+1 901-619-2516
info@ministryactionplans.com

3 Ways to Measure Church Health

By

big_ideas_logo

3 Ways to Measure Church Health



We have long measured outward signs of church health. They tell the story of needs met, people reached and lives changed. But do traditional measures of health tell the most important parts of that story?

Most churches measure the usual things and count them as measures of success or failure. While that can be a useful exercise, there’s more to church health than attendance and money. Andy Stanley and the North Point team say it this way:

Too many church leaders have bought into the myth that to clarify the win means establishing attendance goals and raising a lot of money. These can certainly be indicators about the health of your organization, but strong numbers in these areas do not necessarily mean you are winning.

Consider how you know your church is winning. Healthy churches are known for their worship and their witness.  They are purposeful places of discipleship, ministry, evangelism and missions. They are Great Commission and Great Commandment places of authentic Christian fellowship and community.

The key is knowing with certainty whether or not those words accurately describe your church. You may intuitively know the answer based on experience and anecdotal evidence, but dig deeper to build an evenhanded picture of church health.

Consider 3 ways to measure church health objectively:

  1. Research who you are and where you’ve been. Research helps you know precisely where your church is at this moment. It helps you answer important questions about the people who populate your church (and the ones who don’t). Compile data and gather information on the journey your church has traveled and where it is right now. Map the trend lines over a period of several years so you can visualize areas of strength and areas of opportunity. Read more
  2. Ask the right questions. Analyzing the data you’ve gathered may take some time and effort. It may also require a brainstorming session of your ministry staff team and other church leaders. Pray over the results of your research. Examine the numerical data closely and stay true to what it tells you about your current situation.
    • Ask “why” and “how” questions. Read more
    • Don’t stop asking questions. Read more
    • Consider the sample questions below.
  3. Consider past and present definitions of success. Focus on outputs vs. inputs. Inputs tell you what ingredients go in to something. Outputs tell you what comes out on the other side. Move beyond simple input measures to the more significant outcomes you’re aiming for. Find ways to measure success quantitatively. While qualitative measures are subjective and experiential, quantitative measures, or metrics, are objective and numerical. In most cases, quantitative measures are the best way to measure outcomes without bias. Read more

So what’s the Big Idea?

Research who you are and where you’ve been. Ask the right questions about the information you gather. And consider past and present definitions of success. That’s the way to take an unbiased, evenhanded snapshot of church health.

Resources

Ask the Right Questions

  • What does the raw data tell you about your church?
  • Is your church growing, plateaued or declining?
  • Are you reaching unchurched people in your community?
  • Does the church reflect its community? (race, age and more)
  • How many church members did it take to baptize one person?
  • Does this number seem unreasonably high?
  • Are you reproducing disciple-making disciples?
  • Does the church show signs of spiritual health?
  • What are age division attendance patterns in small groups?
  • What growth opportunities exist in those patterns?
  • Is morning worship attendance advancing or declining?


Source

Andy Stanley, Reggie Joiner and Lane Jones, 7 Practices of Effective Ministry (Colorado Springs: Multnomah Books, 2004), 71.

Shift Gears from Good to Great

By

big_ideas_logo

Shift Gears from Good to Great



There have been too many seasons in my life when I settled for the good at the expense of the great. It’s happened when I was too comfortable with life, my job and my organization, and the result has been something far less than what I’m capable of. In those moments, a lack of self-discipline and the absence of a personal growth plan created conditions where ruts and bad habits flourished.

Several years ago, I struggled with a prolonged period of complacency. Soon after the completion of a major project at work, and despite my best efforts to avoid it, I rested on the laurels of past success. Partly the result of burnout and partly due to a letdown from the “high” of a great accomplishment, good-enough work took the place of really great work.

It didn’t happen suddenly. Instead, a series of small compromises gave way to a habit of mediocrity. The difference between good and great was so slight that many didn’t even notice the change. For some friends and team members, good-enough living has always been standard operating procedure. These folks were satisfied with less effort and vision, and a lesser result.

After two years of vapid work, it dawned on me that I couldn’t go on this way. When the great is within reach and possible, the good just isn’t good enough.

Recognize that habits can progress in both good and bad directions. When you make future-focused choices, you build growth habits that lead to breakthrough results. When you make comfortable choices, you tend to reinforce habits that lead to apathy, complacency and mediocrity.

So how do we combat the slide toward good-enough living? Jim Collins wrote that:

Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness is largely a matter of conscious choice, and discipline.

The simple answer is that great living starts with a decision to live intentionally. Make the decision to shift gears from good to great in every area of your life:

  • Spiritually – Glorify God in everything you do.
  • Financially – Save for your future and eschew materialism.
  • Intellectually – Learn something new every day.
  • Physically – Exercise your mind and body regularly.
  • Personally – Set personal goals daily and weekly.
  • Professionally – Grow in your professional skills and knowledge.
  • Organizationally – Give your best work every day.

So what’s the Big Idea?

Don’t settle for the good at the expense of the great. Make the decision to shift gears from good to great in every area of your life.

Resources

Use Medium-Term Goals to Stay on Target

By

big_ideas_logo

Use Medium-Term Goals to Stay on Target



Medium- term goals are a natural extension of weekly goals, details and to-do lists. They are the incremental checkpoints that have to be reached on the way to annual goals and objectives.

Let’s define the duration of goals this way:

  • Short-Term – 30 days or less
  • Medium-Term – 2 to 11 months
  • Long-Term – 12 months or more

We often associate goal-setting with annual goals—the type of goals typically set as a part of performance review processes. But while annual goals are important, they aren’t very effective as standalone objectives. In fact, recent evidence confirms that goal-setting should happen more frequently than once a year:

The traditional once-a-year setting of employee goals and performance review is totally out of date,” says Kris Duggan [co-founder of Silicon Valley startup firm BetterWorks]. “To really improve performance, goals need to be set more frequently, be more transparent to the rest of the company, and progress towards them measured more often.

Consider 3 ways that medium-term goals help you stay on target:

  1. Medium-term goals bridge short-term and long-term goals. While short-term goals form your daily and weekly nuts-and-bolts task list, you need bridge goals to steer you toward your long-term objectives. Medium-term goals fit the bill, providing a progress report at set times throughout the year.
  2. Medium-term goals are a natural time to make adjustments. If there’s a problem with your “big picture” plan, you’re more likely to discover it as you set and evaluate medium-term goals. Intermediate goals help you adapt to changing conditions and, if necessary, adjust the long-term objective.
  3. Medium-term goals focus on quarterly results. A study of big companies by consulting firm Deloitte found that: “Those which set quarterly goals are nearly four times more likely to be in the top quartile of performers.” It pays to set incremental checkpoints as you strive toward annual goals and objectives.

Quarterly and semi-annual goals can be applied in your personal, professional and organizational worlds. Whatever the area of your life, apply medium-term goals to stay on target:

  • Personally – Family, self-improvement and life development goals
  • Professionally – Career, work and leadership development goals
  • Organizationally – Business or ministry vision, values and OGSM-driven goals

So what’s the Big Idea?

It pays to set medium-term goals, especially quarterly and semi-annual ones. They bridge short-term and long-term goals and provide incremental checkpoints to make adjustments as you strive toward annual goals and objectives.

Resources


Source

“The Quantified Serf” (Schumpeter), The Economist (March 7, 2015), 70.

From Self-Reliance to God-Reliance

By

big_ideas_logo

From Self-Reliance to God-Reliance



Think about the ways that being independent gets sewn into your life. It happens in school from the first day you go to Kindergarten. It happens in business as you learn to promote yourself and advance your career. It happens as you move away from home and take responsibility for things your parents used to do for you.

But after all those lessons in becoming independent, you have to live in the opposite direction. For most of us, the first big lesson happens in marriage. We discover the limits of self-reliance and the beauty of a collaborative, loving relationship with someone else.

But the greatest lesson in dependent living is the one we learn as a child of God. Jesus said:

I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. – John 15:5 (NIV)

Abiding in Christ means that you depend on Him in every corner of your life. That happens most readily through prayer. Bill Hybels said it this way:

From birth we have been learning the rules of self-reliance as we strain and struggle to achieve self-sufficiency. Prayer flies in the face of those deep-seated values. It is an assault on human autonomy, an indictment of independent living. To people in the fast lane, determined to make it on their own, prayer is an embarrassing interruption.

Interruption or not, prayer is the indispensable ingredient in any relationship with a communicating God. Without it, the faith relationship breaks down and your independence asserts itself once more. To break the chains of self-reliance and self-sufficiency:

  1. Start your day with prayer. Confess your sins before God and commit to an attitude of worship and Spirit-sensitivity throughout the day. Taking that simple step at the start helps build a supernatural perspective for the daily grind.
  2. Live with God-reliance vs. self-reliance. Approach your daily routine with healthy skepticism about old habits and tendencies. Ask key questions to keep the proper perspective for living a life on mission for God. Pray short prayers throughout the day, asking God to help in both the big and small things.
  3. Consider the source of every decision you make. Are you making decisions with human wisdom, knowledge and motivation, or is a supernatural God transforming and directing your life? Remember that prayer and meditation is not an interruption, it’s at the heart of your relationship with a communicating God.
  4. Acknowledge your inadequacy at every turn. Demonstrate humility and servant leadership, remembering that God is holy and you are not. Believers are not meant to operate independently from the sustaining presence of their God. Your humble words and actions make that task a lot easier.

So what’s the Big Idea?

Live with God-reliance vs. self-reliance in every aspect of your life. The key is regular communication with God in the big and small things of life. That unnatural activity pushes self-reliance to the side and leads you to embrace total dependence on an eternally faithful God.

Resources


Source

Bill Hybels, Too Busy Not to Pray: Slowing Down to Be with God (10th Anniversary Edition, Revised and Expanded), 2nd ed. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1998), 9.

Confidence, Uncertainty and Spiritual Leadership

By

big_ideas_logo

Confidence, Uncertainty and Spiritual Leadership



Leading with confidence is highly valued. The 1984 TV commercial for Gillette’s Dry Idea antiperspirant ended with the famous ad slogan: “Never let them see you sweat.” In recent days, Duck Dynasty’s Jase Robertson deadpanned: “When you don’t know what you’re doing, you might as well do it quickly.”

Most people and organizations value leaders who exude confidence at every turn. Hesitation indicates flawed thinking and indecisiveness marks weak character. For those reasons and more, young leaders learn early in their careers to push uncertainty aside and project an air of confident decision making. It’s a key character trait that usually leads to positions of status and influence.

But do leaders always have clarity and confidence about their decisions and plans? The honest answer has to be no. Don Moore’s Harvard Business Review article sums it up well:

In the long term, honesty is the only sustainable strategy. Rather than fooling themselves, or us, we should want our leaders to represent the truth, even when it makes their jobs harder. That is, after all, one of the great missions to which we entrust them: to take the complex information and broad vantage point to which they have access and convey it to the rest of us in a useful way. Doing so represents authentic and courageous leadership, even if it means being less certain.

Courageous leaders find a way to embrace confidence and uncertainty together as key characteristics of humble and honest leadership. What are the appropriate moments to be less certain about the future? Be honest when:

  1. You don’t have enough information.
  2. The pace of change—with positive and negative outcomes—is too rapid for accurate forecasts (and decision making).
  3. The opportunity cost for a decision isn’t clear.
  4. Sharp disagreement exists on your team.

None of this means that a leader should stop leading or making decisions. In fact, these are the times when honest leadership is most needed. Communicate with others that uncertainty exists. And recognize that there are times when God calls you to pause and wait. That’s not a comfortable place for many leaders, but it may be your calling for a season.

For leaders who find it difficult to practice uncertainty (and I count myself in this group), consider a few ideas for more honest and open leadership:

  • Wait on the Lord. Waiting is not easy in a culture of doing, but it’s a God-called place for every believer. If you spend too little time considering what God is saying in the quiet moments, then the watch word is “wait”—create some space in your day to pray, study the Word and worship. Read more
  • Expand your prayer habit. Make prayer part of your daily routine for greater effectiveness in every area of your life. Expand that principle to your family and church to appropriate divine power for living the everyday mission of God. Most of all, believe in the power of prayer. Read more
  • Practice humility. Demonstrate “serve first” leadership at every opportunity. Serve your leader with humility. Encourage a “serve first” attitude in the people you lead. Seek a “serve first” attitude in potential hires. Read more
  • Listen to learn. Discuss key challenges and decisions with team members at all levels of the organization. Collaborate with team members and listen to what they have to say.
  • Protect yourself from over-confidence. Check your motivations, your knowledge and your heart when you have a high level of confidence in a decision you’re about to make.
  • Conduct due diligence. Analyze the situation and research the facts impacting a decision. If you don’t have enough information to proceed, then it’s time to wait on the Lord.
  • Pause before big decisions. Plan an intentional pause before making an important decision.

So what’s the Big Idea?

Courageous leaders find a way to embrace confidence and uncertainty together as key characteristics of humble and honest leadership. Communicate with others that uncertainty exists. And recognize that there are times when God calls you to pause and wait.

Resources


Source

“Smart Leaders Are OK with Seeming Uncertain” by Don Moore, Harvard Business Review (February 10, 2015), https://hbr.org/2015/02/smart-leaders-are-ok-with-seeming-uncertain.

We provide open access tools to help ministry teams lead, grow and serve.

About

Nonprofit Store

Fair Use Notice

Sitemap

Ministry Tools

4 Growth Steps

Recharge Your Church

Keep Your Church Out of Court

Big Ideas Blog

Execution

Strategy

Church Growth

Operations

Ideas

Categories

Leadership

Evangelism

Strategy

Church Growth

Operations

Personal Growth

Contact

104 Bayside Circle, West Monroe, LA 71291

+1 901-619-2516

info@ministryactionplans.com

Search

Copyright © 2025 Ministry Action Plans. All rights reserved.