Some of my recent thoughts on measuring growth:
"We need new ways of measuring church success. In a large church, Sunday morning attendance indicates an ability to attract people. We give them excellent music and dynamic preaching. And Christians come. Then, when we measure our effectiveness we ask, 'are people coming to church?'
We rarely ask, 'are those churchgoers apprenticing to be like Jesus?' Why not? Because we don’t know. We have very few, if any, ways of measuring whether or not a person is learning to be like Jesus."
We need a new spiritual growth ruler.
3 comments:
Traditional Church Growth has measured health based on the ABC's
A - attendance
B - building
C - cash
I don't think that measures spiritual growth/health.
NCD [Natural Church Development] and other organizations have developed all sorts of tools... but again I'm not sure these really get to the core of measuring real change - and isn't that what spiritual growth/health is all about?
I wonder if one of the reasons we use these measuring sticks is (a) we want to beat people up with them [did I really say that!?]; (b) we don't like the measure that we find in the Bible, including bearing fruit as described in John 15 and bearing fruit as described in Gal 5.
just some incomplete, rambling thoughts for a discussion that needs to take place
I don't know how to send you our blog ... but here it is
http://discipleshipconversation.blogspot.com/
To me, the measuring stick is everything going on outside the church, both the community and physical building.
Whats going on with the poor in the area. Are there enough volunteers for stuff. Are people visiting those in need? Do the townspeople feel like the church is a place you can go to in a time of need. How do people persieve those who attend the church.
What are we doing with the teachings we learn every week (or several times a week)?
Anyway, that's just what I think.
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