Last week I pointed out the shifting geographic trends that are apparent from studying the 2006 Church of God Yearbook. Since then, I have also been reflecting on the type of data collected and published in our annual.
My question is: How can we better quantify church effectiveness than by just "AM attendance"?
I touched on this issue a few months back ("How do we meaure success?"), but I want to approach it from a slightly different angle this time. Certainly, measuring congregational size has become an unhealthy preoccupation today, as the explicit and implict assumption is that the bigger the church, the better the church. That's not a necessarily true relationship.
But, apart from using size to compare churches, even using AM attendance itself is a problem. Certainly, measuring the number of people present at our Sunday service(s) provides a tangible reference point, but I believe it is an increasingly meaningless indicator of true church life and activity. Why have we settled for attendance at our weekly gathering of celebration and preaching as the best way to evaluate our life? Obviously, counting warm bodies on Sunday mornings is easy, and other things are more difficult to quantify. For example, up until a few years ago a "membership" number was also included in the Yearbook, but since we don't have a consistent method to determine measurement within our theology and polity, it is a fairly useless statistic.
Perhaps the whole practice of "measuring" is the problem. Shouldn't we be more concerned about being "faithful" than trying to quantify our activities? Sure, I understand the argument that measurements are a valuable tool to help us objectively assess our effectiveness. That is true to point. Maybe it is what we are measuring that needs to change.
While this will hardly satisfy those obsessed with the need for accurate statistical data, I would be more interested to measure some of the following congregational markers:
1. Number of people actively involved in cell-groups, as this is probably a better indicator of church life.
2. Number of people we are touching in our community through our intentional contacts and service projects.
3. Number of baptisms.
This is my start for a list. I'd love to hear from those of you reading this blog. How can we best measure congregational life, activity, and effectiveness?
4 comments:
Lloyd,
You are right on! Faithfulness is more important than numbers. Number may only tell of the popularity of the speaker or program or style of music. Numbers do help in monitoring some of the effectiveness of the ministry.
I like the small group and community outreach ministry measurement. That may speak louder as to the health of the church than the number who warm a bench each week. How many are involved in actual ministry, not boards and committees, but those involved in touching other people's lives.
Ron
I like your idea Lloyd. So when are ya gonna pitch it to Anderson?
[teethy grin]
i agree that we should be concerned with faithfulness -- but how can we tangibly measure that so that we can "spur one another on to love and good deeds." the desire for information is good -- but are we asking the right questions? and do we ask the questions in such a way as to provide follow-up for increased effectiveness?
i've just spent the last two days in a similar discussion, and as a result, preparing a survey we hope to administer to pastors and laity in our state
we hope to gain a better glimpse of individual and state church ministries
beyond the attendance issue to worship and a variety of small groups, we also asked what was the average age of attendance for each group/service and how the group ministered to others outside of the group. we hope through these indicators, we can learn how effectively we our passing on the faith and including younger generations, and teaching believers to be engaged in ministry outside of the group.
we also asked to hear up to three future ministry vision/hopes. along with each vision, we ask them to identify the potential barriers to such vision (what is keeping them from doing that now). we think we will discover several churches desiring to start similar ministries while facing similar barriers. then, we as a state ministry can come alongside of those churches to equip, encourage, and provide resources to help see future vision translate into present mission
What will you use to determine what a "cell" group is? I ask this because many of the congregations in Oklahoma do not have small group ministry...especially when come of the congregations themselves, due to being located in extremely rural locales, are smaller than some of the "small groups" in other congregations. Also, when I first started attending Crossings Community 10 years ago we, as a church, regularly had "Covenant Groups". However, those have basically disappeared (not totally sure why, because without that sw OKC group 10 years ago I might not be in church at all).
I am not arguing against the premise of your post (especially knowing that I grew up in [another OKC area] Church of God which never had the Sunday morning attendance that was recorded in the annual year book--goodness, some pastors fudge these numbers???), but rather I am just wanting to make sure that whatever method we use to measure our congregations is a method that all will have the opportunity to use.
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