Church metrics can be helpful. But only if we use them wisely. And hold them lightly.
Numbers matter at our church because every number is a person.
No.
Just... No.
I don’t doubt that most pastors who say that mean it. And they truly do care for people. But numbers are not people and people are not numbers.
Most businesses are figuring this out, so why are huge sections of the church so far behind on it?
At Starbucks, when I stand in line waiting for my coffee, I don’t have to remember a number any more. They may say my name wrong half the time, but even when they call me “Car” (yes, that happened recently) it means they’re trying. A number means they’re not.
Even my phone and TV have figured this out. I don’t dial a number, I say a person’s name. And I have no idea what channel my favorite TV shows are on – if they’re even on a channel. I enter the name of the show into the search bar, and voilà! there it is.
But too many pastors are hanging on to the increasingly antiquated notion that every number is a person and vice versa. Read More
While I agree with Karl Vaters that numbers are not everything, some pastors may develop an unhealthy preoccupation with numbers, and people should always come first, I am also concerned about how we can use the notion that "quality is more important than quantity" to rationalize church stagnation and decline. Are we producing high quality disciples if the disciples we produces do not mix with unchurched people, form relationships with them, share their faith with them, and make disciples of them? The kind of disciples that Jesus produced were disciples who replicated themselves. They made more disciples. Jesus himself sets the standard by which which we should measure the quality of the disciples that we make. Producing self-replicating disciples is not the same as filling the church's worship center so that it is standing room only every Sunday.
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