7/07/2011

What is your church measuring? What does that say about your mission?

how-do-you-measure-successEdgar Schein, Professor of Management at MIT, says that whatever an organization measures becomes its de facto culture.

Churches and ministry organizations write mission statements that are great, but they are only wishful thinking if they have put in place mechanisms to measure their success that are contrary to those lofty mission statements.

For instance,a random mission statement I grabbed from a church on the internet reads,


“Our church seeks to make disciples for our Lord Jesus Christ through Christ-centered worship, Bible-centered spiritual growth, and evangelistic service.”

Okay. That sounds pretty good to me.

How do you measure that?

Here is most pastors’ default measuring tool: Sunday Morning Attendance.

However, if attendance is our primary measuring tool, our mission should actually be changed to this:
“Our church seeks to get as many people to commit to attending on Sunday mornings as possible.”

Period.

Is that a good mission statement? How does that align with God’s mission in the world?

As I’ve said before, The mission God has sent us on is not to attract people into the church. No, the goal is to send people into the culture as incarnational “little versions of Jesus” invading every institution and sphere as God’s instrument for bringing all things under the Lordship of Christ and His Kingdom.

How do you measure that?

7/06/2011

Check out my Music Reviews at the Prog Archives Website

prog_archives_logo

I have my own page over at ProgArchives.com, and as I add reviews, you can find them there.
Reviews so far:
NEAL MORSE Lifeline
EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place
DREAM THEATER Black Clouds & Silver Linings
GAZPACHO Tick Tock
MARILLION size matters
PINEAPPLE THIEF Someone Here is Missing
SPOCK'S BEARD X
IQ Frequency
PETER GABRIEL Up
SPOCK'S BEARD Snow
STAR ONE Victims of the Modern Age
AYREON The Human Equation
NEAL MORSE Testimony
TRANSATLANTIC Bridge Across Forever
TOUCHSTONE Wintercoast
PORCUPINE TREE Deadwing
DREAM THEATER Octavarium
PORCUPINE TREE The Incident
DEVIN TOWNSEND Addicted
ORPHAN PROJECT Spooning Out The Sea
RIVERSIDE Anno Domini High Definition
THE DECEMBERISTS The Hazards of Love
OSI Blood
PENDRAGON Pure
DEEEXPUS Half Way Home
AYREON 01011001
FROST* Milliontown
OSI Free
TRANSATLANTIC The Whirlwind

reviews by subculture

Who is to Blame for the Secularization of our Culture?

“Because of their two-realm theory (seeing all things as either “sacred” or “secular”), Christians have themselves to blame for the rapid secularization of the West.

If political, industrial, artistic, and journalistic life, to mention only these areas, are branded as essentially ‘worldly,’ ‘secular,’ and part of the natural domain of ‘creaturely life,’ then is it surprising that Christians have not more effectively stemmed the tide of humanism in our culture?”
-Al Wolters, Creation Regained, p. 54

7/05/2011

Why Vocational Ministry is So Important

“In nothing has the church so lost her hold on reality as in her failure to understand and respect vocation.


She has allowed work and religion to become separate departments, and is astonished to find that, as a result, the secular world of work is turned to purely selfish and destructive ends, and that the greater part of the world’s intelligent workers have become irreligious, or at least, uninterested in religion.”
- Dorothy Sayers, Creed or Chaos, pg 77-78.