The mainline church is in decline!! Perhaps I am stating the obvious. Those of us in the “church world” know this all too well and the COVID-19 pandemic hasn’t helped. Yet, let me be clear, COVID-19 did not cause the challenges and decline we are facing. I believe the pandemic merely revealed and in some instances accelerated what was already taking place. Maybe part of our problem or at least an underlying challenge, has been our method of measuring our ministry.
The most common measurement metric we have been using within the church can be described as either “nickels and noses” or the ABC metric. “Nickels and noses” is pretty self-explanatory: nickels = offering and noses = attendance. For those not familiar with the ABC metric, it simply means Attendance, Building (either size, status or new construction) and Cash flow. While these are still indicators of the health of our ministries, they are not the leading indicators as to whether we are thriving or not.
To thrive means to “grow well or vigorously; to prosper or flourish.” I like this basic definition, particularly the last piece – to “prosper or flourish” because this doesn’t have to do with size. Just because a church is small, doesn’t mean it isn’t thriving and just because a church is larger doesn’t necessarily mean it is healthy. We have mistakenly made the seats in our building into an idol and we thought that if we filled them, we were healthy and thriving. But if we are limiting our discipleship capacity to our seating capacity, then we are missing the point.
When we look at the ministry of Jesus, it took place outside the church. It took place in fields, it took place on the water, the cross was on the hill of Calvary. In fact, 99% of his ministry took place beyond the walls of any religious building. And when we consider the size of his earthly ministry, he spent most of his time with the 70 (broader group of followers) or the 12 (named disciples) or the 3 (Peter, James and John) and occasionally with the multitudes. Based on this, the size of Jesus’ ministry was small, but his IMPACT was immense.
Therefore I believe we should be measuring our ministry, not on size, but on impact; on the difference we are making in the communities where our buildings are located. How are we transforming lives, in Jesus’ name? And how do we do that? Here are some questions to get you started.
- What is your call? What needs are you addressing in your community?
- What is the change you want to see?
- What are the 3 most important aspects of this change?
- How will you know you have achieved this change? This is the measurement.