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Measuring Success in Ministry

Posted June 5th, 2008 by jon.reid in

This is a blog post I have to share in its entirety:

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 man and how much. And we determine who is a great leader by how many and how much.

So today, I want to share with you some of the metaphors we listed (and some I came up with afterwards), of things we can count as a measure of success. But I need to issue a warning. You will have to think about these and you may push back unless you realize the metaphor. So don’t react… Ponder…

  1. The number of cigarette buts in the church parking lot.
  2. The number of adoptions people in the church have made from local foster care.
  3. The number of pictures on the church wall of unwed mothers holding their newborn babies in their arms for the first time.
  4. The number of classes for special needs children and adults
  5. The number of former convicted felons serving in the church
  6. The number of phone calls from community leaders asking the church’s advice
  7. The number of meetings that take place somewhere besides the church building
  8. The number of organizations using the church building
  9. The number of days the pastor doesn’t spend time in the church office but in the community
  10. The number of emergency finance meetings that take place to reroute money to community ministry
  11. The amount of dollars saved by the local schools because the church has painted the walls
  12. The number of people serving in the community during the church’s normal worship hours
  13. The number of non-religious-school professors worshiping with you
  14. The number of people wearing good, free clothes that used to belong to members of the church
  15. The number of times the church band has played family-friendly music in the local coffee shop
  16. The number of people who have gotten better because of free health clinic you operate
  17. The number of people in new jobs thanks to the free job training center you opened
  18. The number of micro-loans given by members in your church
  19. The number of churches your church planted in a 10 mile radius of your own church

Got any more?

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very cool

On June 5th, 2008 jgordon says:

Interesting list.

Missional report card

On July 7th, 2008 jon.reid says:

Pulled from a different blog:

  1. Number of new relationships formed where I know their names and they know mine.
  2. Number of people who have been uniquely blessed by me and my community.
  3. Number of people who invite me to be with their friends who don’t follow Christ.
  4. Number of ways, my street, neighborhood, or community are more livable because of my influence.
  5. Number of Christians that are actively confronting their consumerism and making adjustments at the life level.
  6. Number of Christians that I ask or persuade NOT to go on mission with us.
  7. Number of incarnational communities that commit to form around benevolent action instead of just a bible study.
  8. How long people remain at our weekly gathering after the formalities are over.
  9. Number of community-based initiatives our people are supporting with their time or money.
  10. Number of young leaders we’re intentionally developing.
  11. Number of people baptized: Still is a great guide to judge a persons commitment to follow Christ with the community.
  12. Number of Bibles purchased because someone asked for one.

There are twelve quickies that work well for us. You’ll notice we don’t count “professions of faith,” church attendance, church budget, or number of churches started. We don’t think they historically measure anything real or transformative.

http://jonreid.blogs.com/

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