article on Changing the Metrics
October 29, 2008
The Asian American Pastors Leadership Community is a 2-year process that’s developing a selected group of Senior Pastors who are next generation Asian Americans (through a strategic partnership between L2 Foundation and Leadership Network).
During the group’s first meeting in June 2008, the pastors were interviewed regarding their leadership insights. These interviews have been incorporated into this newly released concept paper, “Changing the Metrics: The Benefits of Measuring Devotion and Obedience, Not just Numbers” by Pat Springle. Here’s an excerpt:
“Today, people in our churches—and especially young people—want to devote their lives to a cause that’s bigger than themselves,” observes Ken Fong, pastor of Evergreen Baptist Church in Los Angeles.
“In our church,” he reflects, “we’ve had to change what we measure. We no longer use size as our primary metric. Instead, we spend time and effort analyzing the compelling intangibles of the Spirit’s work: devotion, love, and obedience.”
Read the entire paper via download from the Leadership Network website: http://leadnet.org/SampleDownloads.asp?ID=555&Type=Downloads
October 30th, 2008
Thanks for sharing this with us. The thrust of the article is right on. But many of us may have board members who are more focused on numbers. The problem is that it is much more difficult to measure progress in Christlikeness than it is to count heads. I have been looking into some tools that attempt to measure spiritual maturity as a way for us to gauge the effectiveness of the ministry at my church.
October 31st, 2008
Ken, thanks for your comment.
The first step is to realize the importance of measuring the right things, and that counting people is not a sufficient indicator. Then, good people can start working on the measurement tools to measure what really matters.
There is one that Randy Frazee developed, called The Christian Life Profile Assessment Tool. http://www.zondervan.com/Cultures/en-US/Product/ProductDetail.htm?ProdID=com.zondervan.9780310251613&QueryStringSite=Zondervan
I haven’t used this assessment tool, but it looks like a step in the right direction to assess one’s spiritual life.
Jesus says you shall know them by their fruit, so that suggests real tangible ways to see those fruits, and to count them.