Sahil Bloom recently promoted his new book Five Types of Wealth with this timely reminder about the folly of measuring success solely by money:

Our scoreboard is broken. It forces us into a narrow measurement of wealth, success, happiness, and fulfillment entirely defined by money.

Hence his book which defines “wealth” in five ways, not just one way: time, social, mental, physical, financial. [I would have added “spiritual,” I think.]

Then he makes this poignant statement about measurement – a word that’s good for churches, I think:

And what you measure matters.

In a famous articulation often attributed to Peter Drucker, the Austrian-­born management guru:

What gets measured gets managed.

The statement implies that the metrics that get measured are the ones we prioritize. In other words, the scoreboard is important because it dictates our actions—­how we play the game.

Broken scoreboard, broken actions.

If we fix the scoreboard to measure our lives more comprehensively, our actions will follow.

Right scoreboard, right actions. – Sahil Bloom, February 3, 2025

Churches most frequently measure attendance, followed closely by their budgets, and their buildings: bodies, bucks, buildings. Listen in on almost any conversation among pastors, and you’ll hear talk about how many are coming on Sunday morning, how many services they have, etc.

And according to Peter Drucker, if most of what churches measure is attendance, they’ll work on ways to increase that attendance, mainly attendance at the Sunday morning worship services. I’m not against large church services as long as we understand that large services alone won’t make disciples any more than concerts produce trained musicians.

We have to figure out a way to measure quality disciples. Maybe there’s hope. The same day I read Sahil Bloom’s quote about measurement, I discovered this website: https://stateofthechurch.com/ Among their offerings is a survey to measure “15 Dimensions of Church Thriving.” check them out – I know nothing about the organization, but at least they’re trying.

The apostle Paul wasn’t interested in “the attendance scoreboard.”

Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. (Colossians 1.28, NKJV)

Nor did Paul want church leaders satisfied with the attendance scoreboard.

And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ… (Ephesians 4.11 – 13, NKJV)