Far too many of them today.
by the way dan, those are not about numbers, they are about people. unwed mothers, convicts, communities, organizations… All about people. Just has to do with how you see it I guess.
Measuring success in a church is so hard. You’re a pastor and preach the Word, people are convicted by the Holy Spirit, and your congregation grows. Are you successful? Conversely, you preach the Word, and false converts reject the Gospel, and your congregation wanes. Are you successful?
I would measure success by simply doing what the Bible says--preaching the Gospel, making disciples, baptizing people, etc.
--
CS
Amen CS. Jeremiah would have to be deemed to be a terrible failure if we would use these pragmatic ways to judge success. It is the way of the world, not God’s way. We are far to enamored today with success in terms of numbers. This is a modern way of thinking and that does not mean it is right in God’s economy.
Hey Fred, don’t you think that using Jeremiah, an OT Prophet, who was told he would have no success before he started is kind of out of context as to what the church’s mission is today? Jeremiah was not asked to make disciples, nor was he asked to pastor a church, He was asked to preach even when no person was going to listen. A very specific call to a very specific time and a very specific person. Praise God Jeremiah was faithful and I believe at times we experience season when we must simply be faithful because the fruit is no in season as of yet.
Jeremiah would have been deemed a failure had he had a bunch of people follow since that was not his call.
In John 6, we see Jesus feeding the 5000 and then the next day when many came back to be fed again, Jesus laid down a “hard teaching” and many disciples left him that day. was Jesus not successful because of a decline in numer of disciples? If a church lost many of its members because a pastor preached the Gospel, then he would be deemed a failure by these standards. May I remind you, the way is narrow.
Just because churches draw large crowds and “claim” converts does not define success in and of itself. Yes, the Bible talks of numbers but those are true numbers not “sign the card” or “walk the aisle” numbers that we see claimed today.
True religion and I think true success shows itself in how we treat the orphans and widows. How many people in your church are foster parents? How many people have taken in young single moms into their home because they were kicked out of their home? How many have allowed a widow to stay in the guest room because she doesn’t have the money to pay rent elsewhere? When the congregation begins to share their space rather than only their money and time, I think we will see success.
Sam, the writer did not say large numbers were the success, to make this about that primarily is not the point of the post. The point of the post is what numbers you are counting. So it is irrelevant if Jesus had 5000 one day and not another since that is not what the author is talking about.
Leonard,
Yes, but you said:
“I think numbers is a great way to measure success.”
Jesus lost numbers that day. Does that make Him unsuccessful?
A local church could be adding to the universal or invisible church while experiencing no growth or even in a declining numerical state. This is what is lost in this conversation. The church that you may think is doing very little could actually having more impact for the invisible church than the church that is growing exponetially but yet having very little etermal impact.
That is why numbers are not a good measure of success on a local church level. Appearances are not always what they seem.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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CS
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.
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.
“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.
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....
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
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…
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
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