Thinking about critical issues for churches today, I started making a list of questions churches should be able to answer. It seems to me that all churches, regardless of size, need to be able to offer compelling responses to these questions. Here they are:
- Meaning: How do we see life and our place in it?
- Message: What is our story and how do we tell it?
- Mission: What are we here for and what do we do?
- Members: How do we connect with people and include them in our movement?
- Mobility: How do we command attention in a fast-moving world?
- Money: How do we support our cause?
- Metrics: What do we measure and what do these numbers mean?
Okay, so they’re all M’s — sorry I couldn’t resist. But, my point is these are basic questions each church must answer. Too often we assume that everybody knows the answers to all these questions, but do we really? These questions, and others I am sure, might help us focus on who we are as a church. What do you think? Do you have any other M’s to add?
ChuckWarnock.com 
Chuck,
Once again, you cause me to squirm uncomfortably in my seat as I read these questions and realize that we aren’t asking any of them in a substantive way at our church.
No more “m’s”, brother! I’ve got a lot of work to do on the ones you’ve already asked!
Thanks for the time and effort you put into enlightening, encouraging and, occasionally, fussing at us.
A few thoughts on your metrics question. Once you decide what you want to measure you have to ask a harder question: how? How do you measure religious ministry? (My current ministry position involves developing metrics to measure how well religious ministry is meeting particular requirements.) There are basically two ways to measure religious ministry, objectively and subjectively. Objectively, we can count whether there are enough resources to meet a particular need. For example, do we have enough trained clergy for the people being ministered to? Subjectively, we have to rely on an instrument that measures intangibles like quality of ministry. To do this you need something like a customer satisfaction survey. And for such an instrument to be unbiased, it needs to be administered by an entity outside the church or group being evaluated. I doubt most churches have the savvy, resources, or perhaps even the need to do such metrics. However, megachurches and denominations should and many probably do. Of course, even small churches can do such metrics informally.
This is great stuff. I think (sadly) a small % of us are considering these questions. Another one that I’ve thought about is (thinking really hard for another m-word… can’t find it) Boundries. Who will we associate with, and where we draw lines on our associations/cooperation? This is another one of those questions that no one seems to think about ahead of time.
Great post.