the measure of a church
How do we measure the effectiveness of a church? It's an age old question that will never go away. And I'm guessing we'll keep coming back to the same 'ol answers: size of the congregation, size of volunteer staff (core members), budget, collection each Sunday/month/year, commitments made to Christ. But even of these, it's usually narrowed down to one: size of church. Numbers. Effectiveness is all about numbers. We don't know of any other way.
In a society in which numbers are thrown at us from every angle we naturally carry this into the life of the church. It's inevitable that if you throw two or three pastors into the same room the conversation ultimately turns to talk of numbers. We don't want to go there because in our hearts we know better but we can't help ourselves. We. Just. Can't. Stop.
I write this, of course, from a perspective of a church planter whose church is losing some of its members this summer due to geographical moves. We've seen some new faces over the past year but the moves this summer will be felt. Now if you were to press me I would say that our mission at Christ's Church for Brooklyn is being fulfilled. We are a church taking care of each other in this difficult city. We are reaching beyond our church walls to proclaim Jesus through hands and feet projects and I, along with others in our community of faith, talk openly to friends about who I am and what I do. But, if you were to walk in to our service on Sunday afternoon and simply take stock of our numbers, you wouldn't be impressed and would wonder about our mission.
So it's got me to thinking, What is effectiveness in a church? If it's all about numbers then CCfB is failing. And failure indicates that God is not liking what we're up to. I'm not ready to concede that. Not even close.
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In a society in which numbers are thrown at us from every angle we naturally carry this into the life of the church. It's inevitable that if you throw two or three pastors into the same room the conversation ultimately turns to talk of numbers. We don't want to go there because in our hearts we know better but we can't help ourselves. We. Just. Can't. Stop.
I write this, of course, from a perspective of a church planter whose church is losing some of its members this summer due to geographical moves. We've seen some new faces over the past year but the moves this summer will be felt. Now if you were to press me I would say that our mission at Christ's Church for Brooklyn is being fulfilled. We are a church taking care of each other in this difficult city. We are reaching beyond our church walls to proclaim Jesus through hands and feet projects and I, along with others in our community of faith, talk openly to friends about who I am and what I do. But, if you were to walk in to our service on Sunday afternoon and simply take stock of our numbers, you wouldn't be impressed and would wonder about our mission.
So it's got me to thinking, What is effectiveness in a church? If it's all about numbers then CCfB is failing. And failure indicates that God is not liking what we're up to. I'm not ready to concede that. Not even close.
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posted by jch at
3:07 PM
9 Comments:
Buildings, Budgets and Baptisms.
Or Attendance, Buildings, and Cash.
It depends on how you want to arrange your sermon points.
http://scottfreeman.info/
Numbers games must be a gender thing. Women don't usually get excited by or upset over numbers. We're happy, satisfied and comfortable in small, intimate groups, and in large, loud groups, as well. Men seem to think numbers=success. Women generally don't see size as an indication of success or failure. (See why I think it's a guy thing??)
Your job is to answer His call, not to play the numbers game. Your team still plays ball. You are the team captain, and they are there to play ball with you, not count how many paying fans are in the stands. If you play well with each other (kindergarten rule #1), others will want to be on your team.
Remember - God grows churches, not preachers.
I have been a church planting missionary for more than 11 years in the former Soviet Union. We are moving to the US this summer. One of my greatest anxieties is that those 11 years will be reduced--in the minds of many/some--to, "How many people are in the church now?" It's actually happened several times before. Someone asks that question and I feel that I am being "sized up." It is numbing and painful to feel that.
We, too, have lost people, mostly to immigration, studying abroad, seeking a better life somewhere else. Others have simply stopped being a part of the community.
I don't know how to answer your question. I just wanted to say that you are not alone in asking it.
You know, I think the number thing is highly overrated. When my family along with a few other families decided to leave our bigger church to smaller body 6 years ago, there were between 20-30 at the MOST on our very best days...but you know what?! It didn't matter.
Young people who were completely uninterested and uninvolved at our old church were leading songs, and taking charge of the communion.
People who would not have dare spoken up or out about certain personal struggles in the larger church would come before our smaller, close knit group and ask for prayer and Godly counsel.
Other people were baptised and married, and the relationships of the families that left got even closer.
In the end, I think that it's a definite 'quality over quantity' factor when discussing some of the effectiveness in a church body.
The "how many" question is especially acute for pastors -- women and men alike -- because the other measures of our vocational "success" are unquantifiable. How do you know if your Bible studies are any good? Well, how many people who could have been there were there? How many came back the following week?
The solace for me usually comes from remembering and rejoicing in the ministry of Jesus. His numbers weren't that good. If someone had asked, at the end of his tenure, "How many did you have?", it wouldn't have been very impressive... abandoned by followers and friends alike, unrecognized by some of his closest colleagues when he showed up again... "Woe to you," he said, "when all speak well of you." I guess he knew what he was talking about. So far I'm avoiding this particular woe with great success. [smile]
peace -- Katie
I wish I could say that numbers was a gender thing for me. I lean toward agreeing with Katie about what is quantifiable. I fall into the trap of the numbers becoming important because it's difficult to measure everything else. If I could just have professional focus group attendants at every service, Bible study and event. . .well, then I could tell you if those small numbers of people are feeling effective and reaching others. But, alas, I do not have those attendants to run stats on all the tiny spaces between the pieces of church life we can clearly see.
I spent some time this week counseling myself out of getting bogged down in the numbers, because in the last two years our church "lost" more than 30 members to geographical moves and more than 30 additional members launched into a church plant. In a very short amount of time, I have watched a slow-growing children's ministry be cut almost in half.
Yes, there is joy in that group of church-planters who are someone else's numbers now, and there is no animosity for those lost to jobs and family needs living in other towns. That still doesn't stop me from asking myself what is that missing that could be bringing in new people to fill these empty places in our family?
Numbers. . .ugh!?
I have an accounting mind so you would think I would be all about numbers. Our human ways of measuring is complete opposite of the Lord's way. In His math - 1 is greater than the 99. To me the church is about community - sharing Jesus. In our one visit to Christ Church I sense a great deal of community!!!
Blessings,
Teresa
BTW - Hi Scott Freeman, this is Coach Siegel's wife! Small world meeting you on this blog.
While I'm not in the habit of quoting myself, this is from a blog I wrote two months ago on fear and failure:
"How will you define failure? I realized that failure wasn’t if we did this and had to close the doors in a year because not many people showed up and we couldn’t pay the bills. Failure would be if we failed to love the people God did bring us, if we failed to love each other in community, if we failed to feed, clothe and otherwise care for anyone. That would be failure… not if we simply failed to achieve any type of long term momentum and institutional stability. I realized that for me personally, failure would be if I didn’t even try. If you do this might you fail? I guess it depends on how you define failure. They say 80% of church plants fail. I don’t know about that… all I can say is that I think that many church plants that seem to be failures by the standard of “Did they make it?” were probably great adventures for many involved, probably introduced people to Christ and probably made a practical difference in the lives of some people who really needed those small, “failing” churches."
The numbers of those first Christians (namely Jesus' apostles) probably wouldn't impress many folks, but those guys' passion for sharing the gospel was nothing short of miraculous. Look at how they changed the world...literally!!!
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