Does measuring mission make the Church grow?
I was recently reading a give-and-take on using measures of operation in secondary-school teaching, about which the author was highly sceptical. He quoted this aphorism (from I know not where): 'Weighing pigs doesn't make them whatsoever heavier!' There is a full general sense that too many things are beingness measured inappropriately in our culture, causing multiple problems. The first is that, if you tell people that y'all are going to measure something and assess their operation on that measure out, and so you are in danger of reducing their job to succeeding at that measure out alone. Hence the criticism of didactics that teachers aren't interested in children learning, only in their passing exams. The 2d is that nosotros terminate upward flattening life out, and only valuing that which tin can exist measured—a danger challenged by the saying of Albert Einstein:
Not everything that counts can exist counted. Not everything that can exist counted counts.
But the reason why putting metrics in place to mensurate specific things is so tempting is that it focusses the heed, and encourages people to think about what they are doing and why. Apparently, in the days of steam and regional railway companies, 1 company was exploring ways to brand its trains run more efficiently and keep to time. It was discovered that the most cost-efficient measure was to paint the train funnels cherry! Why? Because the coiffure on the train felt equally though they were visible and being watched, then they worked more efficiently!
Despite recent complaints that the 'national church building is stuck in broadcast way', (and despite the irony that the parable of the sower in Mark iv suggests that broad casting is the thing God wants to do that we should join in with), the evidence is that many local churches are notwithstanding more focussed on bug of practical maintenance (roofs, heating, parish share) than they are on central questions of mission, evangelism, and church building growth.
The Archbishops' Council of the Church building of England (of which I am a member) functions equally the Church'due south executive board, making decisions in partnership with the Church Commissioners and the House of Bishops about how the central annual upkeep of around £132m should exist spent. We take just been through an exercise in revising the way nosotros express our aims, and nosotros are working with nine objectives which we recall express the concerns of the Church.
Evangelism
To bring more of the people of England to the religion of Christ through the Church of EnglandDiscipleship
To strengthen the Christian faith and life of all who worship God in the Church of EnglandMinistry building
To ensure there are sufficient ordained and lay ministers of the required gifts and qualities who are finer deployed to enable the Church building of England to fulfil its mission, and to back up those ministers in their calling, evolution, ministry and retirementMutual practiced
To contribute to transforming our guild and communities more closely to reverberate the Kingdom of God through loving acts of neighbourliness and service to allEducation
To promote loftier quality Christian instruction in Church of England schools and voluntary instruction settings, and through our Church contribution to other schools, colleges, further and higher education institutionsResources for the Church
To assistance dioceses and cathedrals to be most effective in their mission, by providing price-effective national and specialist services and adviceSafeguarding
To ensure all children and vulnerable adults are safe in the ChurchGovernance
To operate the national governance arrangements of the Church of England every bit toll-effectively equally possible in pursuit of the Church's missionA Church for all people
To be a Church that can provide a dwelling for all people in England
(It might exist worth reflecting for a few moments on what you think of these equally objectives.)
It is no accident that evangelism is the starting time objective, and with it the Council has a specific aim: 'Past 2022 to have halted the fall in numbers of Church of England worshippers in dioceses representing half the population of England and to see growth in numbers in a quarter of dioceses.' There are several important questions arising from this.
First, should we accept measurable aims at all? After all, the Church is not a concern and the gospel is non a product that nosotros are persuading people to purchase. Would it make sense to have a numerical aim for the growth of a local church? If not, why the national Church? Secondly, does information technology make sense for the Council to have objectives in relation to dioceses over which it has little command? As Justin Welby often says, there are very few levers that he or anyone else tin pull, non least because the Church of England is so diffuse in its organization, with Synod, the dioceses, the Commissioners and the House of Bishops technically speaking all independent of ane another.
On the other mitt, why shouldn't a local church take measurable goals in terms of its mission? Aim at nix, and you are sure to striking information technology! This doesn't demand to be a case of usurping the sovereignty of God, bold that these goals are discerning and worked towards through prayer as much as action. And the Council has difficult decisions to make virtually budgets and allocation of resources; without measurable goals, how practice nosotros know whether nosotros have fabricated the right kinds of decisions. In the terminate, the delivery of the goal is in the hands of the dioceses—only the question is whether central decision-making has helped or hindered. There is an analogy here with measuring a fruit harvest: the farmer cannot make apples abound, but he or she can aid to create the correct conditions for apples to grow well and plentifully. Paul sowed, Apollos watered, only God gave the growth (ane Cor iii.6)—but the growth God gave was affected by the way that Paul sowed and the care with which Apollos watered, but equally surely as it was for the farmer's apples! Numbers matter, because numbers correspond people, and people matter. And looking at numbers forces us to confront the reality of our state of affairs and allows for accountability.
The biggest change in allocation of resources in recent Church building history has been the created of the Strategic Evolution Fund, through which Church Commissioners coin is non simply distributed to dioceses to maintain what they are doing, but part is now distributed in response to applications for funds to back up mission initiatives, including church planting both in cities and rural contexts. I am not sure that many in the C of E realise what a massive change this really represents.
If we are going to measure against this goal, what measure out should nosotros use? The most common measures are 'weekly church omnipresence' or 'usual Lord's day omnipresence', and this is ascertained by request local churches to survey their congregations (usually in October) and ship the data in to Church House, from which the Statistics Unit produces a very informative study, the latest one (produced at the end of concluding yr) giving the figures for 2016. The graphs connected to evidence a downward trend on these two metrics (the main charts are on pp 13 and 14), though there is an interesting pause in reject in 2011 and 2012. On this footing, nosotros are still some manner from our 2022 aim of halting decline and seeing some growth.
But the question and then arises as to whether weekly attendance is the right metric, for both internal and external reasons. Internally to the Church, there has been a noticeable growth in attendance at mid-week services and groups—so does Sunday attendance really measure involvement and engagement with discipleship? Externally, the pattern of most people's lives continues to fragment, and there are many other things to do on a Sun—and many other ways to engage with Church building online. An culling, and arguably more realistic, mensurate is to wait at 'Worshipping Communities' rather than weekly attendance, and the Statistics unit has now asked churches to get together this information likewise.
Following consultation with dioceses, the "worshipping customs" of a church is defined as anyone who attends that church (including fresh expressions of Church building) regularly, for case at least in one case a month, or would do so if non prevented by affliction, infirmity or temporary absence. Information technology includes activities such as fellowship groups and other activities that accept a distinct human action of worship or prayer. It also includes acts of worship not on church premises (e.one thousand. at a school or community centre).
Nosotros include those who: come to wed services; are ill and unable to come to church; are away on holiday or concern; have dwelling house communions; are role of a regular 'fresh expression' of church building; alive in care or residential homes and would consider themselves to exist full members of their church; give regularly to their church; pb worship (e.g. clergy).
We do not include those who: are visitors – eastward.k. holidaymakers, baptism parties; consider their 'home' church to be another church.
What is interesting is that, according to the 'Worshipping Communities' (WC) measure, there are some signs of hope. Whereas merely 2 dioceses (Hereford and Exeter) are showing growth over the last 3 years measured by Sunday attendance, 10 dioceses are showing signs of growth on the WC measure, and a further seven have halted their turn down. The $64,000 question is whether the deviation in the two measures is the result of wishful thinking—or a real insight into irresolute patterns of interest in the church community, and changes in the mode that Christians express and grow in their discipleship.
What, then, is the nature of the challenge that we are facing? The Council staff produced a very helpful diagram explaining what is going on with the Church nationally.
Though other people might react differently, when I saw this my heart leapt for joy—considering this is the kind of analysis that y'all would do as a personnel manager when looking at the changes in your workforce, and it took me back to when I was just such a person (working at Mars Confectionery). At a local level, this means that the typical church with an attendance of l is seeing the internet loss of 1 person a year. Merely that means that adding one person a year is what is needed to opposite decline, and growing past two people a yr for such a congregation would represent globe-changing explosive growth, comparable with the growth of the early church building in the first three centuries. 67% of the United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland population is in personal relationship with a Christian, and around 80% of Anglicans here say that they know someone who would probably respond to an invitation to come to church—yet merely 17% would be willing to upshot such an invitation. If that figure changes, who knows what might happen?
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