The Measures of Our Success September 20, 2009
Posted by Dan R. Dick in Christian discipleship, Church growth, Evaluation and Assessment.Tags: Church growth
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In recent months I have visited a number of churches where leaders have apologetically said to me, “Our numbers are down. We always lose them through the summer.” Worship attendance is currently the primary metric for a church’s effectiveness — which is ironic because worship attendance has nothing to do with effectiveness. It measures attendance. This may indicate popularity of a preacher or music program. It may witness to the importance of worship to individual worshipers. It may indicate the success of marketing or personal invitation. But the mission of The United Methodist Church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. How many people show up on a Sunday morning is not an appropriate evaluative metric of the congregation’s effectiveness at discipleship for transformation. If filling our pews is the point, counting warm bodies is the right measure. Changed lives/changed world? Different metrics apply.
A growing number of our churches have stopped counting those who come through our doors. They are more interested in what happens to people after they leave. I spoke to lay and clergy leaders of two smaller Midwestern congregations this week that both have goals of serving the needs of others outside the church, of equipping people to share their faith and monitor how effectively they do it, and of engaging new people in serious spiritual formation and development. They do qualitative evaluation and assessments rather than “counting.” “Oh, we use numbers,” a lay leader told me. “If we served 65 meals last week, our goal is to serve 70 this week. If we got nine volunteers to help out last week, we strive for ten this week. If we have four people equipped to teach a small group this quarter, we aim to have five next quarter. So, yeah, numbers matter, but not as much as understanding how people’s faith and lives are changing.”
