I’m of the opinion that improving in how we evaluate our ministries can help us be better stewards of the resources God has given us, helping us better meet His intended ends. To do that, we need to set up a scoreboard and figure out the score.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I don’t believe we have the freedom to adjust God’s mission, or what maturity and faithfulness mean. These are fixed by the apostolic witness. But we do need to know how we’re doing in relation to His standards. And we do need to do the hard work of figuring out how we will go about meeting, and preparing others to meet, those standards. We also need to figure out whether our various methods and tactics are bringing us closer to, or leading us further away from, God’s goals for His church. To pull that off, we need to constantly be evaluating. Unless we want to calcify, there must be some form of feedback loop that keeps us reforming how we do things on the ground.

What I’m suggesting is that we can do better than evaluating ministry by sitting around a table with our ministry heads, asking each in turn, “How’s your ministry going?” and then being content with them either pointing to the attendance stats, or giving a subjective rating.

What that requires of us is to

• clarify what our ideal situation is,
• figure out what structure best supports that situation,
• determine the best indicators of whether we are moving towards or away from that desired future state, and
• choose milestones at which you need to take any actions.

We can then assess where we stand in relation to these indicators, which can be done at a macro level (looking at the whole church) or the micro level (zooming in on one aspect of church life), and adjust our tactics based on that feedback.

Establishing our ideal situation and structures is no small task. They will be informed by the Bible, our context, our moment in time, our tradition, and the collective desires of those whom God has gathered in your local church. Getting clear here is incredibly important, but for another day. We’re going to focus in on indicators.

The indicators (or metrics) are feedback devices that act as co-pilots, guiding us towards our destination. So, the more vivid that destination is, and the more appropriate the indicators, the better placed our group of local church leaders/guardians is to be setting the agenda and faithfully shepherding.

My bet is most of us have some form of what we’d love to see already buried in our heads. And the reality is that, if you do, that is what you are drawing on in your responses to whatever feedback you get. My question to you is this: how confident are you that those you serve alongside share the same mental picture of the future?

Read part 3 (on why external measures are important) here.