Assessing the Church

A few months ago, Willow Creek conducted a series of surveys to assess how churches were promoting spiritual growth in the congregation. If you would like to read about the results, you can visit the REVEAL blog. Since my research area is essentially focused on how people grow in their faith and since I work with a small business that does church consulting, I consider myself to have some authority on this topic. Although I have thought about the study quite a bit, I really want to focus this discussion on the place of assessment in the church.

There are four main issues related to church assessment: (1) what do we measure? (2) how do we measure? (3) what do we learn? (4) what do we miss?

1) What do we measure? Or, in other words, how do you measure someone's spirituality? Now there will be some who argue that spirituality is a completely personal affair and therefore it is impossible to measure it objectively. But I find this unpersuasive, as spirituality inherently stretches beyond the mystical, and is full of theological beliefs that we either hold to or deny, religious behaviors we either engage in or don't, and phenomenon we either experience or don't. To say that our spirituality is devoid of anything religious is to say something objective about our spirituality.

Next, on this same point, we need to consider what are the important variables inherent to faith. Sometimes we make these decisions based upon theological reasoning. For instance, it makes sense not to study how food preferences are related to religious behavior. And the flipside could be that it makes sense to study how prayer is related to a sense of closeness to God. These are our a priori theological beliefs that can inform us. But additionally, we can simply use trial and error, in a scientific manner, to figure out what variables are important to study. For example, one study may look at 10 different variables related to church attendance and find that only one is significantly related to it. We would therefore decide to further study that variable, since it seems to be important (if our theological beliefs state that church attendance is a good thing).

2) The question of how we measure spirituality is also an important one. Are we to assume that those who rate themselves as a 10 (out of 10) on closeness to God are really closer to God? Should we even use paper and pencil (or nowadays, computers) to assess someone's spirituality? Should we rely on spiritual exemplars to study what factors are important to spirituality? It is easy to generate more and more questions. But the truth is that we need to start somewhere. Face-to-face interviews are time consuming. Using spiritual exemplars risks finding people who have their outsides clean. And of course paper and pencil measures have plenty of problems. The real place to start is by engaging a variety of different methods. We should not limit ourselves to one way of approaching the problem.

3) What do we learn from assessment? Assessment can tell us whatever we want to know. It can tell us if people like the preacher's sermons. It can tell us how people use their faith to deal with problems. The real task is learning to ask the right questions. What is most essential to the life of the church? This means that we must really dig in to the Word, explore our theology, and dialog with people from other denominational and faith backgrounds. Again, the point is to begin the discussion. Willow Creek seems to have been scared prematurely by their findings. If we learn anything from the REVEAL study, it's that we should not shift paradigm's too quickly but we should also not be afraid to admit we have been doing things wrong.

4) What do we miss? By this I meant that we should always be aware that we have blindspots. Assessment is never going to be comprehensive so we should always be willing to take a step back and look at the full picture, as best as we can. No one in the congregation may realize that using multimedia in sermons is affecting them and assessment is unlikely to evaluate this issue, but that doesn't mean it's not an issue, for instance.

REVEAL is the first large scale step towards something that I have become a huge believer in since being in grad school - using assessment to improve our churches. While there are some limitations and problems in REVEAL, it does add a great deal of knowledge and has opened up the Christian culture to the use of assessment. I hope that this trend continues, hopefully without being abused, and allows the church to repent and grow where it needs to.

What Makes a Church Healthy?

One area where I dabble in is the assessment of churches. I am contracted labor for a small business that does consulting for churches to help them improve. We have some ways of assessing what defines a healthy, growing church but I want to take a second look here.

Now I've grown up in a fairly large church. So I'm biased towards a more institutionalized church where there is little contact with pastors. But most churches have less than 500 members and the pastor(s) have the opportunity to really connect with their congregation.

1) New ideas are welcome and managed well. I believe a healthy church will open itself up to the input of the congregation. Now, this can be dangerous because it can distance members if their ideas aren't taken up. But it also creates a sense of identity and ownership so that people can get excited about their own church.

2) The church has events and activities that the whole church can get excited about. Whether it is a church-wide picnic or a missions fundraising project, the church needs to create a sense of unity and reliance on one another.

3) A feeling of being at home. This is rather elusive but I think there are some defining characteristics. The first is that people talk to one another. The second is that the church building feels welcoming and does not provoke anxiety (i.e. poor parking, etc). The third is that people take personal interest in maintaining the property. Finally, there is a routine that can be counted upon.

4) Music is enjoyable. I can't tell you how important this seems to be to a lot of church members. This is a difficult task to accomplish as the older folks tend to enjoy the hymns while the younger crowd likes more modern music. But either by having numerous services with different types of music or by blending the two types together, music needs to be of high enough quality to draw people in.

These are by no means exhaustive. In fact, they are just some that I thought were important to me. But I think it is important to consider what qualities are important for churches to provide a safe place to grow closer to God.

Changing From Information to Transformation

I was looking at a site on Christianity and Mental Health called Mind and Soul and came across an article on the need for churches to change their approach on how they teach their congregation. The situation that is described is one that I have certainly felt - being told what's wrong with you but not how to fix it. The truth is that even if I do learn something new, if I don't apply it then I will forget it.

I think one sentence sums it all up well, "Most people don't need information, they need techniques to help them change and a supporting culture in which to do (so)." I think that is what many of us long for. The opportunity to grow in a supportive and instructive environment.

Boasting

My church had set a goal to raise $160,000 in a single Christmas Eve offering to build a hospital in Malawi. Not only did we surpass that goal (our previous largest Christmas offering was $23,000) but we raised $525,000 and we now have to figure out what to do with the excess, possibly considering building more hospitals. I'm proud to attend Whittier Area Community Church and am glad about how our church is now considering what we can do to show love to the global community and help make a difference.