http://www.christianpost.com/article/20080917/reveal-churches-aim-for-disciples-not-casual-christians.htm
[The Christian Post] 17 Sep 2008--Pastor Bill Hybels didn't give his life to the development of the local church just to gather a bunch of casual Christians, he says. He gave it to see people far from God find the love of Christ and fully devote themselves to God and what He is doing.
Expressing similar sentiments, Pastor Tim Gray of Bridge Community Church, a congregation of 400 in Leadington, Mo., says, "We're called to make disciples ... not members, not pew-sitters."
Many pastors would agree. But since the early Christian church, pastors have only had three ways to measure the spiritual growth of churchgoers and assess how effective churches were in developing Christ followers and not pew-sitters.
Those three methods were attendance, baptisms (or conversions), and resources (i.e. tithing), at least according to Cally Parkinson of Willow Creek Association.
"Those were your three ways of measuring because you really had no other way to figure out whether or not what you were doing was really helping people become increasingly intimate with Christ and increase their love for God and of others," said Parkinson, one of the leaders of WCA's Reveal research.
That is, until now.
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