The beginning of the year is a time of counting the blessings and struggles of the past year. Church leaders tally the numbers and evaluate how last year turned out to be. At ILI we gather training data from around the world for our annual report. There is a problem with counting people on the pews or conference attendees, though. While necessary, these raw numbers give us incomplete data. Are the people on our churches better followers of Jesus after sitting through 52 worship services (for those with perfect attendance)? Are the men and women who attended a training event better leaders just because they spent a few days examining the Eight Core Values?
Data-driven Decision-making
Making decision based on data is recognized as effective leadership and management. I even wrote another post on this blog about it, with a simple example from our church, based exactly on the simple metric of “warm pews.” There is a positive correlation between the quality of your data and the quality of your decisions. If we could determine better metrics to assess our church's spiritual health, life transformation, or ministry impact, we would make better decisions and increase our potential for Gospel impact.
Measuring Transformation
The issue for a church or ministry leader who wants to have a transformational impact is how to measure life transformation. Let me offer a few possible variables that perhaps can help us move in that direction. As I look at these four points, I believe they can be used to measure personal Spiritual growth in a small group, a house church, or a traditional congregation. It can even be used to evaluate a Christian organization focused on Gospel service.
Engagement with Scriptures. It is pretty obvious that strong mature Christians, whether they are followers or leaders, are those who understand and apply the principles of Scripture at a deep level in their personal lives and their service to others. If our people are growing in their listening, reading, studying, meditating, memorizing, and applying the teachings of the Bible, we can be sure they (and we) are having a deeper impact around them.
Prayer and Devotional Life. That is another obvious metric, but how do we measure it? We know that the quality of our personal devotional life reflects in the quality of our public worship. So, if we can, somehow establish a growth in the quality and engagement at our public gatherings, perhaps we can conclude that there has been growth in our people’s personal relationship with God.
Multiplication. Jesus compared the Kingdom of God to yeast or a mustard seed. They are both living things, which naturally grow. So, a healthy ministry is evidenced by the life-multiplication of faith-sharing, discipleship, or leadership development.
Influence. Leadership is influence. If we have “Gospel influence” over others, we are leading well. Unlike the first three, this metric has to be evaluated from outside, from the people we serve. How does the community around us perceive us individually, our church, and our organization? While perception may be distorted by the sinfulness of our time, it can still be a good measure of the kind of influence we have in the world.
Is your personal life, ministry, church, or organization an agent of transformation, an agent of God’s Kingdom? Beyond numbers, these qualitative parameters can help you see how much impact you are having in the world around you.
As Lent commences on Ash Wednesday, we are entering a time of introspection and prayer leading to Easter. Let us reflect on the significance of death preceding resurrection, urging readers to embrace a daily practice of surrendering self in preparation for our spiritual transformation.