Soul Metrics | Warren Rachele
As we shepherd the Lord’s struggling churches toward health, attendance is often the ruler by which we measure success and the progress of our efforts. This metric is the most common measurement, and attendance is often the pastor’s answer to most questions about the vitality of a church. From this perspective, any increase in attendance is viewed as a sign of health, and, conversely, to plateau or lower that number becomes an indicator of decline. This is a broad-brush indicator though. We have to remember this implicit fact: dropping attendance in church is a symptom, not the malady. With that axiom in mind, the revitalization-minded leader should lead the church toward a proper diagnosis before administering any remedy. Something precipitated the decline in attendance, and that reality (or realities) should guide the first actions on the return to health.
After taking the temperature of the church, we will probably find other indicators of sickness. We can bundle the most common warning signs found in struggling churches into a pair of broad categories –lack of spiritual depth and diminished or non-existent community gospel impact. Examining the patient, it’s easy to see the connection between the two; shallow Christians reflexively turn inward, but this doesn’t need to be fatal. Both conditions are reversible through diligent and intentional missional leadership. Deepening discipleship will contribute to the Christian’s sense of a need for a growing missional presence in the community, and this will pave the way for natural congregational growth.
Let’s turn our attention to being a gospel presence in the community. The sad reality is that many troubled churches no longer reflect the community in which God has planted them. Demographically or materially, the remaining membership of the church does not mirror the neighborhoods around the church. Any number of cultural changes may have taken place over the life of the church’s ministry. Perhaps the neighbors surrounding the church, who once spoke predominantly German or English, now speak Spanish. Traditions, once heavily influenced by European culture, find the parish filled with Asian celebrations and culture. In some cases, the demographic changes have caused unacknowledged distance with the neighbors, the original membership moving away from the neighborhood because of the blessing of prosperity, creating a commuter church where the members drive in on Sunday morning but no longer have any connection to the people around the building during the rest of the week.
Changing the metrics of revitalization begins with measuring the depth of missional integration in the parish before counting noses in the sanctuary. If this reach is too small to measure, congratulations! You have a wide-open field in which to minister. If your church is aware enough to know that they have become disconnected, call that a bonus! The first steps are easy. Find out who lives within the church’s spiritual reach and what their felt needs are. You may discover that the neighbors are demographically different in socio-economic or cultural ways, but remember always, they are also fellow image bearers who want to know peace, want their children to succeed, and want to be loved. Start your exploration (ethnography = fancy word) from the point of what you have in common rather than from the deficit point of all the differences that divide you.
From the not-so-scary point of “things we have in common with our neighbors,” you can see a variety of ways of being the gospel to them. It might mean that you learn to speak the neighbor’s language, learning at least to say “hola mi nombre es warren” or ask about their well-being (como estas). All people value their children, so help them with their reading and schoolwork, give them a place to gather after school. These and a hundred other things lessen the disconnection with the neighborhood and make you neighbors again. As you forge these relationships, you become a trusted presence in the neighborhood. Without even knowing it, you become the good news to those who the Lord Jesus loves and wants to rescue.
Measure these interactions, counting every opportunity to be a missional presence to the image bearers of the parish as a success. Measure the increasing depth of presence in the neighborhood and every moment in which you can meaningfully touch the lives of the people who live there, in both good times and challenge. Value this because it is these relationships that open the door to the broader gospel rescue story. Value these because these are metrics that matter.
LOVE | ACCEPT | FORGIVE 