So, in our last post we wondered about whether our old faithful gauge of missional progress is really all that meaningful. What does it really mean when seats are filled or unoccupied on Sunday morning? It is certainly more fun to preach to a full house than to an empty room. And I don’t mean to downplay the fact that God does use the foolishness of preaching to confound the wise. People do make life changing decisions as a result of being present when the anointed Word is communicated with passion and integrity. Please don’t misinterpret what I’m trying to say. Sermons are good. People listening and responding to sermons is good. But, is that all there is? And again, I must ask, how much can we learn about the spiritual vitality of a group of people assembled in a church meeting on a Sunday morning? Is the person there because they are seeking God? Are they there because they are trying to please their spouse or a friend? Are they there because they hope to make a business contact? Are they there because that’s what they always do and they would feel guilty if they weren’t there? Are they there just to see the spectacle of a preacher living on the roof and hoping their their presence in a room will convince him to come down? (see part one of MMM) And what impact might their reason for being there have on how much benefit they receive from the experience? So, are head counts a reliable gauge of spiritual formation?

For now, let’s just agree that “attending” a service might mean something potentially positive is going on. The other typical measuring tool we commonly use is the amount of money being placed in the offering. Here again, we must wonder what the spiritual significance is. Actually, it probably means more than just sitting in a pew. But a head count is a head count, whereas a dollar given by one person might reflect the same level of sacrifice as a thousand dollars given by another person. So measuring spiritual vitality by volume of money placed in plate is a tricky venture. Again, it’s hard to know what it means. Is the money given as an act of obedience? Is it an act of stewardship born out of a committed relationship to Christ? Is it given out of guilt or superstition? Is it an effort to make a deal with God? Is it given with the hope of “five fold,” “ten fold,” or “hundred fold” return? When the offering is counted, does the amount received have any connection to what is really going on in the hearts of the givers? Is it possible that increasing offerings have no connection to increasing spiritual vitality? Could increased offerings even indicate spiritual problems?

As I mentioned in part one of this series of blog posts, this is an especially serious problem for determining the missional impact of new churches. Books are written about how to plant churches that “grow” fast and big. The way we know that they grow fast and big is by counting how many noses are present and how many nickels are placed in the offering. However, if all we are doing is moving noses from one pew to another and nickels from one plate to another, then we are just playing a shell game. Growing “fast” might not mean anything.

But again, in the interest of giving ourselves the benefit of the doubt, let’s agree that more people and money might be better than less people and money. The problem is the word “might.” If our most commonly used measuring tools give “muddy” feedback at best, then how do we really know what’s going on? Or, to put it another way,…if noses and nickels serve as dubious indicators of the spiritual vitality of a church, then how do we know if we are making progress? What else might be going on that is tangible enough to measure and might actually indicate spiritual progress?

Allow me to humbly and cautiously suggest some possible helpful measurements of missional movement that might begin to clear up our picture of Kingdom progress. The reason noses and nickels are popular metrics is because at least they are finite tangible quantities that can be counted for sure. At first glance, finite and tangible seem better than vague subjective statements of progress like, ” I think our people are deeper in love with Jesus than they were last year at this time.” So what might be some other very tangible activities that might indicate missional progress?

1. Relational connections- The root of discipleship is most commonly a relationship. In fact, discipleship is by definition an interpersonal activity. Our primary model is Jesus. And he told his disciples to go “make” more (disciples that is). A partial picture of progress could be counting our relational connections. Some contemporary examples would be the story of John Van Pay in Helotes, Scott Bruegman in Denver or Trinity Jordan in Layton, Utah. These guys spent huge amounts of time developing a relational network before they ever had a public meeting where they could count heads and money.

2. Conversations- Brian McLaren encourages us to “count conversations.” If the “root” of discipleship is relationship, perhaps the “stalk” of discipleship is the conversation. And EVERY conversation has missional value, so count all of them. Sometimes we just need to talk about the weather or our favorite sports teams. Those conversations lay the foundation of connection that create the opportunities for our conversations to go deeper.

3. Prayer- Prayer might be the water of discipleship. Intentionality of prayer for those we are connecting with can be counted. Specifically setting aside time to pray for our friends is a wonderful way to partner with God in His process of helping the “outsiders” to know Him. The amount of time is not as important as counting the intentional pause to pray specifically for a person we know.

4. Intentional community connections- This is more of a corporate measuring tool. You might ask your team, “How many connections do we have that place us in proximity to people who are or might be far from God?” Possibilities might include social clubs, sports teams, hobby clubs, civic organizations, etc. Count up the collective connections and see how you are doing.

These are just some ideas to ponder. There are probably other great categories of activities that can be tangibly measured. This is by no means an exhaustive list. But it’s a start. In my next post on measuring missional movement I’d like to explore another dimension of this whole issue by thinking about the question “How much of your activity as a church should be devoted to connecting with those who are far from God?” To give you a hint of what I’m thinking…a funnel might be part of the answer.

In the interest of full disclosure and to be fair, this happened nearly thirty years ago, so I’m telling the story to make a point, not because I believe this is a wide spread practice. However, it does illustrate, in the extreme, what I believe might be a core measuring problem that is “dumbing down” our missional aptitude.

I once heard the pastor of a church advertising on the radio that he would actually live on the roof of his church until the number of people attending one of his worship services exceeded 1000 people. I’m not making this up. He was serious and he made quite a spectacle of himself. The newspaper picked up the story and he got a lot of free publicity. And if I remember correctly, he did end up with over 1000 people seated in a room listening to him preach.

This story is a dramatic illustration of what I believe is a core problem with our approach to starting new churches. We measure the wrong stuff. Let’s think about the story of the preacher on the roof for just a minute, by asking a few analytical questions. After all his efforts, what did he end up with? Who would be attracted by this type of gimmickry? What would be the reaction of the typical unchurched person to an invitation that went something like, “Please come to my church so my pastor can stop living on the roof!” ? What about the 25,000 other people living in the community? Why just live on the roof until 1000 came to church? Why not stay up there until everyone showed up? If all we are trying to do is get people to sit down and listen to a preacher preach, then I guess he succeeded. But a healthy church engaged in healthy spiritual formation is interested in way more significant outcomes than just getting people into pews.

Measuring our progress by how many people sit in a room together on Sunday creates all sorts of dysfunctional behavior that might account for our lack of missional progress. The perceived self worth of church leaders jumps up and down like a barometer in Missouri based on the most current attendance figures. Ministerial gatherings are marred with a competitive undertone of comparison based on one main measuring stick…”How many you runnin’?” What does the number of people “attending” really indicate anyway? Is it really possible that God intended His Prevailing Church to be measured by how many people are attending meetings?

Measuring progress by the number of bodies in room is especially dangerous for new churches. Many new church planters are encouraged to hurry up and get their “services” going so. Why? What’s the rush? It might be because the only way we know how to measure progress is how many people are in the room. But our research on healthy church starts reveals that one of the factors that contributes to anemic churches is that they are born prematurely. Just like preemie babies, churches born before their time often struggle with health challenges all through life.

Well then, how DO we measure progress in a new missional church plant before and after the “birth?” Good question. That will be the subject of our next installment in this series.

The evidence is overwhelming. In 1990, studies showed that 52 million Americans were in attending a Christian worship service on any given weekend. In 2006, the same study showed that the number had remained virtually the same 52 million…in spite of the fact that 91 million new people had been added to the American population through birth and immigration. When the deaths are factored a strange statistical coincidence comes into focus…52 million had been ADDED to the population. The reality is truly alarming…16 years go by, billions of dollars are invested to improve the effectiveness of existing church programs and buildings, 1000 churches are started that quickly grow to be “mega” in size (more than 2000 attendees), nearly 60,000 total new churches are started and yet when it is all said and done we make virtually NO progress in terms of the Mission of Christ. The painful reality is that it appears that we have spent 16 years playing a mega game of musical chairs…simply moving Christians from one pew to the other.

It would be easy to conclude that this is evidence that church planting is NOT an effective strategy for advancing the Kingdom. After all, an average of 3600 churches were planted annually during the 90’s and the average increased to about 4000 annually from 2000-2005. So while we’ve been planting more churches than ever at an ever increasing pace, the “market share” of the Body of Christ has plunged from 20.3% in 1990 to 17.3% in 2006. It really does seem like clear evidence for how ineffectual church planting is as a missional strategy. So is it time for us to abandon the starting of new churches as a core strategic activity for advancing the Kingdom? You probably won’t be surprised to know that my answer is “NO!”

Here’s why my “NO” is emphatic. I think our problem is that we’ve been planting the wrong KIND of churches the wrong WAY because we’ve been using the wrong METRICS to measure our success. So over my next few posts, interspersed with some updates on my travels and the people I’m connecting with, I’d like to unpack some thoughts on what KIND of churches we need to be starting, the WAYS they need to be started and HOW we will measure our progress. So stay tuned for my first blog “series.” And just to make it interesting, I’m going to start with how we measure our progress because I think that is where our problems start.

By the way, we are in the process of transitioning this blog to another provider. So don’t be alarmed if within the next week or so, the blog takes on a new look. Also, we might have some digital glitches along the way so please be patient while we remodel. The new blog will have increased functionality and a higher level of user friendliness.