Thoughts from the Christian perspective: discernment issues as they relate to the current state of the church and society.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Ministry Priority
The most important factor in a man's ministry is not the number of converts he has (or how many people attend his church), but whether he is faithful to the Lord. Dave Swavely, Who Are You to Judge? p.53
I have read many e-mail discussions on how to evaluate the effectiveness of ministry with most, if not all, settling on this same conclusion. I believe the subject comes up because faithfulness and spiritual growth can neither be measured by accumulating metrics to analyze results, nor can statistical models be developed to test future trends. What works very well for inanimate goods and processes are fairly worthless when applied to a living organism.
For living things, you know how it should act, and if it does not, steps are taken to mend damage and build up weaknesses, so that it may live as it should.
Getting a lot of people saved would seem like a pretty good measurement, I guess. But the problem with just measuring church size is that if you create a fun and hip church, you can attract tons of Christians from the area and thereby make a big church, without actually getting many people saved.
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I have read many e-mail discussions on how to evaluate the effectiveness of ministry with most, if not all, settling on this same conclusion. I believe the subject comes up because faithfulness and spiritual growth can neither be measured by accumulating metrics to analyze results, nor can statistical models be developed to test future trends. What works very well for inanimate goods and processes are fairly worthless when applied to a living organism.
ReplyDeleteFor living things, you know how it should act, and if it does not, steps are taken to mend damage and build up weaknesses, so that it may live as it should.
Getting a lot of people saved would seem like a pretty good measurement, I guess. But the problem with just measuring church size is that if you create a fun and hip church, you can attract tons of Christians from the area and thereby make a big church, without actually getting many people saved.
ReplyDelete