Maintenance is NOT the Mission: Matters of Measurement and Measuring Matter

Conclusion: The Rise of Transvocational Ministry

How do we measure this?

It seems to be the inevitable question that comes up in every training. So, I want to dedicate this last post in the series to attempt an answer. Ten years ago, I wrote a white paper titled, “New Missional Metrics for a Blended Ecology of Church.” Denominational leaders and colleagues who read it often responded favorably, “Yes, this makes sense!” but that was as far as we got. However, today there is renewed energy around the missional metrics conversation.

What is clear is that our current metrics are good at measuring decline. “Religious affiliation” or people self-reporting membership and worship attendance continue to decrease. This shift coincides with a broader decline in institutional religion, which has traditionally provided ethical frameworks for prosocial behavior. As religious participation declines, loneliness and social isolation are on the rise, as traditional church networks that foster community are diminishing (Murthy, 2023).

The decline in church participation is particularly evident in The United Methodist Church (UMC), which has seen a steady drop in membership since the 1960s. The COVID-19 pandemic further accelerated this decline, as did the disaffiliation of congregations from the UMC to form the Global Methodist Church (GMC). The UMC has faced significant loss of membership, resources, and leadership. This fragmentation not only weakened the church’s ability to present a unified mission but also diverted attention and energy from outreach and mission, deepening internal conflict and hindering its overall vitality. The resulting uncertainty has left many congregations struggling to maintain momentum and engage their communities effectively.

These trends collectively underscore the urgent need for the church to adapt, or more specifically to appropriately measure the Spirit-led adaptation that is already occurring.

What we measure matters. It programs the behaviors of people in the system. Clergy and congregations put energy and effort into the things they will be asked to report. Consider the annual evaluation of pastors in the UMC, of the 21 identified skills and behaviors, only one skill, “reaching out to and supporting the community beyond the church’s walls,” is truly outwardly focused. These assessments often focus on internal priorities such as preaching and pastoral care rather than innovative outreach which often push pastors toward institutional maintenance rather than mission-focused outreach. This creates a cycle where pastors prioritize satisfying members’ needs rather than pursuing new missional efforts.

But does what we’ve been measuring really measure matter? Matter = anything that has mass and takes up space.

Rethinking Church Metrics for a Changing Landscape

In light of these changes, traditional metrics of church vitality—like membership, worship attendance, and giving—no longer suffice. Historically, these metrics have measured the internal health of churches. However, in the blended ecology, where traditional forms of ministry are living in symbiotic relationship with new expressions of church, these metrics fail to capture the full scope of the church’s outward-facing mission. Transvocational ministry, where clergy and laity work together as partners in God’s mission, requires a new approach to measuring church vitality.

The church is a community of people, living in loving relationship with God, one another, the wider church, and the world. A simple framework for rethinking metrics should focus on real flesh and blood, matterized people, with two key relational dimensions: personal and communal.

· Personal: how are people growing in loving union with God and neighbor (inner transfiguration)?

· Communal: how do congregations impact the communities where they are situated? (communal transfiguration).

These two key relational dimensions are clearly articulated in the current United Methodist mission statement:

“The mission of the Church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. Local churches and extension ministries of the Church provide the most significant arenas through which disciple-making occurs.”

Making disciples involves personal formation in the way, truth, and life of Jesus. More people living the way of Jesus together, doing Jesus things, leads to a transfigured world. A more compassionate world, a just world, a healed world.

While inspired by Matthew 28:19 “Go make disciples…” (The Great Commission), this mission statement has certain limitations, it could be rightly called the “Great Omission”:

• It leaves out the active call to “Go” into the world as part of discipleship.

• The phrasing implies a passive model of discipleship—waiting for people to come to the church rather than actively seeking them out.

This reflects a deeper challenge: institutional processes and policies, while intended to facilitate mission, have unintentionally contributed to passivity, restricting churches from engaging in transformative mission to our communities.

How Sociology Can Guide New Metrics

From the perspective of a sociologist these are indeed constructs we can measure.

I am currently conducting research at the University of Florida exploring the relationships between compassion, religiosity, religious affiliation, and political affiliation, aiming to explore their role in the “compassion gap”—the erosion of empathetic responses in the face of societal challenges like political division, loneliness, and inequality.

The primary theoretical framework for my research is grounded in Allport and Ross’s (1967) Religious Orientation Theory which distinguishes between intrinsic religiosity, characterized by a deep personal commitment to faith, and extrinsic religiosity, which involves engaging with religion primarily for external rewards (Allport & Ross, 1967).

Religious affiliation refers to an individual’s formal association with a specific religious group or tradition, regardless of the depth or personal significance of their engagement with its teachings or practices. While religious affiliation marks group membership, forms of religiosity emphasize personal belief orientation and the internal integration of faith into daily life. These distinctions are essential as religious affiliation alone may not lead to an increase in social compassion. And extrinsic religiosity shows weaker associations with prosociality. While intrinsic religiosity has been linked to heightened prosocial behaviors and greater well-being.

Our current metrics primarily measure affiliation and extrinsic religiosity, not intrinsic religiosity.

It is also possible to measure community impact. Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of social capital provides a valuable framework for understanding how churches create value through relationships (Bourdieu’s concept predates and is similar but distinct from Robert Putnam).

Bourdieu’s theory of capital highlights the plurality of social fields, where various forms of capital—economic, cultural, and social—define the positions and possibilities of actors within these fields. Social capital, in particular, refers to the resources gained from group membership and social networks, which can enhance an individual’s social standing in different areas of life. This capital is produced through relationships and is crucial in determining how economic and cultural capital is leveraged. Social capital also has a symbolic dimension, where the recognition and distinction it provides play a critical role in sustaining power dynamics and influencing social positions.

Social capital, a concept centered on social relationships, includes elements like networks, civic engagement, trust, and norms of reciprocity, and has gained prominence in academic and policy debates since the 1990s. It is a complex, multidimensional asset that facilitates cooperation and collective action for mutual benefit, with types such as bonding, bridging, and linking. Though it can be measured at various levels, the concept remains elusive, with challenges in defining, quantifying, and empirically testing its effects.

Thus, congregations that have “social capital” in their communities can have a transfiguring effect. Conversely, congregations can function as closed systems, which can be completely disconnected from the larger social ecosystem, for a time. But with no output, and no influx of new people, energy, and resources, closed systems eventually stagnate and die.

Social capital—comprised of networks, trust, and relationships—offers a more holistic measure of church vitality than the inward-focused metrics of membership and attendance. In the blended ecology, church vitality should be measured by the social capital it generates through its outreach and engagement with the broader community, rather than by passive metrics that reflect only what is collected.

As church leaders, it is time to shift our focus from inward metrics to outward engagement—tracking relationships and missional impact in the broader community.

The Case for New Metrics

The true vitality of a church lies in its outward-facing mission—how it engages and transforms its community. Drawing inspiration from Bourdieu’s theory of social capital, churches must track how they build relationships and foster community engagement. Instead of focusing on what is “inside” the church, we should measure how the church is creating connections and networks that extend beyond the walls of the building.

To assess the social capital a church generates, we can track:

• The number of new relationships formed with unchurched or de-churched individuals.

• The degree to which church members are integrated into community-based social networks.

• The tangible social impact of the church’s service, mission, and outreach initiatives.

Examples of Technical vs. Adaptive Metrics

Using insights from Junius Dotson’s distinctions between counting and measuring, we recognize the need to shift focus from numbers alone to trends, movement, and transformation:

Counting Metrics

How many dollars were pledged this year?

How many members are active in church?

How many attendees are present on Sunday?

Measuring Metrics

Are worship participants showing consistent and deep engagement with the life of the church?

Is financial giving increasing over time as a sign of spiritual growth?

How many professions of faith have been made over time?

Adaptive metrics must address deeper spiritual questions, such as:

• How far has a person come on their spiritual journey?

• How deep is their faith rooted, and how is it being lived out?

• How wide is our communal impact?

This shift allows churches to measure movement, not just attendance.

New Missional Metrics for a Blended Ecology

To ensure alignment with the mission of the UMC in a blended ecology, new metrics are needed that capture the dynamic nature of both inherited and Fresh Expression congregations. These metrics should reflect the outward focus of the mission—moving beyond traditional, inward-looking measures to those that assess the “going” aspect of disciple-making, as stated in the UMC mission statement.

The Fresh Expressions movement and blended ecclesial models introduce both opportunities and challenges for how we assess mission and discipleship. Metrics should reflect both inherited expressions of church and new, decentralized Fresh Expressions models. The following proposed metrics provide a more adaptive framework:

1. Relational Engagement

• Assess the depth and quality of relationships formed through ministry and mission.

• Example: How many new meaningful relationships have been formed through acts of service?

2. Discipleship Movement Indicators

• Evaluate not just attendance but spiritual growth trends.

• Examples: Increased frequency of personal prayer or new participation in small groups over time.

3. Indicators of Social and Community Impact

• How well is the local church responding to visible human need in its immediate context?

• Example: Relationships built through community engagement initiatives.

4. Contextual Innovation and Experimentation

• How well is the congregation adapting to new models of mission?

• Example: How many new Fresh Expressions communities were launched in the past year? How successful are they in drawing new participants into shared faith experiences?

5. Gateway Participation Metrics

• Move beyond traditional metrics of worship attendance to track spiritual pathways.

• Examples: Participation through life stage events, mission opportunities, or small group attendance.

Drawing inspiration from the Church of England’s approach to living into a mixed ecology, I propose a narrative-based framework centered around the Loving First Journey, a missional framework that tracks key phases of engagement and growth.

1. Listening
   The first phase in a church's missional journey is listening to the community. Metrics here could include:

   • Number of prayer walks conducted.

   • Frequency of conversations with non-church members.

   • Time spent in key locations (e.g., first, second, third places) for community engagement.

   • What new insights have been learned from listening?
     These questions help evaluate how well a congregation is engaging with the broader community and discerning its needs.

2. Loving/Serving
   The next step is to actively love and serve the community, identifying organic needs and responding to them. Relevant metrics could include:

   • How well does the congregation understand and serve the passions, dreams, and needs of its neighbors?

   • Number of partnerships with other organizations already meeting similar needs.

   • Names of individuals or groups served and how relationships are deepened through serving.

   • Tracking authentic needs versus imposed ones. These metrics demonstrate how a congregation is moving beyond service to developing authentic, relational connections.

3. Building Community
   As relationships develop, a church must foster a sense of community and belonging. Metrics in this phase could ask:

   • Frequency of gatherings and facilitation of those gatherings.

   • Whether “digging deeper” conversations are taking place and trust is being built.

   • How many regular attendees are showing vulnerability and connection. These metrics measure the formation of community beyond transactional relationships.

4. Exploring Discipleship
   At this stage, new disciples begin to show a hunger for deeper engagement with the faith. Key questions for measurement could include:

   • How many individuals express a desire for more spiritual depth or discipleship?

   • Opportunities for discipleship and the forms they take (e.g., prayer, Scripture study, service).

   • How many people in the congregation are equipped to share a Jesus Story? These questions gauge the church’s ability to invite people into the journey of spiritual growth and deepen their commitment to the mission.

5. Church Taking Shape
   In the final phase, the church begins to take shape as a missional community with a clear outward focus. Metrics could include:

   • How many baptisms, professions of faith, or celebrations of Holy Communion occur.

   • Examples of the “Up/In/Out/Of” model in practice (worship, community, outreach, connection to the larger body).

   • The level of engagement with both Fresh Expressions and inherited church, including “bridge backs” where individuals return to the life of the traditional church.
     This phase reflects the church’s maturation into a full expression of its mission, including ongoing outreach and engagement with the larger body of Christ.

   

Additional Metrics for a Blended Ecology:

• Preaching and Lay Leadership:

  • Number of people involved in the preaching team and their level of engagement.

  • Percentage of lay-led small groups and care teams.

  • Active participation of lay leaders in key ministry areas, such as discipleship and pastoral care.

• Space Utilization and Financial Sustainability:

  • How often and how well space is being used for both ministry and community engagement.

  • Diversification of income streams to ensure sustainability beyond traditional tithes and offerings.
    These metrics help assess the practical aspects of church vitality and sustainability in a blended ecology, where the church engages both inherited and emerging models of ministry.

By using these metrics, congregations can better assess their missional health in a blended ecology. These questions not only track traditional measures like attendance and membership but also capture holistic, relational, and outward-focused aspects of ministry.

Conclusion: Moving Beyond Maintenance Metrics

Fresh Expressions and other creative experiments potentially provide a hopeful way forward.

The focus of fresh expressions is to cultivate communal life in Jesus with people currently not connected to the inherited church. It is not merely about revitalizing dying churches or ensuring the survival of denominations. Instead, fresh expressions embody the self-donation of the church—reaching the unchurched, marginalized, and excluded by cultivating contextual, missional expressions of the gospel.

Thus, the movement provides a framework to shift away from the institutional default-mode of self-preservation, toward the Jesus way of self-donation (John 12:24).

By focusing outward, adjusting key metrics, and creating leadership pathways that prioritize mission over mere maintenance, the church can refocus and reestablish itself as a dynamic force for disciple-making and societal transformation in the twenty-first century.

To effectively measure church vitality in the era of transvocational ministry, it is essential to move beyond traditional metrics of maintenance and focus on missional outcomes. The church’s vitality should be assessed based on the relationships it builds, the community engagement it fosters, and the transformative impact it has on the world. Traditional metrics like attendance and financial giving fail to capture the dynamic, outward-facing nature of the church’s mission.

By adopting a narrative-based approach to measurement, that includes insight from sociology, churches can better assess their role in the world and capture both qualitative and quantitative data. These new metrics align with the Fresh Expressions movement, emphasizing a holistic understanding of church vitality that includes both inherited and emerging church forms. Ultimately, by embracing these new missional metrics, the church can ensure it remains resilient and true to its mission of making disciples for the transformation of the world.

Maintenance is not the mission. These metrics bring us to the heart of the matter. Real lives changed for the better. Flesh and blood, incarnational communities, that transfigure the world.

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