Is Your Church Missional? (Monday Morning Metrics)

This is the fourth in an ongoing series I’m calling Monday morning metrics which is focused on measuring the things in your ministry that matter the most. It seems like everyone today is talking about becoming missional. While I know that some of this is just talk, I am also very excited to see more and more churches and people embracing a new understanding of what it means to be a Christ-follower. My observation is that even as many churches are trying to become missional, few are measuring their missional progress. If they continue to use the old metrics of attendance and giving, they can actually send a message that being missional is not really important. I’ll be the first to admit that measuring missional progress isn’t easy, but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try. A couple of relatively simple metrics to consider putting in place are:

• The number of people who are involved in a ministry that serves others (not the internal ministries for members)
• Out of all your volunteers, the percentage of volunteers involved in externally-focused ministries.
• Or if you want a more significant metric that is harder to measure, estimate the number of hours that your members have volunteered in these external ministries during the past year.

I realize that none of these fully capture true heart change, but they are indicators and they’re better than not measuring anything.]]>