How does a church measure health? Usually, a church is running some sort of software program that allows them to get reports on attendance, visitors, finances, etc. But church health runs much deeper than that. Things like community involvement, church involvement, active evangelism, consistent time in the word, consistent time in prayer, consistent giving. All these traits are characteristics of a "spiritually healthy" person. Get enough of these people in your church and you could deem your church "spiritually healthy".
The problem is in measurement. How can we know these things. What sort of surveys are available? I do know that Saddleback has come up with a survey that measures "health" in an individual based upon dozens of criteria. What would be really interesting is to have a way to get all of that information into a report that gave you the "big" picture of the church. You could see strengths, weaknesses, trends, etc. You could move the data around as you like and gain all sorts of insights.
I think the bottom line is metrics. You can't manage what you don't measure and if you aren't measuring, then you're blind to what's really going on.
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This is my confessional, and you all are my priest.
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- Nausea (Jean Paul Sartre)
- Kierkegaard's Journals (Soren Kierkegaard)
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- Day & Night Devotional (Charles Spurgeon)
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- phil
- Boise
- I'm grew up a PK (pastors kid), left my beliefs behind and became an agnostic, only to come back to the faith of my upbringing.
3 comments:
interesting. i think the only good, effective way to measure spiritual health is by knowing what's goin on in your hometeams. that's where connection, accountability, and true growth happens. the one on one.
I agree, but if that was the only model used to measure heath, things like community service, giving, and missions, among other things would be left out of the equation. I think the small groups model is very effective as a litmus, as well as a driving force for direction and change in a church... if utilized properly. Thanks for the input.
Well written article.
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