What Do You Measure?

How does your church measure success?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot, because I’m not sure what we typically count are the best measures of success. The main thing we count are attendance numbers. But c’mon, we can get more people to show up by giving out money, or iPods, or having a dancing monkey, or dancing girls in wet t-shirts. Second, we count the amount of the offering. But does that mean churches in rich communities are healthier than those in poor? And if people in our church start losing their jobs and our offerings take a dive, is our church getting less healthy?

So what should we measure? In my next post I’ll throw out a few ideas, and share what a friend of mine is doing. But for now, let’s hear from you. What do you think would be the best things to measure to determine if a church is healthy?