Counting People in a Room
What if every week the schools in your town, maybe the school your kids attend, announced the total number of kids attending the school. It might look like this.
If the schools in your area did this you would laugh at them.
Business people who measure like this primarily would be fired.
Counting people in the room is a pretty lame way to measure success in the church. Anyone can count people in a room. Getting people in your building is not the same thing as spreading the kingdom. It's just getting people in a room. Anyone can get people in a room and count them.
People in the room may or may not care about what you have to say.
People in a room is a pretty low view of success.
Interestingly enough it is the churches who declare themselves most creative (and maybe they are actually really creative) can't come up with a better way to measure than with attendance figures.
Here's my friendly challenge to these churches. If you really want to pave the way for the church to make a difference in the world, then find a different way to measure and then use that measurement to broadcast your enthusiasm to the world. You are creative. Will you rise to the challenge.
Look, I get it, I know you spend a lot of time and money to get people to show up in the room so you can do the show, but that's not really all that creative in the big picture is it? Rearranging the furniture, maybe, but not a make-over.
If you really want to be innovative rethink measurement.
What you measure is what you value. Show you value life change more than numbers.
Schools value learning.
Businesses value profit.
Churches value the kingdom being built. Will you lead us with something other than numbers?
This week at Elementary PS 101 we had 504 kids and 36 teachers/administrators in attendance! This time last year we at Elementary PS 101 we had 404 kids. That's a lot of growth! We are excited about how well we are educating the kids of the city! Next year we hope to grow 20%! In addition during the past week 189 of the kids raised their hand to respond to a question we asked. Success!
If the schools in your area did this you would laugh at them.
What if the the Walco down the street measured like this? What if their business report went something like this?
On Sunday morning at 11:00am we had 800 people in our store. Some even bought something! That's up from 750 on this time last year!
Business people who measure like this primarily would be fired.
Counting people in the room is a pretty lame way to measure success in the church. Anyone can count people in a room. Getting people in your building is not the same thing as spreading the kingdom. It's just getting people in a room. Anyone can get people in a room and count them.
People in the room may or may not care about what you have to say.
People in a room is a pretty low view of success.
Interestingly enough it is the churches who declare themselves most creative (and maybe they are actually really creative) can't come up with a better way to measure than with attendance figures.
Here's my friendly challenge to these churches. If you really want to pave the way for the church to make a difference in the world, then find a different way to measure and then use that measurement to broadcast your enthusiasm to the world. You are creative. Will you rise to the challenge.
Look, I get it, I know you spend a lot of time and money to get people to show up in the room so you can do the show, but that's not really all that creative in the big picture is it? Rearranging the furniture, maybe, but not a make-over.
If you really want to be innovative rethink measurement.
What you measure is what you value. Show you value life change more than numbers.
Schools value learning.
Businesses value profit.
Churches value the kingdom being built. Will you lead us with something other than numbers?
Labels: Church
posted by mark at
4:20 PM
4 Comments:
Creative measures...you would think there was something other than "how many kids"! After falling into a numbers trap conversation last year (that I started (*sigh*) my wife asked me...so are any of the kids growing spiritually? I didn't have an answer....I was convicted, saddened, yet free to do something different. I've tried a couple of things....
1) listening better to what the kids are really saying and noting how they express their faith, doubt, trust, fears over a period of time. Nope, not quantitative but I have what I believe to be very real "signposts" of spiritual growth in a person and can help them see how Jesus is transforming them.
2) For a quantitative measure - I asked the kids at the beginning of the year to name three adults they would share a joy, concern, or question about faith with. (We claim to be a "relational" ministry...so are we really broadening the base of relationships our kids have with adults in the church?) I hoped to ask the same question at the end of the year to see how their responses had changed...grown...diminished. But because of various reasons didn't get to - my bad....but maybe this year.
I don't know if these are better measures...but they provide better clues I believe.
Love the post Riddle.
I am doing a post series on the Present Future from Reggie's book and this latest is the
Church Growth vs. Kingdom Growth.
We need to be out there with the people and be more focused on transforming our community then building a program for them to come.
Mark,
A great reminder to us in the church Mark! For too long we have used numbers as the barometer of the church's success.
However, I think measurement is difficult regardless of what setting or organization we find ourselves in.
For example, just because students pass state tests doesn't mean students are really learning, it may just mean that schools are really good at teaching students how to take tests.
I remember one of my history professors once saying "just because you have a degree doens't mean you have an education."
And for businesses even if profits are up, but we have lost our soul in the process then we still lose. I think I remember Howard Hendricks of Starbucks saying something to that effect.
All that to say that everyone uses numbers, but numbers don't always reflect success even when the motive to use them is pure. Perhaps the church focuses primarily on numbers because true measurement is hard work.
It's not about counting the numbers, it's about making the numbers count.
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