David Phillips recently posted a list of possible ways to measure success in the church in the future. The listed things which could be measured included:
- The number of cigarette butts in the church parking lot.
- The number of adoptions people in the church have made from local foster care.
- The number of former convicted felons serving in the church.
- The amount of dollars saved by the local schools because the church has painted the walls.
- The number of people wearing good, free clothes that used to belong to members of the church.
The “traditional” ways of measuring success in a church are the number of people who attend worship services each week, the amount of money in the offertory plate, and the number of people who are signed-up members. The problem is that these measures don’t necessarily reflect how well a church is achieving its mission. So before working out what to “measure”, we need to work out what the church is supposed to be doing.
In Matthew chapter 28, Jesus gave the Great Commission to his followers: “Go and make disciples of all peoples, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to do all the things that I have commanded you.” It seems to me that ultimately, the success of a church should be measured by how well it is making disciples who do all the things which Jesus commanded.
HT via Monday Morning Insight and Backyard Missionary.