We began a series yesterday on life lessons from James. We will continue exploring Wisdom today and then get into the others:

• 1: Wisdom – ask God!
• 2: Works – what we do matters!
• 3: Words – what we say matters!
• 4: Wars – “Where do wars and fights come from among you?”
• 5: Waiting – things aren’t all that good now? Wait.

Let’s continue:

If anyone longs to be wise, ask God for wisdom and he will give it! (James 1.5, TPT)

You want wisdom?

• Step One: Ask God!
• Step Two: Fear God!
• Step Three: Subtract!

To gain knowledge, you must add one new thing every day. To gain wisdom, you must subtract one thing every day. – Lao Tzu

(This quote is on the calendar that one of my neighbors created for 2021. It’s also cited by Greg McKeown in Essentialism and espoused by Marie Kondo the tidying guru.)

I love what happens when I get started writing blogs. I thought I wouldn’t even use this one except as a contrast to what James said. But the more I think about it, Subtraction is an important, Biblical concept. For example:

And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. (Luke 9.23, 24, ESV)

Sounds like subtraction to me!

If you don’t think subtraction is important, consider the story posted on our NextDoor site recently. A neighbor in a nearby town had a bear break into her car overnight because it was parked in the driveway with one door unlocked.

Among all the comments of sympathy and caution about leaving food in your car or leaving a door unlocked, no one asked the obvious question:

What is so important in your garage that you have to park your Lexus outside?

And that’s a trivial example compared with a large church whose story I read recently. There is unrest in the congregation partly because there are some who don’t think the church is doing enough to attract minority members. The sentence that struck me was something like: “We are trying to reach minorities. In fact, it’s one of our 14 priorities!”

Seriously. By definition, how can you have 14 “first things,” the real definition of “priority”?

Let’s ASK God for the wisdom to know what to subtract.

One thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3.13, 14, ESV)

I’ve just finished reading James and, as always, it’s chock full of nuggets. I’d like to explore an alliterative collection of important lessons with you over the next few days:

• 1: Wisdom – ask God!
• 2: Works – what we do matters!
• 3: Words – what we say matters!
• 4: Wars – “Where do wars and fights come from among you?”
• 5: Waiting – things aren’t all that good now? Wait.

Let’s get started:

If anyone longs to be wise, ask God for wisdom and he will give it! (James 1.5, TPT)

That’s clear. Step one: pray! ASK!

ASK stands for Ask, Seek, Knock from Matthew 7.7. Elsewhere, James is clear:

Yet you do not have because you do not ask. (James 4.2, NKJV)

Step two: fear God

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow his precepts have good understanding. To him belongs eternal praise. (Psalm 111.10, NIV)

Proverbs 2 combines these two concepts: ASK God; fear God:

¹  My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you,
²  making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding;
³  yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding,
⁴  if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures,
⁵  then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God.
⁶  For the LORD gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding;
⁷  he stores up sound wisdom for the upright; he is a shield to those who walk in integrity,
⁸  guarding the paths of justice and watching over the way of his saints.
⁹  Then you will understand righteousness and justice and equity, every good path;
¹⁰  for wisdom will come into your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul. (Proverbs 2.1 – 10, ESV)

It’s hard to improve on God’s words so let’s just meditate on these. Tomorrow I want to add one more step: subtract. Subtract? Yes, subtract. More tomorrow.

²⁰  Wisdom cries aloud in the street, in the markets she raises her voice;
²¹  at the head of the noisy streets she cries out; at the entrance of the city gates she speaks:
²²  “How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge?
²³  If you turn at my reproof, behold, I will pour out my spirit to you; I will make my words known to you. (Proverbs 1.20 – 23, ESV)

It’s been a weird college football season so far, and among the surprises was Alabama losing to Texas A&M last Saturday. Although A&M dominated for much of the game, Alabama came on strong and was actually up 38 – 31 before the Aggies tied it at 38. Alabama was forced to punt on its final possession, and the Aggies came back, kicking a field goal as time expired.

There are a few lessons:

• As always, the past doesn’t determine the future. Alabama hadn’t lost to an unranked team in 100 games. Alabama coach Nick Sabin had never lost to a head coach who was a former assistant.
• There will always be adversity. The question is, how do we respond to it? Here’s what A&M coach Jimbo Fisher said, as reported by ESPN, emphasis mine:

The Aggies entered the season ranked sixth and gunning for Alabama after the Crimson Tide handed them their only loss last season. But by last week it looked as if this would be a lost season for the Aggies after consecutive defeats by Arkansas and Mississippi State sent them tumbling out of the Top 25.

But instead of falling into a bigger hole this week, the Aggies pulled off the upset to snap an eight-game skid against Alabama. It’s their first win in the series since Johnny Manziel’s spectacular performance led them to a 29-24 win in 2012 on the road when the Crimson Tide was also ranked first.

“We had a couple of tough weeks … (but) you’re defined by how you respond to adversity,” Fisher said.“

• Sometimes God answers prayers positively and on the spot! Have you seen this marvelous 25-second video of the kicker’s family during the winning field goal? The kicker’s wife is the young lady toward the right of the screen. The kicker’s mother is toward the left of the picture…in prayer. (And rightly so. Did you see how many field goals were missed in the NFL over the weekend? Five potentially game winning field goals were missed in the closing minutes and overtime of the Green Bay / Cincinnati game Sunday. The Colts’ kicker missed a game-winning field goal Monday night.)

There are surely more important things to pray for than the outcome of a football game, but you have to admire this lady’s fervency.

But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3.13, 14, ESV)

The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. Elijah was a human being, even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops. (James 5.16 – 18, NIV)

Dick Ryerson and I went to the same Christian high school, graduating in 1964. We reconnected at our 40th reunion in 2004 and have stayed in touch since. He loved to go on construction mission trips, especially after retiring from a career as a CPA. His most recent trip was to Alaska two months ago. He wrote,

Bob, the trip to Alaska went well even with uncooperative weather. Tried to get the missionary’s house and water system ready for 40 below winter and also various village projects. We hope to have a trip to Honduras after the 1st of the year after missing for the first time in 20 years last year due to COVID. Pray with us it will happen. The foundations for two churches are ready and we hope to complete both with 6 teams.  IN Christ,  Dick R. 

Dick was 75 years old, and he was planning another trip! Unfortunately, a week after he sent that email on September 8, he was in the hospital with COVID. A week later, he went on a ventilator, and two weeks after that, he passed away, October 7, 2021. (FYI, he had been vaccinated.)

Dick just wanted to serve even if he was going through hard times of his own. Here’s what he wrote before the Alaska trip:

I have an opportunity to go on a mission construction trip in August to a remote Alaskan village reachable only by air.  Pray that this will be a successful and safe trip.  The missionary and his family have sacrificed much for this ministry and the renovations we propose doing are much needed!  I also need prayer personally as I seem overwhelmed with duties and responsibilities at this time.

Did I say hard times? Dick responded to my May 2018 ministry update with word that his youngest brother, Tim, had passed away while Dick and his wife, Barbara, were in Bolivia on a mission trip. When I asked, he responded:

Tim had been in declining health since the twin losses of his wife and son, but had rallied from his latest episode, gained back most of his weight, and started back to work.  We are leaving tomorrow morning for the approx. 12hr. drive so keep us in your prayers. Seems like we just walked in the door from Bolivia!

That was 2018. In early 2020, Barbara contracted a rare cancer. While still undergoing treatment, Barbara’s oncologist recommended Dick go ahead and take the mission trip to Paraguay he had been planning because “You need a break.” Can you say 2020? Here’s the story:

We almost got trapped there. Fight after flight was canceled, until the last plane out was one chartered by the US State Dept. to evacuate Embassy personnel and Peace Corps volunteers.  They had sixteen seats left and there were sixteen on or team.  I know we are taught to have faith, but I must admit in times like that it is easy to doubt!  They closed the airport and all borders as soon as we left!  In Christ, Dick R.

Barbara passed on August 7, 2020. The same day Dick’s step-sister Cassie died of COVID.

So a year after his wife and sister passed away, Dick was still at it, completing one trip, planning another. I wrote to his pastor, John Reeves, who happens to be the son of friends of June and mine from high school days. John responded:

Thanks for the note. “Faithful Man” is a great description of Mr. Dick. He has been a servant at one of our church plants for the last 10 years. He and Barbara despite being significantly older than everyone there have produced much fruit. – John Reeves, lead pastor, Radius Church

Dick and Barb left behind two adult children, their spouses, and six grandchildren. I know the family will appreciate your prayer.

¹²  The righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
¹³  They are planted in the house of the LORD; they flourish in the courts of our God.
¹⁴  They still bear fruit in old age… (Psalm 92.12 – 14, ESV)

Well done, good and faithful servant…Enter into the joy of your master.’ (Matthew 25.21, ESV)

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. (2 Timothy 4.7, ESV)

We’ve spent a few days thinking about “church” with thoughts triggered by a piece by Kevin DeYoung of Christ Covenant Church (PCA) in Matthews, N.C., and associate professor of systematic theology at Reformed Theological Seminary (Charlotte). Here’s part of his close, including a few sentences I didn’t quote the other day:

Are you wondering what you can do to make a difference in the world? Go to church. Give to the church. Pray for your church. Correct the church when she errs and encourage those serving the church whenever you can. Things are probably not as bad as you think, and even if they are, the gospel is better still. The grass withers, the flowers fade, but the word of our God will stand forever (Isaiah 40:8). Invest your life where that word is taught and cherished. That’s the Jesus way. – Kevin DeYoung, The Bride of Christ and the Hope of the World: Why Christians Must Love the Church.

There are good sentiments there, and we should all be part of a good church. However, I believe even his description of where one should go to church narrows rather than broadens the scope of “church.” “Invest your life where that word is taught and cherished” presupposes a particular model of Sunday morning, one in which Bible-teaching predominates. There are other viewpoints:

• There are churches that cherish the word and teach the Bible, but teach it differently than this brother’s tradition.
• There are those who would say “Go where the Eucharist is honored and offered with passion.”
• Our charismatic friends want to “Go where you can worship God enthusiastically.”
• Maybe some churches are saying, “Go where you can be inspired and challenged to work for good in society.”
• Our black friends might say, “Go where you can feel the Spirit over a 2-3-hour service.”
• I’d like to see us go where we can be equipped to live life the other 6 days of the week. A place to learn how to be the “scattered church” effectively. I don’t care as much about Sunday morning format.

My point is that as soon as we zero in on the institutional church, we tend to magnify differences. I go back to yesterday’s challenge: love the church – the whole church – all the people who are following Jesus.

“Teacher,” said John, “we saw someone driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us.” “Do not stop him,” Jesus said. “For no one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, for whoever is not against us is for us. (Mark 9.38 – 40, NIV)

Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel. (Philippians 1.27, ESV)

I wrote yesterday that some who advocate that we “love the church,” really mean their institutional church, and that people can make a difference by going to church and listening to good teaching. I don’t agree. Local churches should be training people to put the Word into practice…out in the world. Jesus is clear that just listening to good teaching is not enough. (See, for example, Matthew 7.24 – 27.)

There is a good reason to go to church. This paragraph was embedded in an article about the dangers of social media:

When you go to a church, you’re choosing to associate with lots of other people who you often would never associate with otherwise. But once you see that someone whose personality or politics might otherwise rub you the wrong way also shares your deepest values and beliefs, it becomes easy to overlook such differences. – From Christians Delete Your Accounts? by Mark Hemmingway 

Our pastor frequently makes the point that we have people on both sides of the political spectrum, and we need to learn how to get along with each other. And here’s a good reason why: because we agree on the most important things.

We should be able to get along with folks in our church as well as folks in other churches. Often an overemphasis on the “rightness” of our church results in putting up walls that exclude others. Back in the 90s, I went to the first few Promise Keepers events. These were fantastic displays of “the church” – the people – all kinds of people: young, old, black, white, rich, not so rich, charismatic, non-charismatic – we were all there, and that alone was worth the price of admission.

And in that marvelous environment, I’ll never forget what happened in the lunch line. I was talking with some men, also from Colorado Springs, and they asked where I went to church. When I told them, they immediately and obviously increased their distance from me. Why? Because they went to one brand of Presbyterian church, and I went to another. Another church. A different brand. One they felt was inferior.

Folks, if we’re going to love the church, let’s love the whole church, not just our Sunday morning expression of it. (I think I’ll have more to say about that tomorrow.)

Let’s love the people. The ones who share our values on the most important person of all: Jesus.

And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation… (Revelation 5.9, ESV)

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. (Ephesians 2.19 – 22, ESV)

I closed yesterday’s blog with “Did you see the baseball in your shoe this morning?” The manager wants you to pitch today. Or, as Seth Godin says, “It’s your turn. It’s always your turn.” In one blog, he states it this way:

It’s easy to wait for it. The movies have taught us that when the music swells and the chips are down, that’s when leaders arrive and when heroes are made.

It turns out, that’s not how it works.

Our work is what happens in all the moments. Leadership doesn’t simply appear when the script announces it does: it is the hard work of showing up when we’re not expected to, of seeing what’s possible when few are willing to believe.

Your defining moment is whenever you decide it is, and you get a new chance to lead every day. – Seth Godin

I really resonate with these messages. Maybe that’s why I react so strongly to articles like I read the other day. The primary intent of the article was that we love “the church” because Jesus did. There’s truth in that, but sometimes the idea of “church” – the people called out by God to follow him and do his work in the world – gets mixed up with, as Reggie McNeil calls it, “The building on 1st and Main.”

I’ve written about this before. Todd Wagner, pastor of Watermark Church in Dallas, Texas, is trying to change the definition of church. His point is that somewhere along the way, the New Testament’s ecclesia, assembly of people, got hijacked and replaced by the German word kirk, church building. Here’s the official Greek definition of the word translated “church” in the Bible:

ἐκκλησία (ekklēsia) ‘assembly’ church, congregation, assembly; a group of people gathered together. 

Why is this important? Here’s how Watermark Church expresses it on change.org:

If we primarily define church as a building, we miss the point of what God intended His Church to be: a group of people that are on mission 24/7 to bring hope and restoration to a broken world. This could not be more important. We’ve let culture define what the church is, causing people to first think of walls and windows instead of men and women who love and care for them. – Todd Wagner

I don’t get the sense of a people on mission when I read the article by Kevin DeYoung, “Why Christians must love the church.” Here’s how he closes:

“I will build my church.” Who builds the church? Not the pastor, not the seminary, not the sheep, not the government, not the publishing house, not the critics, not the powerbrokers, not a class of people called the oppressed, not the social media influencers. Jesus does. And what does He build? Not a brand, not a school, not a magazine, not a campus ministry, not a nation, not a party, not a platform, not a webpage. The church—the only institution on earth that Jesus promises to build and promises will last.

Are you wondering what you can do to make a difference in the world? Go to church. Give to the church. Pray for your church. Correct the church when she errs and encourage those serving the church whenever you can...

Jesus builds the institutional church? I can make a difference by going to church? That’s what this brother believes. I think I subscribe to the other view that I’ve seen on t-shirts worn by people on work teams:

Tomorrow I’ll have one more look at this article plus a word (don’t panic!) on why we should go to church.

The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: “Stand in the gate of the LORD’S house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the LORD, all you men of Judah who enter these gates to worship the LORD. Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will let you dwell in this place. Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD.’ “For if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly execute justice one with another, if you do not oppress the sojourner, the fatherless, or the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own harm, then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your fathers forever. (Jeremiah 7.1 – 7, ESV, emphasis mine)

The Major League Baseball playoffs are underway. Back in the day, we’d be well into the World Series by now. I’m grateful to my friend Dr. John Ed Mathison for reminding us through his October 6 blog that yesterday was the 65th anniversary of Don Larsen’s perfect game, pitched in game 5 against the Dodgers, October 8, 1956.

I remember it well. I was only 9 years old at the time, and the game was played in the afternoon while I was in school. My dad was a pitcher in the New York Giants minor league system, and we were always National League fans. I asked my dad, “Did the Dodgers win?” And he replied, “No, but something wonderful happened.”

The next day, the World Series was the headline story in the newspaper (as it usually was), but there was also a large, above-the-fold picture of Don Larsen. I cut that picture out and kept it for many years. Thanks to online archives, it lives:

Don Larsen was not a great pitcher. His career was mediocre at best. In game 2 of the Series, Larsen lasted only two innings, giving up six runs. He didn’t expect to start game 5, but as John Ed tells it:

When he got to the stadium and went to his locker, he saw a baseball in one of his shoes. Frank Crosetti was the third-base coach. He would customarily inform who the starting pitcher could be by putting a baseball in the shoe.

Larsen went out and pitched the only perfect game in a World Series – one perfect game in a World Series from 1903 until now.

When the 1957 season started, we had a television, and I’ll never forget Dizzy Dean, former pitcher and legendary color man of the “Game of the Week,” announcing: “We have a surprise for you today, sports fans. Don Larsen is starting the game for the Yankees!” I’ll also never forget that the first pitch went off the left field wall for a double, the next pitch went off the right field wall for another double, and I don’t think Larsen made it through the first inning.

What’s the lesson? As John Ed tells it:

Miracles happen – even in baseball. They also happen in the game of life. Your past doesn’t have to determine what’s going to happen in the future. Jesus picked some really shady characters to be his close-knit group of advisors. He related to a prostitute and gave her a new chance at life. (John 8) He talked to a woman who had been married multiple times and then sent her back to tell the good news. (John 4) He transformed a tax collector into a benevolent Christian follower. (Luke 19) He made a buffet meal out of a little boy’s basket of fish and bread. (Mark 6) Miracles happen! – Dr. John Ed Mathison (links to scripture added by me)

And I can’t improve on John Ed’s close:

How big is the miracle that God wants to do in your life? And the miracle that God has in store for you might be far greater than the miracle that happened to Don Larsen on October 8, 1956!

Did you see the baseball in your shoe this morning?

Yesterday I promised one more look at this idea:

All I’m suggesting in these measurement posts is that think about what we’re doing and how we can measure the right kind of success. How we measure may even drive what we do or how we do it. More on that tomorrow.

Navigator colleague Justin Gravitt, a “next-generation” leader in Navigator Church Ministries, wrote about a disappointing experience with what he thought was going to be advanced leadership training. It started like this:

Not long ago I hugged my kids goodbye, stepped onto an airplane and into a faraway hotel to participate in five days of leadership training.

It didn’t start there.

Nine months earlier, I was invited to apply to a year-long leadership development opportunity. Not long after, I was selected from a pool of applicants to participate. Before arriving I worked for two months to complete a number of thought-provoking assignments.

I was excited.

It began with an engaging mixer. Then a presenter stood up and reminded us that we were “leaders of leaders,” that many had applied, but few had been chosen. It was after those opening remarks that it happened; a lecture broke out. Followed by another. And then another. -Justin Gravitt, “In Leadership the HOW Matters“

“A lecture broke out.” Justin went on to explain why he was disappointed.

Sure, they called us “leaders of leaders,” but they didn’t relate to us that way. Instead, we were treated as people who needed to be taught how to lead. We had a problem to be solved. And they knew how to solve it. They knew what we needed (even if we didn’t). In other words, they were the experts and we were the consumers. In our culture of consumerism this model of people development is repeated every day. It happens in churches and companies. It’s the dance of consumerism.

Justin’s whole article is worth the read. What I want to focus on as we conclude this series on Measuring the Wrong Thing, is that the “leadership development” people might have been driven by metrics. It’s hard to measure leadership and leadership development. It’s easy to define a selection process, count the number of people who applied, count the number who actually enrolled, and record what the lectures were about. Then they can say something like, “We carefully selected so many ‘leaders of leaders’ and taught them X, Y, and Z.”

Justin calls the “I lecture/you listen” process a culture of consumerism. I’ve written about this before. In churches, we have the pastor and adult Sunday School teachers as teachers. Everyone else is a student. And everyone likes it that way. 2 Timothy 2.2, however, does not allow for a permanent student class:

And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others. (2 Timothy 2.2, NIV)

Jesus certainly didn’t develop the twelve by lecture: his method was a “relational laboratory.” And he measured “success” not by the number of followers, but by what they did as leaders.

From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him. “You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve. Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. (John 6.66 – 68, NIV)

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. (Acts 1.8, NIV)

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them…Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: “Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say….” (Acts 2.1 – 4, 14, NIV)

It was a Seth Godin blog that got me thinking about measurement. Here was his opening line:

“When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” Marilyn Strathern expanded on Charles Goodhart’s comment about monetary policy and turned it into a useful law of the universe. As soon as we try to manipulate behaviors to alter a measure, it’s no longer useful. – Seth Godin, September 21, 2021

Researching Strathern’s Law, I uncovered all kinds of ways to mess up with measurement. For example, “the Cobra Effect is the most direct kind of perverse incentive, typically because the incentive unintentionally rewards people for making the issue worse.” What’s the Cobra Effect, you ask?

The British government, concerned about the number of venomous cobras in Delhi, offered a bounty for every dead cobra. Initially, this was a successful strategy; large numbers of snakes were killed for the reward. Eventually, however, enterprising people began to breed cobras for the income. When the government became aware of this, the reward program was scrapped. When cobra breeders set their now-worthless snakes free, the wild cobra population further increased. – Wikipedia

You can’t make this stuff up. Another one, probably more directly relevant to this blog about discipleship is the McNamara Fallacy:

The McNamara fallacy (also known as the quantitative fallacy), named for Robert McNamra, the US Secretary of Defense from 1961 to 1968, involves making a decision based solely on quantitative observations and ignoring all others. The reason given is often that these other observations cannot be proven. Daniel Yankelovich has this analysis (bullets are mine):

• The first step is to measure whatever can be easily measured. This is OK as far as it goes.
• The second step is to disregard that which can’t be easily measured or to give it an arbitrary quantitative value. This is artificial and misleading.
• The third step is to presume that what can’t be measured easily really isn’t important. This is blindness.
• The fourth step is to say that what can’t be easily measured really doesn’t exist. This is suicide.— Daniel Yankelovich, “Corporate Priorities: A continuing study of the new demands on business” (1972).

The McNamara fallacy is unintentionally practiced by most churches. No one would say that discipleship isn’t important. We just don’t know how to measure it. Therefore, we rely on buildings, bodies, and bucks, as I wrote on Tuesday. We also tend to rely on events. I recently met Tony Morgan, founder of The Unstuck Group, a consulting service for churches. He wrote a nice piece about events, which opens this way:

Attendance to events doesn’t reveal health in a ministry. Have you ever considered that keeping people busy at your events may prevent them from spending more time on their marriage, children and/or relationships with non-believers?

We must be wary of reducing the faith to attendance at church. There may be times when an event is strategic, but we can become lazy in relying on events to be the litmus test of our ministry. – Tony Morgan, Do Your Events Improve Church Health?

I’ve always observed that churches seem to assess an event as successful if:

• It takes a lot of people to put on.
• It is attended by even more people.
• Everyone goes away with a good feeling.

By contrast, Tony Morgan suggested in another piece about events that an event should be helping people take the next step after the event rather than just getting people to show up to the event. More of Tony’s event assessment ideas are in this handout: Healthy Versus Unhealthy Events.

All I’m suggesting in these measurement posts is that think about what we’re doing and how we can measure the right kind of success. How we measure may even drive what we do or how we do it. More on that tomorrow.

You have been weighed in the balances and found wanting. (Daniel 5.27, ESV)