Comments on: Grading Ministry Effectiveness

By: Rich Kirkpatrick

Rich Kirkpatrick — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 03:35:18 +0000

Well, well…

- worship services consistent in quality and impact
- volunteers supported, expanded, maximized
- growing in my skills and knowledge
- new leaders developed and set in place
- my soul has margin, and family life supported
- then..of course the actual projects, events, etc. all completed to satisfaction…

I would add that metrics should be based on what a person is supposed to do. Right? Too often, micromanagement wants to delegate the job without the authority or support to get the job done. Church staff people do great in lean times, but when leaders squeeze too much, then the obvious happens. How about measuring that–the idea of how expectations are funded, supported and other such sanity?

By: vince

vince — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 19:53:10 +0000

Important questions to ask:

>Are you getting quality time with your wife and kids?
>Can you pay your bills?
>Are you getting the solitude you needs to be an effective spiritual leader?
>Are you being fed?

By: James McLean

James McLean — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 04:04:18 +0000

well, i can’t answer this for anyone else but the current ministry i am involved with. there really isn’t anything that we can do to improve upon the mission that Jesus originated. so i guess my questions would be… How are we making disciples? What does it mean to be a disciple?(Matt. 28) Are we cultivating a biblical imagination in people? Are we challenging people to live out the mission of Jesus?
are people’s lives being transformed because of the ministry of this church?

By: Billy Chia

Billy Chia — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 02:19:21 +0000

Of course some the most important metrics are the hardest to measure: How do you measure an individual growing closer to God? How do you measure community? Can you double someone’s faith? What’s that look like?

Although I agree with James that the whole church should be working toward a cohesive goal. I’d probably seek to find evidence that youth, worship, outreach, etc.. are supporting one another an not competing with one another.

Also, perhaps you can involve the people you are grading in goal setting. They could earn a grade based on how closely they met, failed to meet, or exceeded their goals. But it also leads into being able to talk about what factors contributed and how to improve in the future.

By: Matthew Daniel

Matthew Daniel — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 23:29:30 +0000

I’m sending you an email about this one.

By: James

James — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 22:51:10 +0000

This might sound a bit nebulous, but one thing I know we’re starting to work on at The Summit is “What is our thematic goal, and what are we doing to reach it?”. A thematic goal is something that every ministry can strive for. For us right now, it’s “double” – double our services, double our teams, and double the size of the church, etc. By introducing a theme like that the spans every ministry in the church, it introduces a bunch of tangible, quantifiable measurements. Really good exercise that is helping us measure the effectiveness of what we’re doing.