Mission is What You Measure

Following up from yesterday's post, here's a simple question for you:

What types of "film" would you watch to improve the effectiveness of your church?

Keeping in mind that I'm using "film" in a figurative sense - there are many ways to observe, measure, and evaluate activities in your organization for possible improvement.

What most established churches measure is harmony, stability, and privilege. That is what occupies the agenda of most staff meetings, congregational gatherings, and denominational processes.

• Churches go to great lengths to measure harmony - they mark every single, conceivable, and even half-baked complaint, anxiety, or hurt feeling.
• Churches go to great lengths to measure stability. They chart the financial and membership trends. They have mastered the art of risk management.
• Churches go to great length to measure privilege. They maintain elaborate by-laws and exacting processes for consensus management

Often the problem is that a watching and seeking world sees the disconnect between the stated (or at least assumed) mission of the church and the reality.

Is it possible to consider other activities that the church should be doing? How about "watching the film" in these areas for starters?

• Do you have a red carpet? - what is your guest experience like? How do you welcome people to your campus? What makes your guests say "Wow - I didn't expect that!"
• How do you handle frequent fliers? - welcoming every guest is important. Welcoming guests for the second and third time is extremely important!
• Who's on your team? - team matters - if you're going to be in the game, you've got to have a team. There are probably dozens of opportunities in your church for people to be involved. How do you move them from attending to participating?
• What's my draft like? - sports teams don't just randomly pick their players; they spend lots of money and effort to know the potential of each player. Recruiting leaders in your church ought to operate the same way.
• How many teams are in your league? Your church probably worships in a large group or two, but it will only thrive and grow by creating small groups. How do you create them, what do you expect them to do, and how do they reproduce?
• How do you define a win? In sports, you look at the scoreboard. What's a win look like for your church as individuals, groups, and the church as a whole?

I've only scratched the surface - you can probably add a dozen more activities to this list - things you ought to be "watching the film" on. Understanding what is important, and then taking steps to continually improve it, will produce results.

Mission is what you measure.

The One Most Important Thing to Count

On the day of Pentecost, the early church didn't count attendance - they counted conversions measured by baptism (Acts 2:41).

The mission of the church is stated very specifically in the Great Commission: there are elements of going, making disciples, baptizing, and teaching. If you could only count one thing, it would be conversions - new believers.

The measurement of spiritual milestones - such as conversion - are defined differently by different Christian groups. This post is not about the different beliefs and traditions, but instead is to ask you to focus on your particular church and belief system. How committed are you to measuring conversion grow in your church? Where does that conversion growth come from?

First, it has to start at "home". Effective evangelism must start with the church's own children as they grow up in the faith and come to know, love, and serve God. How are you at measuring the number of children in your church who profess faith in Christ and are baptized? Or to take it a step further, what percentage of that number would you establish as your "family" conversion rate?

The second area of conversion growth is logically the population beyond your immediate church family. How many conversions are measured in this group? What are you doing to increase your effectiveness at reaching children, teenagers, and adults who do not call your church "home"?

Beyond these two immediate measurement numbers, is it possible to develop target goals for effectiveness in conversion? William Hoyt suggests that a minimum rule of thumb in this area would be one conversion per ten worship attendees. A church with an average weekly worship attendance of 500 would therefore have a conversion goal of a minimum of 50 people.
On the functional level, that means each existing member of your church would be used by God to help produce one conversion every ten years.

What about your church? How do you measure up in this one most important number?