Measuring the Output of the Church
People grappling with how to make their churches more productive often look at the wrong things. They may look at the church budget, for instance, and wonder why their putting more money in this program or that staff position doesn’t make things measurably better. Or they may grill the pastor over his use of time, trying to make sure he isn’t wasting that precious commodity. But neither the church’s budget nor pastoral reports account for the actual work product of the church.
What the church actually exists to produce is three things: the prayers, the good deeds, and the testimony of the saints. You know, all those things that ordinary Christians are supposed to produce in the course of their ordinary lives. If what we pay for as a congregation or what the pastoral staff can do for us helps increase that output, well and good. But simply spending more money or having the zippiest preacher won’t make your church any more productive. Indeed, if you are spending too much money on the wrong things, or wind up overstaffed (which includes being served by overqualified staff whose cost is more than the value generated by whoever they can bring in), then all the stuff you’ve been taught you need to make your church a going proposition is in fact hindering you in your pursuit of spiritual vitality.
Staff and buildings and whatnot are a convenience to the church, not essential to its ministry. Its ministry - its actual work product - is what the members do. When we reduce them to an audience for the preacher, when we think of “putting seats in the seats” (and having the snazziest seating to put them in) as of first importance, we are missing the point.
This doesn’t mean that staff - especially, ordained clergy - are an extra, or that buildings and offices aren’t important. But the congregation is not so many customers we are trying to attract to our place of business. They are the business. Bringing new people to faith is not making sales, it is hiring workers. The audience, the customer, is God. The people of God are trying to please him, with their prayers, their good deeds, their testimony. All that stuff we can measure with budgets and reports is there to help the actual workers do their work. We have gotten things backward.
The clergy are not the epitome of what a Christian should be, such that laity should see themselves as “less than” because they do not have the functions and powers of the clergy. The clergy are just laity with extra responsibilities. They have souls to save like everybody else; the ordinary duties of the Christian are not replaced by the special duties of the clergy, which are in addition to the ordinary duties of the laity.
Buildings are places to meet. Having your own place to meet is more convenient to a congregation than always looking for someplace to meet. And if you must have a building, then having a nice building is probably better than having a shabby one. But form should follow function, not the other way around. We need buildings that enhance the main thing we’re about. Creating a gorgeous temple that requires the congregation to adapt to it (as if they were a mere audience buying tickets for particular performances) -- and which requires us to constantly badger people to pony up to pay for it all - is a distraction.
What does it actually take to be the church? Christians bound to each other, doing Christian things (praying, doing good deeds, testifying). A pastor helps keep them together and builds up Christ in them and among them with the sacraments and pastoral care, though each little group of Christians does not necessarily need their own personal chaplain. Beyond that, we need a book - The Book. And we need to rustle up some bread and wine and water and maybe some dedicated vessels to hold them. Everything else - and I do mean, everything else -- is an extra: something that enhances what we’re about together, or something that gets in the way of what we’re about together. And we need to ruthlessly evaluate all the stuff and all the practices we have accumulated and make hard decisions in the light of the work product we’re responsible for as to what to keep and what to get rid of.
What the church actually exists to produce is three things: the prayers, the good deeds, and the testimony of the saints. You know, all those things that ordinary Christians are supposed to produce in the course of their ordinary lives. If what we pay for as a congregation or what the pastoral staff can do for us helps increase that output, well and good. But simply spending more money or having the zippiest preacher won’t make your church any more productive. Indeed, if you are spending too much money on the wrong things, or wind up overstaffed (which includes being served by overqualified staff whose cost is more than the value generated by whoever they can bring in), then all the stuff you’ve been taught you need to make your church a going proposition is in fact hindering you in your pursuit of spiritual vitality.
Staff and buildings and whatnot are a convenience to the church, not essential to its ministry. Its ministry - its actual work product - is what the members do. When we reduce them to an audience for the preacher, when we think of “putting seats in the seats” (and having the snazziest seating to put them in) as of first importance, we are missing the point.
This doesn’t mean that staff - especially, ordained clergy - are an extra, or that buildings and offices aren’t important. But the congregation is not so many customers we are trying to attract to our place of business. They are the business. Bringing new people to faith is not making sales, it is hiring workers. The audience, the customer, is God. The people of God are trying to please him, with their prayers, their good deeds, their testimony. All that stuff we can measure with budgets and reports is there to help the actual workers do their work. We have gotten things backward.
The clergy are not the epitome of what a Christian should be, such that laity should see themselves as “less than” because they do not have the functions and powers of the clergy. The clergy are just laity with extra responsibilities. They have souls to save like everybody else; the ordinary duties of the Christian are not replaced by the special duties of the clergy, which are in addition to the ordinary duties of the laity.
Buildings are places to meet. Having your own place to meet is more convenient to a congregation than always looking for someplace to meet. And if you must have a building, then having a nice building is probably better than having a shabby one. But form should follow function, not the other way around. We need buildings that enhance the main thing we’re about. Creating a gorgeous temple that requires the congregation to adapt to it (as if they were a mere audience buying tickets for particular performances) -- and which requires us to constantly badger people to pony up to pay for it all - is a distraction.
What does it actually take to be the church? Christians bound to each other, doing Christian things (praying, doing good deeds, testifying). A pastor helps keep them together and builds up Christ in them and among them with the sacraments and pastoral care, though each little group of Christians does not necessarily need their own personal chaplain. Beyond that, we need a book - The Book. And we need to rustle up some bread and wine and water and maybe some dedicated vessels to hold them. Everything else - and I do mean, everything else -- is an extra: something that enhances what we’re about together, or something that gets in the way of what we’re about together. And we need to ruthlessly evaluate all the stuff and all the practices we have accumulated and make hard decisions in the light of the work product we’re responsible for as to what to keep and what to get rid of.