Hugh Halter

I help facilitate an online collaborative learning environment for incarnational leaders, pastors and church planters called the MCAP.  Each week we coach leaders who are trying to influence people without the programs often associated with attractional church.  We find that even the most entrenched denominational leaders know we’re on to something and want their best and brightest to get our training, but eventually we get asked if we measure success…and if so, by what?

In the past, the Christendom report cards measured numbers in attendance, number of salvations, number of small groups, number of new churches, or budget numbers.  Essentially “numbers.”  Even though we all felt as though this can’t be God’s measurements, we found it hard to break free and find other thing to look at to see if we were being good leaders for God.

Without getting into too much detail, let me throw out a few ways we evaluate our faithfulness to God’s call.  Because most of us are dysfunctional westerns who can’t count movement, I’ll  guise it in the idea of numbers.  These will be in no particular order of importance.

1)    Number of new relationships formed where I know their names and they know mine.
2)    Number of people who have been uniquely blessed by me and my community.
3)    Number of people who invite me to be with their friends who don’t follow Christ.
4)    Number of ways, my street, neighborhood, or community are more livable because of my influence.
5)    Number of Christians that are actively confronting their consumerism and making adjustments at the life level.
6)    Number of Christians that I ask or persuade NOT to go on mission with us.
7)    Number of incarnational communities that commit to form around benevolent action instead of just a bible study.
8)    How long people remain at our weekly gathering after the formalities are over.
9)    Number of community-based initiatives our people are supporting with their time or money.
10)  Number of young leaders we’re intentionally developing.
11)   Number of people baptized: Still is a great guide to judge a persons commitment to follow Christ with the    community.
12)    Number of Bibles purchased because someone asked for one.

There are twelve quickies that work well for us.  You’ll notice we don’t count “professions of faith,” church attendance, church budget, or number of churches started.  We don’t think they historically measure anything real or transformative.

Jesus taught us to look for the real, when he said, “A good tree cannot bear bad fruit and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.”  The context of this scripture is to warn against false prophets and false teachers.  A bit harsh as an illustration, but I think the times require that we forcefully challenge the emptiness of our judgement upon what is successful and what is a waste of time.

To denominational leaders, this new report card will be tough to swallow initially.  However, I often encourage this new direction by reminding leaders that people are leaving everything related to our past success indicators.  The questions of irrelevance should propel us to look for new signs of life instead of clutching to what is dying and eroding away.

Long term, we do expect that churches will be born and that financial statements will increase and that conversions will be easy to find.  But we don’t start there or expect it prematurely. If you begin with the old goals in mind, you won’t live out the incarnational presence of Christ one person at a time. If you start with the latter, you’ll eventually find that people are following you and that they stay together in a missional form called….a church.

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