Measuring Progress
Parent Church Stories, Philosphy of Church Multiplication, Church Planters | Email This Post November 2nd, 2008Last week, Otto Wegner stopped by my office and gave me a piece of his mind. It was good. Otto is a legendary missional church planter. He’s personally planted 12 churches and helped start numerous others. And he’s planted in very challenging contexts…mostly urban, often economically depressed. He’s the real deal. He plants churches that approach ministry holistically…cultivating health for the whole person- body, soul and spirit.
Yet he’s relatively unknown. One reason for his anonymity could be that he is not a self promoter. He’s definitely not interested in selling a bunch of books or DVD’s or creating a fan club. He’s just not about that stuff. But I think the biggest reason he is unknown is that he doesn’t have enough people showing up to hear him preach on Sunday’s. And so, we don’t care to hear how he’s “done it” because what he’s done is not what we dream about doing. Thus he’s unknown…
This reality reveals a root problem with how we think about ministry effectiveness. Let’s be honest. We do measure how effective a ministry leader is by how many people sit in a pew and listen to him/her preach on Sunday. Think about it… what conference/council/meeting have you been to in the last 10 years where the featured speaker led a church with fewer than a thousand sitting in the pews/comfortable padded seats on Sunday morning?
I have a friend who was seated next to Ted Haggard (pre-moral failure) at a meeting where Ted had been the featured speaker and had made a statement that if your church is reaching 1% of your community then it is a mega-church. My friend asked Ted a really good question… what do you call your church if it is reaching 12% of its community? Ted was immediately interested. “Is there such a church?” he asked. My friend responded, “I’m pastoring in a community of 1000 and 120 people attend our services each Sunday!” Ted laughed…”Oh, that’s different!” he replied.
Different? Really? I don’t think so. I would contend that raw numbers are not as relevant for measuring missional impact as personal and community transformation. “How is the Kingdom of God impacting the actual quality of spiritual and temporal life in a given community?” is a far more relevant question than how many people are showing up to hear me preach on Sunday!
Too often, our fascination with big large crowds, numbers and really good fog and light shows causes us to overlook the most important evidences of the Kingdom of God showing up in power. We rush off to conferences that promise to help us put more bodies in the pews and run right past the thousands of unsung heroes like Otto Wegner slugging away in tough places that are being transformed by the power of God.
Don’t misunderstand. I’m not advocating the idea that the only effective churches are small. I’m simply saying that effective churches are transformational and that their communities would know it if they closed their doors. Transformation can be catalyzed by churches big and small. I’ve been to churches with thousands of attendees whose only visible impact on the community was creating traffic jams on Sundays. I’ve also been to churches with a handful of attendees who were making God’s power known in tangible and significant ways. In a way, size doesn’t matter as much as impact!
We’ve got to figure out how to measure and celebrate transformation. It’s not as simple as counting noses. But I think it will help us aspire to do the right things for the right reasons.
November 2nd, 2008 at 10:49 am
Pastor Wegner is not unknown… he’s a legend to many, like him, working in the trenches with dirty hands & joyful hearts. He works in places Jesus, if in flesh, would work… that’s where I want to be. That’s where I will be.
You can accomplish so much more when you don’t care who gets the credit! The Lord isn’t insecure … we shouldn’t be either.
November 2nd, 2008 at 9:14 pm
I enjoyed the neat story about Pastor Wegner planting 12 small churches. It reminds me of the people in the book “In His Steps.” I was saved attending a Salvation Army church in Henderson Nevada with only about 40 people attending each Sunday. The pastor and his wife served the poor people of my neighbor with humility, sacrifice, dedication. A very small percentage of Christ followers are given the gifts and calling to reach thousands.
For years, I had dreams of being called to reach thousands and millions. I am now embarrassed to say I wrote these grandiose dreams in my goals. This past year the Lord humbled me on many fronts…marriage, health, kids, career. I am grateful that he loved me enough to take this much interest in me. Today, I think I stand more ready than ever to go where ever he leads.