A good bud wrote this EPIC blog post (with an EPIC-sized title) the other day titled “Why Willow Creek and Saddleback are Losing Influence While North Point and LifeChurch.tv are Gaining Influence.” It’s a doozy but well worth a read.
It made me think about how one can really measure “influence” and “effectiveness” in terms of online. I know that one could easily drum up specific targets that are all-but assumed in the Christian space (like # of salvations, etc), but that’s not the only thing one could measure (but perhaps it’s the most important? I don’t know.).
It’s a good question to ask though as more ministries jump online because eventually everyone sits down and begins to ask those hard questions and unfortunately there are not many readily-available (and easy) answers.
For North Point, we are interested in helping people grow in their relationship with Jesus Christ; everything else falls under that, and if we’re headed in that direction, especially from an online perspective, I think we’re doing ok. Of course, how does one measure “growth” with Jesus Christ?
Gotcha.
[Image from Dirk]
stephenbateman says
I'd say that on a single level, it's probably pretty simple. Using Np's "further, faster" idea, you ask: where were they, where are they now, and how long did it take?
Which for one person is easy, maybe even for ten, but asking that for 1000…difficult.
Adam_S says
Really this is a big part of what Willow Creek's reveal study was about. It is possible for people to give decent answers to their spiritual growth and do it on a large scale via social science research. There are weaknesses to any social science research into spiritual growth (either people lying to researchers or just being plain deluded.) But a friend of mine that does church based research into people's prayer lives has seen very consistent responses across a variety of churches, denominations and age groups. So most of the time people are giving fairly honest answers. It takes time, effort and resources to do real research, which is why we use proxies (like church attendance, volunteer hours, church giving, etc.). However, proxies, according to the Reveal study just aren't showing what we thought they were showing.
Daniel_Berman says
Maybe the answer is empowering people to do real research. The data is out there, it must simply be gathered but more importantly understood. The later is where we often fall short….
Steven Rossi says
Sorta irrelevant, but John, how do you feel about being called "[one] of the most influential Christian bloggers on the planet"? 😉
human3rror says
it's all relative. i don't influence a lot out there in terms of evangelical christianity… maybe just tech.
human3rror says
but even that's up for discussion.
Jeff Krieger says
I asked @loswhit the same question at Echo…but more in regards to media. How can we measure the effectiveness of a piece of media or the experience of a service? It's hard. Because there are times when we can feel like we nailed it with our performance and yet get fewer comments (the main way I measure now) than when we didn't receive them. Thoughts?
human3rror says
i think measurement is second to our motivation and our desire to fulfil our purpose and mission, at a macro level and a micro level.
Jeff Krieger says
Agreed, man. I had to think about your comment for a sec. And the more I think about it, the more I like it. It's not just about me. How is my piece fitting into moving the big ship where it needs to go. So, right on. But I still struggle with wondering if my piece is helping at all…and how do I measure that…do you know what I mean?
human3rror says
you'd have to give me more specifics… but yes, i know what you mean.
sometimes i just ask myself if i'm serving well where i am. am i doing everything i can for my ministry in terms of my role and responsibility as the “creative web director”? if i'm not, then i'm probably not being as effective as I could be. my hope is that i'm doing what i've been asked to do as well as I can possible do it.
Adam_S says
I think this is always an issue in human services. We talked about this in my social work classes. There is never a point when dealing with humans that you have done everything possible for the situation. There is always yet another thing that can be done. So you have to decide based on the resources available (including staff, financial, time, etc.) what can be done to address the need/problem/calling/etc. I think that some type of measurement is good. And we have to be upfront that whatever measurement we use is inadequate because there is never a complete way to measure when dealing with people (just too many variables). But no measurement at all just means that we are guessing as to whether what we are doing is a good use of our resources.
human3rror says
i like this a lot adam. thanks for that.
Jeff Krieger says
Good thoughts, you guys. I think, too, it is even more difficult in ministry to measure your effectiveness. We are talking about spiritual growth. Stuff happens underneath the ground to a large extent before we see any tangible proof of fruit. I try to remind myself of times that someone said to me, "You didn't know it back then, but you had a profound impact on my life." Or times that I have felt that with someone else but never told them. As a man, I think I like building stuff and seeing it built. And, unlike my friends in their 30's jobs in the secular marketplace, I do not have much of a title or paycheck to say affirm what I've built (not that those are great measurement tools…but we use them).
Adam_S says
I think we are talking about 2 things that should be seperate. One is whether the work we are doing is good work. The second is whether we feel good about the work we are doing. We all know people that feel like they do a good job, but their work is terrible. We also know people that do good work, but they never feel like it is good enough. Particularly in working with people, and working with spiritual things that we are not completely in control of, we need to make sure we are being objective, and we are measuring things that are not based on how good it makes us feel.
Paul Steinbrueck says
John, thanks for the link. I think it depends in part on whether you're trying to measure a church's influence on individuals or on other churches. While writing my article I was thinking more about the influence on other churches. In that case you could look at things like how many times are resources being downloaded or how many leaders are at a church's conferences, how many blog subscribers or twitter followers someone has. Ultimately, though, I don't know how important those numbers are. It opens the door the temptation to compare and compete (as admittedly did my article did as well), when in reality we're on the same team in the body of Christ.
A church's influence on the individuals in its body and in its community is really what matters most and where we should be measuring effectiveness. But even there I wonder if we're too focused on measurable results. We can plant seeds and water, but only God can produce fruit.
Jim says
We are His workmanship. All this is still for His Glory. But, man, the philosophical discussions are heavy tonight. I thought I was in seminary again…yikes. Good stuff.
Kevin_Ring says
Adam, thanks for mentioning REVEAL, I think it's very important when thinking about influence and effectiveness for churches. It's my understanding that one of the implications of REVEAL for Willow Creek was the realization that a major cornerstone of it's seeker model (programs for encouraging church activity) did not lead directly to spiritual growth. Thus the things they were doing (and measuring) didn't really create the effect they were going for.
Despite liking and agreeing with Paul's article, the ability of NP and LifeChurch.tv to understand the times and respond to change how people are reached and (more importantly) engaged (which is awesome, by the way. Keep up the good work), isn't the point. Like John said, any effort to measure their must be secondary to their motivation for creating the impact. If you really believe that the Holy Spirit is the sole agent of transformation in people's hearts, you can't say "these are the metrics by which we'll evaluate how good the Holy Spirit is doing." How good is the Holy Spirit? Dang good (Mark 10:18)
As one of those MBA types who loves strategic management and research, it's hard for me to say this, but maybe there aren't external metrics by which we can measure our effectiveness? At least, we can not rely solely on external proof of our effectiveness because doing so would leave no room for faith and no room for grace. It would say, "I am so dominant over this world that all I have to do is meet my quarterly spiritual quota and I'm sure to win Disciple of the Month."
Christ says "Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." Let's make that our focus and determine how do we measure that. I don't think it's by looking outward, rather by looking inward at how we're able to remove all the idols, hurt, distractions and barriers to effectively, selflessly loving others from our own hearts and lives.
Sorry for rambling. Thanks for writing this post with what sounds like an honest belief that it is Christ in you that is great. As for the question of serving well where you are, I hope I can offer a little encouragement. I randomly found this cd on my desk with a talk by Paul Kooistra on it (I seriously have no idea where the disc came from). I'm not sure the context of the talk but he's addressing pastors and he gives the example of Jeremiah who was called to prophesy against Israel and did so for 42 years with absolutely no external sign that what he was doing was going well. Despite the hardship, he kept going.
The point Kooistra makes is that what makes Jeremiah stay out there is the fact that God told him to be there, despite all external signs that it wasn't going well. If you're going to be in God's work, you've got to be there because you believe God put you there.
I've uploaded the audio here is you want to listen to it http://drop.io/kevinring (it will be there for 7 days). It's encouraging.
Adam_S says
Thanks for that. I think that one of the reasons that prayer is often de-valued in many large churches (with the exception of a few large churches I don't know any that are really leaders in the prayer movement), is that we have had success in ways that are related to planning and effort. While virtually everyone connected with a church would say God has worked and it was by his power that things were acomplished, we can also say we did these things, and had these plans and this was the result. Many churches that have had disproportionate effect beyond their size is because they really were doing things that most people didn't know about. They were following God when there was little fruit. How many intercessors or other kinds of supporters really have been following God in things that were unknown, but used powerfully by God.
I still think we should not discount research and study. And I don't want to discount the powerful work that virtually all large churches have done. But everything needs to be weighed with the understanding that if God does not support it, if we are not convinced that God is calling us to do it, and if we are not submitted to how He wants us to do it, then the work is not what it could have been. In many cases, the would would have been better off not having been started.
I also want to affirm, that I have never met a Christian, powerful or not, that believed that what they were doing would hurt the kingdom of God. People simply do not work to hurt the kingdom. They (or we) may be wrong, but we are all doing our best to strive after the will of God. If we started assuming that about all Christians, no matter what their work, then the church would be in a better place.
Scott Cheatham says
In today's information driven culture, all churches should have an online presence. How far one takes that online presence and what it accomplishes is up for discussion. For me, our online presence is to encourage new guests to come visit and to disseminate information to our current congregation. We offer podcasts and soon, video. But I do not think that online campuses can replace personal fellowship. More churches need to be planted. If one wants to increase their influence, take some of your current folks and plant another work in an area close by. I'd rather see 5 churches of 200 than one of 1000. Your impact is exponentially greater when planting is the goal rather than building larger empires. That's my personal opinion but I would never attend a large church for that very reason.