How Do We Count?
The Rev. Linda Huggard, St. John the Evanglist, Stockton

 

Our revisioning of Mission at St John's, Stockton has revived something in me that I have often wondered about in the last few years of my church leadership. That is, is the way we count/measure in the church a true representation of our success in our Mission in the community? That is, is ASA (Average Sunday Attendance) the best way to know if we are achieving our goal(s)?

As you probably know by now, we have a ministry at St John's called the HUB. Much print has been lately used to describe and laud it, but in short, it is a bicycle ministry: bikes and parts of bikes are made into functioning bikes for the homeless and low income folks of the streets of Downtown Stockton, providing key transportation to services, jobs, family, etc. The HUB, run out of a storefront is also a gathering place, a snack food pantry, a center for Deacon Bags filled with necessities such as toiletries, and a clothing closet. But chiefly it is a place where people are valued, cared for and respected.

Created by and staffed by Deacon Steve Bentley and his enthusiastic volunteer staff, it brings life, laughter, community, hope and possibilities to an urban place that was once quite bleak. The line between the people served and the ones serving becomes blurred and all grow together. The mission of the HUB shows that the whole is quite literally more than the sum of its parts.

Though many years have been spent trying to cram the church into the business model, most have finally agreed that the church is not a business. Though some aspects can be "businesslike": Finance, Meeting Structure, etc., most do not fit a business model. This is because it is difficult to quantify much of a church's output (wellbeing, love, peace, hope and healing) and some of its input (human capital such as creativity and compassion and, most importantly, the movements of God, such as the Holy Spirit and grace).

In Jim Collins' Business book, Good to Great (Harper Collins 2001) he quickly realized that there were a great number of differences between for-profit and not-for-profit companies and so wrote the companion booklet, Good to Great and the Social Sector (Harper Collins 2005). One of the main differences, he discovered, is how performance is measured, "For a Social Sector organization performance must be assessed relative to mission." The critical question should be "How effectively do we deliver on our mission and make a distinctive impact, relative to our resources?"

Maybe this is how we should define our success. Not so much in counting in a different way, as assigning numbers always tends to de-humanize, but asking ourselves key questions that define our goals, and then measuring against them:

What are the most critical needs in our community?

 What do the scriptures teach about these things?

What resources do we have?
How can we use these to make an impact?

 

A church's success should be defined by the people it touches. The ones served and the ones serving. Demi Prentiss talks about the church sanctuary and liturgy as the "base camp" and I agree with that analogy. This is the place we group and get fed, and learn. It sustains us. But the church is also the way we go out and the people we get to know and the ministries we participate in with them. Indeed, it is the place where we meet what God is already doing in our places. If we can find our place, give what we can, and get a smile in return, we are successful, few in the pews, or many!