As we continue to think about Finding New Ways, a series that started this past Tuesday, we ought to be thinking about how we measure success. As a statistics guy, I have to say that most churches mainly measure what’s easy to measure: budgets and bodies. How many are coming? How much are they giving?

According to the Barna organization, this trend is continuing with the computer-delivered services. And some are wise enough to call that practice out:

If you’re looking just at attendance numbers, IP addresses or Facebook watch numbers right now, you’re just trying to measure content to consumer. – Kenny Jahng, founder and CEO of Big Click Syndicate

But “content to consumer” is what churches have always measured. John Stonestreet of Breakpoint was lamenting the loss of in-person Sunday worship services and hoping that people don’t get used to just doing it from home. In the middle of that, he inadvertently (I think) identified the problem:

In fact, if we’re not feeling a serious loss right now, we should be worried. If remote services on a laptop feel normal, then church has become nothing more to than a spectator activity, and we have become, well, spectators to worship rather than worshipers. – John Stonestreet

I think “spectators” is precisely what most church-goers have been conditioned to be. And as long as we measure only attendance and giving, spectators are what we’ll produce. The Barna article goes on:

We’ve always been so infatuated with size, but it’s never the measure of impact. What does it matter that you exist? What does it matter what you’re saying? What does it matter to my own life? Those are always the metrics...If it’s about discipleship and spiritual growth,…we should measure actual practice, actual engagement, and actual connection. – Danielle Strickland

To put it even more succinctly, one pastor said to me:

We’re good at measuring how many people come. We need to figure out how to measure how many people go!

I agree, and I wish I had answers. But if we continue to have the right objective (making disciples) and ask the right questions about how well we’re doing that, we may get there. For example from the First Steps that we wrote about two days ago, we can begin to ask and answer important questions:

• How many folks are actually meeting with God most days? What is God saying to them? What are they doing about it? Who are they sharing with?
• Starting with the pastor, who is intentionally investing in another person? What materials or methods are they using? How many of those people are investing in someone themselves? Who and how many are involved in intentional disciple-making relationships (as a growing disciple or as a mentor)?
• How are people engaging at work, school, or in their neighborhoods? How are we doing at modeling godly character, making good work, ministering grace and love, molding culture, being a mouthpiece for truth and justice, or being a messenger of the gospel? (The 6Ms from Fruitfulness on the Frontlines.)

You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting. (Daniel 5.27, NIV)

[Church leaders are] to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. (Ephesians 4.11 – 13, NIV)

To the angel of the church in Sardis write: These are the words of him who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. (Revelation 3.1, NIV)