Measuring the Effectiveness of Our Mission

Edgar Schein, Professor of Management at MIT, says that whatever an organization measures and how it measures it becomes its de facto culture.

Churches and ministry organizations write mission statements that sound good on paper. But these only articulate wishful thinking if the way they measure success is contrary to those lofty mission statements.

Here is a random church’s mission statement taken from the internet:

“Our church seeks to make disciples for our Lord Jesus Christ through Christ-centered worship, Bible-centered spiritual growth, and evangelistic service.” 

Okay. That sounds pretty good, but how do you measure that?

The most widely used tools for measuring success, according to Thom Rainer and Ed Stetzer, are  “bodies, budget, and buildings,” in other words, how many people attend on Sunday, how much is collected in the offering, and how large the church facilities are (see Rainer and Stetzer’s Transformational Church: Creating a New Scorecard for Congregations)

However, if these are our primary measuring tools, this mission statement should read:

“Our church seeks to get as many people as possible to commit to attending our Sunday morning worship services and tithing.”

Hmmm…

Is that a good mission statement? How does that align with God’s mission in the world?

The mission that God has sent us on is not to attract people into the church. No, the goal is to send people into the culture as incarnational “little versions of Jesus” invading every institution and sphere as God’s instrument for bringing all things under the Lordship of Christ and His Kingdom.

The Gospel of Matthew offers this brief, telling outline of Jesus Mission:

Jesus traveled through all the towns and villages of that area, teaching in the synagogues and announcing the Good News about the Kingdom. And he healed every kind of disease and illness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were confused and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.  He said to his disciples, “The harvest is great, but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send more workers into his fields.” (Matthew 9:35-38)

What would happen if we faithfully followed this outline to measure our faithfulness to the mission of Jesus? 

(most of this was taken from a blog by Bob Robinson)