The missional church in North America needs to be measured in a completely different way from the metrics the traditional church has been using. (Reggie McNeal, Missional Renaissance, p. 67-68)What does our annual scorecard tell us? It tells us if we are increasing or decreasing in number of churches, membership, worship and Sunday School attendance, and giving. It tells us the proportion of mission dollars going to EPC and non-EPC causes. It tells us that many of our churches don't understand what a "baptized roll" is, because the numbers don't add up. It tells us how many of our churches have women officers. It gives us the ability to build relatively current contact lists for various areas of ministry. Our annual scorecard tells us a little about how our congregations are reaching beyond their own membership. We can report to some degree the proportion of new members coming from other churches and those new to the faith. We can report what proportion of our congregations' giving goes outside our own walls.
What does our Annual Statistical and Financial Report communicate? A strong message goes out each year that we are concerned about our institutional growth. We feel successful when we send in a report with numbers going up and we are a little concerned when they're going the other way. When we we look at all our reports together, we'd rather see a larger percentage of our congregations growing rather than declining or on a plateau. We'd like to see a higher proportion of our membership being received because of conversion rather than changing churches. We are pleased that we have a comparatively high ratio of mission giving to income. All that is good to know, but, for the most part, we are measuring our internal rather than external focus.
The EPC adopted a definition of a missional church and denomination in 2009. Part of that definition says, A missional church is concerned with more than maintaining programs for existing members; it is called to mobilize its people both both incividually and as a community to daily self-sacrifice fot the hurting world around them. A missional church is both inwardly strong and outwardly focused. If the EPC is trying to make a missional shift from internal to external, and if it's true that "what's rewarded gets done," and if it's true that "what's expected gets inspected," then we're measuring only half of what our missional definition calls for. What needs to change about the EPC's annual scorecard?
I am seriously interested in your answers to that question. Please leave some comments on how we can change our scorecard to measure how we are doing in allocating our resources of prayer, people, time, finances, facilities, and technologies (McNeal's categories in Missional Renaissance, chapter 4). If you'd rather not leave your comment publicly, you're welcome to email me privately.
I would also love to hear your stories on how your church is directing those resources toward your community and beyond. Small churches can easily slip into a survival rather than a servant mentality, or their fellowship can become closed and comfortable, blurring their external focus. Your story may be the encouragement other leaders of small churches may need right now. Leave a comment with your story - or email me privately.
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Excellent writing here . . . I agree that this is where we need to begin, that is, adding to the way we report what is happening within the local EPC church.
ReplyDeleteFor instance, our church fills in the template of the EPC statistical form each year on how many we have in Sunday School. However, our church for the past four years conducts a Good News Club each Tuesday through Child Evangelism Fellowship at a local elementary school that has a number of financially struggling families. The numbers of children that come is impressive: about 40 kids show up (11 of these children are unchurched and have never attended a standard Sunday School Class within the four walls of a church). Doesn’t the EPC want to know about this as well? How about . . . How many Sunday School type classes do you operate outside the walls of the church?; How many children attend?, How many of these children are unchurched?, How many of these children probably would never have learned about Jesus in a standard church-based Sunday School but know about Him now because the church missionally went outside of its walls?
Another example: for over two years our church started the Grace in the Mountains Shepherding Ministry, which is a biblical counseling ministry for those who think they could benefit from such assistance. Whereas the Good News Club was intended to go outside of the church to the kids, this was implemented to invite those who did not go to a church into a church building to find hope in Christ. Since then we have given freely about 400 hours of biblical counseling to the community at large—no affiliation to the church, not members of our congregation—simply people in need—many did not know the Savior and other did but were unchurched. How about . . . How many people in need did your church counsel in Christ this year?, How many counseling hours did the church give to those in the greater community for the cause of Christ? Wouldn’t the answers to this type of questions interest the EPC?
The bottom line is I know about a number of small churches and larger churches that do an incredible work in reaching their community in love for the cause of Christ and such ministry should be reported to the EPC.
Ken Jones
Ed, I got excited as I read the 4th chapter of "Missional Renaissance." There's a lot of good in it--much to challenge the conventional way of doing things, with excellent practical ideas. But there was one area of the chapter where I found an imbalance that for my part effected the whole. On page 73, the heading "Praying for the Lost" caught my eye. He follows it with this sentence, at the bottom of the page: "It is surprising how many churches rarely challenge people to pray for the salvation of people who need Jesus." I turned the page, expecting him to elaborate. But a new paragraph heading began ("Web Site Prayer"). I wrote in my margins, "Give me more!"
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree with his initial premise more: "we need to challenge people to pray for the salvation of others." But HOW? He gives so many wonderful examples in other areas, but in this one, the most important of all, we're left with a sentence but now practical examples. So to continue the conversation, here are a few I'd like to suggest:
1) For several Sunday we put posterboard in front of our church with markers and had our members come forward to write the names of people who needed to come or return to the Lord. We did this during a time of prayer, and kept it up for several Sundays so we could pray for them. Today, some of those folks are members of our church (two of them are preparing the meal for our Alpha dinner tonight!).
(2) Host a special prayer meeting to call out to God for lost friends, neighbors, children... Jim Cymbala shares a wonderful example of how God restored his prodigal daughter after such a meeting in his book, "Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire."
(3) Organize prayer partners in your church to pray daily for lost ones for a set period of time. This helps us be faithful in prayer and hold one another accountable.
"Missional Renaissance" is a solid book, but I'd sure love to see that section expanded! I'd also love to hear others' ideas in this forum about how to pray for the lost. Please weigh in!
Ed,
ReplyDeleteI have had this conversation with Jeff before, but while I was pastor at Trinity, the most fruitful ministry there was the Hispanic outreach we ran, where people came to know Christ every week. Usually, these folks would be gone in a week or two or at least by the next growing season, so they never showed up on the EPC statistical reports, which I thought then and still believe means the report is a partial picture at best. In the mission church where I now pastor, we share our faith more often than I ever did in any other pastorate, yet this shows up no where on any statistical report. Ministry and volunteer hours, plus people who are being touched by the church and engaged with the gospel seem to be more important measuring rods than any of the current statistical reports we do. I say we change the way we report so it reflects Kingdom of God values!
How about reporting how many projects, volunteers and their hours that are done outside the church and in their community each year?
ReplyDeleteHow about reporting the number of bible studies the church sponsors inside the workplaces of business, government, education, or media?
How about reporting stories testifying to how the church has impacted the homeless, elderly, sick, widows, and orphans outside the four walls of the church during the year?
How about asking churches what are the five greatest needs in their community and what are they doing to met them?
How about asking if their church has done a community project with another local church during the year?