I remember having a conversation once in a coffee shop with another church planter. We were both finding our way through the gauntlet that is church planting, and the toll that it can have on one’s body, soul, and mind. It seemed only natural to as him how he was doing, and his response is one that I still haven’t forgotten.
“We’re doing great. We’re hitting every one of our metrics.”
What struck me about the response was that it answered a question I wasn’t asking. I wanted to know how he was doing, and he told me how his church was doing. Not only that, but I wonder how he is doing now a year and a half into a pandemic that pretty much blew up the metrics he was measuring.
Metrics are only helpful if they’re measuring the right things, and I think if COVID-19 has revealed anything to the American church, it’s that for years we’ve been winning the wrong game.
[Tweet “Metrics are only helpful if they’re measuring the right things.”]We’ve measured the attendance metric, but we haven’t been attending to our hearts.
We’ve measured the offering metric, but we haven’t been offering our lives.
We’ve measured the building metric, but we haven’t been building faith that lasts.
I remember being in the room when I heard Sam Chand say that, “The greatest tragedy is to climb to the top of the ladder, only to find your ladder is leaning against the wrong building!”
Check your metrics and change them if you need to because we’ve spent far too much time winning the wrong game, and it’s time to get back to the metrics that matter most.
