Learig ad Trasformatio Learig ad Trasformatio RESOURCES FOR CONVERSATIONS F R O M T H E T E X A S M E T H O D I S T F O U N D A T I O N DOING THE MATH OF MISSION: FRUITS, FAITHFULNESS AND METRICS Moograph 5- BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU MEASURE BY GIL RENDLE SENIOR CONSULTANT, TEXAS METHODIST FOUNDATION The metrics moographs are a series of five moographs addressig the missio of the Texas Methodist Foudatio to support coversatios o the purpose of miistry: 1. Coutig Resources ad Measurig Miistry (Released February 2013) 2. Gettig to the Why: Turig Itetios Ito Outcomes (Released April 2013) 3. Phroesis ad the Task of Figurig It Out for Ourselves (Released August 2013) 4. Couts, Measures ad Coversatios: Usig Metrics for Fruitfuless (Released September 2013) 5. Be Careful What You Measure (Released October 2013) The Strategic Directio of TMF: The Texas Methodist Foudatio will help the Church become more purposeful ad more clearly focused o her God-appoited missio through the itegratio of fiacial ad leadership resources. Our Itet: The ivitatio of the Texas Methodist Foudatio is for you to use this moograph to support coversatios of learig amog leaders withi your church or coferece. Copyright 2013. Texas Methodist Foudatio. No-altered reproductio ad distributio with appropriate attributio ad/or citatio is ecouraged ad authorized without prior coset from Texas Methodist Foudatio. Please cotact Teri Fichera at tfichera@tmffd.org or 800/933-5502 for reprits ad, as a courtesy, to report use.
BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU MEASURE Moograph #5 i a series of five Metrics Moographs o Doig the Math of Missio: Fruits, Faithfuless ad Metrics BY GIL RENDLE Seior Cosultat, Texas Methodist Foudatio I this coutry the roll of church members is loger tha ever before. More tha oe hudred ad fiftee millio people are at least paper members of some church or syagogue. This represets a icrease of 100 percet although the populatio has icreased by oly 31 percet. The umerical growth should ot be overemphasized. We must ot be tempted to cofuse spiritual power ad large umbers. Jumboism, as someoe has called it, is a utterly fallacious stadard for measurig positive power. i Marti Luther Kig Jr., 1963 Marti Luther Kig s warig of jumboism was i the midst of the 1960s, a time i which joiig orgaizatios, icludig the church, was at its cultural height. Deomiatioal growth was a cultural tred that had people watchig church umbers because they were all goig up. Ad yet, Kig wared that umbers were ot the stadard for measurig the impact of faith. Now i the 21st cetury, we are worried about depletio because our umbers have bee dwidlig for decades. The warig remais. Our umbers matter deeply. But they are ot the stadard for measurig the impact of faith. How do we fid the balace betwee measures ad purpose? How do we cotiue to steer our way betwee our curret Scylla ad Charybdis to fid a way ahead that will ot draw us ito a false istitutioalism drive by too much attetio to umbers or draw us ito a false complacecy from givig umbers too little attetio which produces a absece of accoutability? The argumet i these metrics moographs has bee pretty straightforward: 1. You get what you pay attetio to. If you do t make choices about what is importat ad measure your progress toward your goals, othig chages. 2. Coutig i the church, by itself, is about resources ad activities, ot about purpose. We must gather, measure ad redirect our resources for the differece we are called to make. But there must be more tha attetio to resources ad activities. 3. Faithfuless ad fruitfuless require a itetioal purpose that ames a differece we feel called to address but is commoly difficult to quatify. Purpose is stated i itetioal outcomes, which require measuremets istead of couts. 4. Measuremets, assessig progress toward outcomes, requires ew tools ad ew strategies. 5. We are i a learig mode. Metrics, as a disciplie, is ew to the church. We are i the process of buildig ew tools, ad like ay craftsma, learig to use ew tools risks ijury util the capacity of the tool ad the skill of the craftsma are brought together. As we begi, we eed to be aware of ecessary cautios to ew tools. 2
THREE CAUTIONS WHILE BUILDING AND USING OUR NEW TOOLS There are few straight lies i the wilderess. There are times whe the way ahead seems quite clear the pillar of fire appeared i the desert to clearly mark the way the Israelites were to travel. However, there are also times whe the way is ucertai, ukow or dagerous ad, i those momets, the Israelites pitched tet ad waited. I ca oly believe that the Israelites waited actively, which, whe steps are ucertai, is what we are called to do. Waitig is a time of preparatio. While they pitched tet, they tested their way forward. Surely they talked with oe aother, set scouts to peer over the ext horizo, prayed, studied text, rested, rehearsed their purpose ad goals, rehearsed what they had already leared, wodered ad watched. They reflected o where they were, how far they had come, ad what were the ecessary ext steps. The wilderess is a mix of brave movemet ad also critical reflectio. I every ew edeavor there has to be a time of pausig ad testig. New isights ad ideas must be tested ad put ito cotext by experiece. Oe of the basic models of adult learig is referred to as the adult learig cycle ad reflects this eed for pausig ad testig which allows for adjustig the way forward: Iheret i this model of learig is the testig by which we try somethig (ACTION) ad the we reflect o how it wet (REFLECTION). Is the result what we expected? Were there ay surprises? What did we lear? We the coect our reflectios to our larger life experiece (CONNECTION) ad ask, is that how we uderstad the world? Have we see this before? How else have we see this work? Who do we kow that has had similar or differet experiece? Which leads us to a decisio of what to do ext (DECISION) which the leads us to our ext step (ACTION, agai). Without takig time to pitch tet, without allowig itetioal pauses durig which we raise questios ad cautios, review, reflect, coect, ad otherwise test the ew ways forward, we ca easily over commit to less tha helpful paths. Whe it comes to coutig ad measurig there are areas of cautio we must test ad, based o what we fid, be willig to chage our directios ad lear better ways. At this poit there are three basic areas of cautio we ca be watchful for as we build ew tools, iitiate ew practices of usig metrics, ad defie ew criteria of accoutability. The areas of cautio that we eed to explore are: Short-sightedess Motivatio Productivity (the appropriateess of measures) There is a body of literature i each of these areas that ca guide our efforts by idetifyig the pitfalls. 3
SHORT-SIGHTEDNESS The first cautio has to do with short-sightedess payig too much attetio, ad beig overly sesitive, to immediate chages so that oe loses sight of log-term purpose. I this sese, short-sightedess is lookig too ear so that what is still far off goes ucared for. This is the risk of the Uited Methodist Church overly attedig to the metrics of vital cogregatios by measurig oly short-term icreases i umbers of people ad dollars (ad the other couts of resources ad activities), while losig sight of the purpose of a vital cogregatio to chage people s lives ad trasform the world. The risk here is that short-sightedess will capture us i a ew istitutioalism of orgaizatioal measures without leadig us to disciple makig. Edwards Demig was itroduced i the first of these metric moographs as the perso who helped trasform Japaese maufacturig followig World War II. I have bee usig his basic model of iputs throughputs outcomes throughout these moographs. While workig i the US Departmet of Agriculture, Demig was itroduced to the work of Walter Shewhart who developed a process to brig idustrial processes ito what was referred to as statistical cotrol. The real value of statistical cotrol was that it eabled leaders to kow where to place their attetio, whe to act, ad importatly whe ot to act or overreact ii Uderstadig the idea of statistical cotrol became icreasigly importat i the 1980s, as idustry bega to pay close attetio to quality as a essetial elemet of global market competitio. By the early 1980s, Demig published his book, Out of Crisis, i which he idetified what he called the seve deadly diseases that stood i the way of good maagemet. The first two of these deadly diseases were lack of costacy of purpose ad the emphasis o short-term profits. iii He coteded strogly that whe corporatios pursued quarterly divideds ad short-term profits (the quick couts) as the basic measures of performace, they were riskig their compaies by ot attedig to their purpose. Costacy of purpose, the ability to cotiuously pla for the improvemet of a compay s products ad services, was more importat ad life-givig, as opposed to short term measures that took attetio away from the purpose of the orgaizatio. Quotig a Japaese colleague, Dr. Yoshi Tsurumi, he wrote: Part of America s idustrial problems is the aim of its corporate maagers. Most America executives thik they are i the busiess to make moey, rather tha products ad service. The Japaese corporate credo, o the other had, is that a compay should become the world s most efficiet provider of whatever product ad service it offers. Oce it becomes the world leader ad cotiues to offer good products, profits follow. iv The cautio here, for the Uited Methodist Church, is that we will eed to fid our balace betwee bechmarks ad fruitfuless, betwee the short-term ed-of-quarter evidece of vitality that comes from coutig our resources ad activities ad our log-term purpose of chagig lives ad trasformig the world. As I have argued i a umber of places, vital cogregatios are resources they are ous. We eed vital cogregatios because they will cotiue to be the place of commuity i which disciples are formed. We caot reasoably thik that we will be able to perform our missio of disciple makig without healthy, vital cogregatios. But vital cogregatios are ot the differece we are tryig to make. Costacy of purpose requires us to always remember that what we are called to produce are disciples of Jesus Christ ad a chaged world. Vital cogregatios must always be see i service to disciple makig. I other words, vital cogregatios are a ecessary proximate outcome that we must master i our chaged missio field i 4
order that we ca lear to address our fial missioal purpose of disciples ad a trasformed world. At every poit we eed to rehearse ad be directed by our purpose of makig disciples ad chagig the world, while we focus o vital cogregatios. Our risk is that we will mistake our vital cogregatio bechmarks ad our aual coferece dashboards for the purpose of our leadership, ad we will react too quickly to the small chages that give evidece to either fruitfuless or failure. As I have argued, it is absolutely essetial that we use bechmarks ad dashboards to do our coutig, because without them, we caot achieve the vital cogregatios we eed for our missio. We caot sidestep coutig simply because it does t fully measure what we are fially called to do. Our challege at the momet, as a deomiatio, is how to keep alive the coversatio ad the ecessary learig about makig disciples, while we are redirectig our resources to produce more vital cogregatios. How do we keep our couts ad measures balaced appropriately i our coversatios ad efforts, so that we do t mistake short-term measures as our real purpose? Coected to Demig s deadly diseases is the mistake of ruig a compay o visible figures aloe. v The dager is that we become too sesitive to our bechmarks ad dashboards, assumig they measure immediate evidece of progress toward our goals. I our axiety, we are tempted to become oversesitive to chages i our couts. I part, this is why Demig s method of statistical cotrol was a importat tool. Uderstadig the atural behavior of a idustry or a orgaizatio eabled leaders to kow where to pay attetio ad ivest themselves, but also whe ot to act whe ot to get too excited ad make mistakes. The statistical model itroduced upper ad lower limits of cotrol betwee which ay chage or variatio produced is simply the ature of the orgaizatio, ad is ot the product of efforts made by the leaders. It is a matter of uderstadig the stadard deviatio of ormal variace. Cosider a real life example i which leaders of a church I was asked to work with, itetioally set a logterm goal for membership growth i their commuity, which was experiecig demographic ad housig growth. Despite their log history of efforts toward a goal of growth, a review of their membership over a 20- year period showed there had bee o real chage. Iterestigly (ad perhaps diabolically!), i the 20 years covered by the data we examied, this cogregatio received 666 ew members. I that same period of time the cogregatio lost 666 members for a et chage of 0. A part of my work with this cogregatio was to help them uderstad their data ad to help them address their goal of growth. Naturally, give their cotiual goal ad their lack of ay et chage after 20 years, the leaders were both frustrated ad very axious about their umbers. Oe of the first steps i our work was to uderstad the atural performace of their cogregatio i a commuity that was growig (ew people comig i) but was also highly mobile as youg professioals chaged jobs (people goig out). 5
Below is a graph of the membership chage i this cogregatio over the 20-year period. Note that the highest et aual gai i membership was +44, which ca be see i year te. The largest loss of members, -34, ca be see i year four. The 20-year history of this church was a cotiuous oscillatio of ups ad dows of membership util the total gai matched the total loss. Particularly importat, the leaders talked about their cogregatio as if it was a roller coaster of good years ad bad years. They evaluated their experiece ad wated to kow what wet wrog i bad years ad what they did right i good years. They were, i fact, oversesitive ad tryig too hard to guess what to do ext. The reality is that their cogregatio, i the commuity i which it was located, was built to receive up to 50 ew members per year ad to lose up to 50 members per year, o matter what they did uder curret coditios. While they worried about good ad bad years, what they were actually lookig at was the ormal variatio of a established system that was doig o more tha reflectig its eviromet. This was a primary isight of Demig s focus o statistical cotrol. (Statistically, i the case of this cogregatio, the mea chage was 33.3 people per year; the stadard deviatio was 5.7; the upper ad lower cotrol limits of variatio was 50.6 all meaig that i ay give year this cogregatio could receive 50 ew members or lose 50 members simply because of where it was ad how it fit ito its commuity.) The reality was that the cogregatio wet through multiple pastoral chages i the 20-year period prompted by their cocers about icreasig growth, ad they set multiple leaders to multiple cotiuig educatio evets about church growth tryig to achieve their goal. Their over-attetio to coutig members pulled their attetio away from their purpose as a church i their commuity. The coversatio that was missig was what differece this cogregatio felt called to make i people s lives ad i their commuity that would wat them to egage ew people ad the missio field aroud them ad would make people wat to egage with them. Their over-sesitivity to aual shifts i membership umbers framed a short-sightedess that made leaders axious ad over-fuctioig. What was lost was the balace required by attetio to purpose the loger-termed focus o the differece they were called to make. 6
Churches that cout members too closely, ad aual cofereces that aouce progress or set-backs oly because there is a slight shift of aual statistics, ru the risk of performace-axiety istead of costacy of purpose. Of course, we wat to see cofirmatio of our efforts by watchig umbers grow. However, it is ot the aual shifts that will cofirm our efforts, uless the shifts become a tred over time ad exceed the ormal limits of the cogregatioal or aual coferece systems that we already have. It will still take us a umber of years for our deomiatio to cofirm we are o the right path. I the meatime, we will eed to carefully ad cotiually rehearse our purpose at each step we take or else our costat coutig will hide our eed to measure progress toward our disciple makig purpose. MOTIVATION Short-sightedess also has a egative effect o motivatig people to pursue the purposeful leadership the church eeds to address its missio. A iappropriate use of metrics has its egative effect o the passio leaders have for their work. Drawig agai from the cautios of Demig: Oe of the mai effects of evaluatio of performace is ourishmet of short-term performace. A [perso] must have somethig to show. [His or her] superior is forced ito umerics. It is easy to cout. Couts relieve maagemet of the ecessity to cotrive a measure with meaig. Ufortuately, people that are measured by coutig are deprived of pride of workmaship. vi Pride of workmaship comes from a sese that oe has fulfilled the purpose of oe s task. From the cotractor who ca stad back ad look at the studdig that he kows will more tha adequately support the wall that is eeded for a home, to the craftsma who ca stad back ad look at the wood that she has formed ito a table that has as much character as fuctio, to the ivestmet advisor who ca sit back kowig that his advice to the cliet will ot just geerate icome but will also provide security ad piece of mid, to the pastor who kows that brigig a perso to a commitmet of participatio or membership is a step toward formig a faith that ca trasform just livig ito havig life, there is a purpose behid our tasks. To remove the purpose is to dimiish the task. The carpeter who does t uderstad that the wall belogs to a home ca easily be draw ito usig iferior materials or spacig the studs wider tha the stadard 16 because it ca save moey ad materials. Purpose comes from a sese that there is a call to the work we do a reaso beyod the work itself. Without a call, there are oly tasks. Ad a call ad a task seek differet rewards. Cosider the coversatio that is moutig i the church as we try to describe the kid of leadership we believe we eed for the future i our chaged missio field. We speak of watig people who are etrepreeurial, agile ad missioal. A udue reliace o coutig resources of people ad dollars, without also givig attetio to measurig progress toward makig disciples ad makig a differece i our commuities ad world, ca udermie the motivatio, passio ad creativity of a leader s (clergy ad lay) call to the purpose of a etrepreeurial, missioal miistry that seeks to fid tractio i our chaged missio field. 7
Daiel Pik idetifies three mai drivers that power behavior ad have a direct impact o our motivatio for doig somethig. Like versios of software i which later releases are more complex ad powerful tha earlier versios, he idetifies the three drivers as icreasigly complex ad importat: vii Versio 1.0 biological drivers of survival, huger ad thirst Versio 2.0 rewards ad puishmets delivered by the eviromet (based o two simple ideas: rewardig a activity will get you more of it; puishig a activity will get you less of it.) Versio 3.0 the itrisic reward of performace of a meaigful task We most commoly thik of rewards as carrots ad sticks versio 2.0. Positive rewards motivate, ad so we assume that rewardig cogregatios ad leaders that post good metrics should get us eve more good metrics as we seek to chage. Lack of good metrics receives the stick of ot beig rewarded, of ot receivig attetio, or of receivig egative attetio. So we fid cofereces brigig pastors ad leaders of cogregatios that have icreased their umbers up o the stage at a aual coferece sessio to recogize (ad reward) their good work. Or we fid bishops ad district superitedets holdig public gatherigs of those church leaders whose cogregatios have ot fulfilled their apportiomet commitmet as a egative reward (the stick of drawig attetio to their lack of coveat commitmet). The hope is to reward the behavior we wat ad to replace the behavior we do t wat. I a North America church world i which the biological drivers of 1.0 have largely bee cared for, we have tured our attetio to the 2.0 drivers of rewards ad puishmets to shape the respose we believe the missio field calls for. To a extet, this is appropriate. If a system gets what it pays attetio to, the we eed to help our leaders pay attetio to the results that we believe will advace our miistry i the missio field, ad we eed to address the results that do t advace our miistry. Hoorig those who are makig progress, as well as callig attetio to those who are ot fulfillig commitmets, i a effort of accoutability is vital ad importat to settig the directio of a orgaizatio. The real story of motivatio, however, is sigificatly more complex tha that, particularly as it relates to miistry, which is highly coected to the huma ad commuity coditios of the uique ad immediate settig of the people ad missio field ivolved. To uderstad this complexity, Pik provides the distictio betwee algorithmic ad heuristic work. A algorithmic task is oe i which you follow a set of established istructios dow a sigle pathway to oe coclusio. That is, there is a algorithm for solvig it. A heuristic task is the opposite. Precisely because o algorithm exists for it, you have to experimet with possibilities ad devise a ovel solutio. viii 8
Give this distictio, it is easy to see that miistry is a heuristic task. There is o sigle set of behaviors, o stadardized set of steps that will produce a perso committed to Christ. The path of discipleship is a waderig search through stages of uderstadig ad commitmet, ot a checklist of activities to be completed. With heuristic work, with miistry, goals that people set for themselves ad that are coected to mastery of their call, produce great commitmet ad effort ad are judged to be worth sacrifice motivatio versio 3.0. However, goals imposed by others have the dagerous effects of arrowig focus, miimizig creativity, decreasig cooperatio ad supportig short-term thikig that loses sight of purpose. ix Motivatio for the heuristic work of miistry (3.0) depeds upo stayig coected to the meaig of our work stayig coected to the Gospel good ews that promises life as more tha just livig, stayig coected to values of commuity that seek to break boudaries ad address sufferig. Yes, we must do our coutig ad we must recogize those whose couts are growig ad address those whose couts do ot cotribute to vitality. A system gets what it pays attetio to, ad we must pay attetio. However, vitality ad faithfuless also deeply deped upo cotiued attetio ad coectio to purpose. Rewards ad puishmets (2.0), without cotiued calls to ad remiders of purpose (3.0), will ot provide either fruitfuless or faithfuless. To move ahead will require cotiued ad icreased attetio to the other critical steps of heuristic motivatio that we are ow discoverig ad usig i our chaged missio field wilderess: Aual coferece gatherigs that are more focused o worship, spiritual reewal ad rememberig the purpose of miistry, istead of beig focused o regulatios, resources or decisio makig Clergy self-directed peer learig groups as cotiuig professioal developmet where clergy ca remember their call, risk their vulerability ad seek to master their call i the compay of other seekers, rather tha receivig additioal iformatio ad skills from cotiuig educatio experts who may or may ot be helpful to their settig of miistry Small group coveat gatherigs of laity where relatioships, study, ad missio help them form as people of faith, rather tha reliace oly o committee meetigs that pla actio or classes that teach about a faith that may or may ot challege people to lear a ew way of livig Goverace meetigs (at both the coferece ad local church levels) that icorporate study, prayer ad reflectio ito the discermet ad decisio makig tasks, so that actios are ot separated from, but rather iformed by, our purpose Oe of the great cautios of this momet i our church, whe we tur to metrics, is the ecessity of fidig the right balace betwee drawig attetio to ad rewardig ot oly actios ad behaviors, but itet ad purpose, as well. We eed to lear how to appropriately reward behaviors by attedig to our couts, while we also lear how to appropriately reiforce our passio by uderscorig ad supportig those thigs that coect us to our purpose. 9
PRODUCTIVITY (the appropriateess of measures) Ad so we come to the third of the cautios takig care to be sure that our measures are appropriate to, ad help to actually produce the outcome that we are after. Here it would seem that the primary rule is ot to be too rigid i our metrics. I their exploratio of practical wisdom, Schwartz ad Sharpe use the idea of bedig the rule. I the early days of temple ad cathedral costructio, a ormal, straight-edged ruler was of little use to the masos who were carvig roud colums from slabs of stoe ad eeded to measure the circumferece of the colums. Uless, you bet the ruler. Which is exactly what the masos did. They fashioed a flexible ruler out of lead, a foreruer to today s tape measure. x Practical wisdom requires kowig how to bed the rule to fit the circumstace. Rigid tools do ot help. Rigidity to iappropriate or isesitive measures does ot help. Observatio ad experimetatio is eeded to lear how to bed the rule i the right directio. Cosider how rigid ad isesitive measures impact the performace of other professios beyod miistry. We ted to be well aware of this problem i educatio where effectiveess is measured by stadardized testig of studets o material determied to be importat to master at each age level. We kow that teachig to the test overlooks the developmet of skills ad arrows the scope of a child s learig to the subjects ad cotet o which they will be tested. Evaluatig teachig by stadardized tests supports memorizatio as the primary meas of learig. Ideed, there was a day i which memorizatio was a essetial tool of the educated perso sice iformatio was housed i books that resided i libraries, which were ofte uavailable to people as they worked. However, today iformatio is everywhere ad uiversally accessible to educated people because of the Iteret. Memorizatio, the domiat skill that is beig measured by stadardized tests, is a poor substitute to the skills of critical thikig that our childre eed to lear i order to be able to effectively sift through too much iformatio, that is too available, i order to make good decisios ad produce clear outcomes. Stadardized tests are ecessary tools of measure. But to actually address our cocers of whether we are educatig our childre, we will eed to move well beyod rigid measures ad bed the rule, so that we are more cofidet that our metrics are actually appropriate to our iteded outcomes. If we looked at the professio of law, we ca see the same dilemma. A commo measure used widely i law offices is the billable hour. A lawyer s productivity is measured by moey geerated by his or her billable hours, usually accouted for i six-miute segmets so a lawyer ca reasoably estimate the time spet o a cliet s questios or problems measured by teths of each hour. Billig is coected to performace because most law firms recogize ad reward performace of idividual lawyers by volume of icome brought to the firm. While the billable hour is a clear ad hoest measure of work doe, it ca be a questioable measure of fulfilled purpose. If the purpose of a lawyer is to give good cousel to a cliet, the rigid adherece oly to billable hours may be a misdirectio of itet. Billable hours, by itself, may ecourage a lawyer to poorly serve a cliet, ot by givig poor cousel, but by makig cousel overly complex ad demadig because it leads to higher reveue. At its worst, billable hours makes the lawyer s supervisor, or the law firm itself, the cliet that the lawyer serves sice productivity is measured by icome, rather tha service of good cousel to the customer. 10
Oe ca easily go o to medicie where effectiveess is determied by isurace paymets to the physicia, measured by time spet, diagoses determied, ad tests ad services provided. The measures are rigid ad physicias fid themselves shapig their practice to meet the measures. So it is that physicias routiely (ucosciously) begi to make diagoses of a patiet s problem withi the first 15 secods of a visit because paymet is based o volume of patiets see i a day. Similarly, because paymet is determied by diagosis ad time, physicias so measured will ted to settle o kow diagoses quickly because they fit a isurace provider s diagostic scree, ad the physicia has little ecouragemet to sped time listeig to the stories of the patiet s life where real clues to illess may be hidig, ad little ecouragemet to cosider less diagosable causes to a patiet s complait. I each case, the rigid measures used withi a professio direct the professioal s work i a way that may ot easily bed itself to the professio s purpose. Keep i mid, oce agai, that this does ot suggest that there is o place for such metrics. It does suggest that the wrog, or the rigid use of measures that do ot fully iclude the purpose of the practice, are ot eough. As argued i this series of moographs, limitig our metrics to the rigid coutig of resources ad activities is isufficiet ad, by itself, may be misdirectig. Our categories of couts i the church are isesitive. We cout members at a time whe people are ot lookig for membership i orgaizatios. We cout professios of faith i a way that ca ecourage cogregatios to thik of this step as a fial mark of discipleship rather tha a etry poit. We eed to iclude coutig, but move beyod the limits of oly coutig, i order to experimet with measures that will guide us to the real chages that we believe we are called to make. The opeig of this moograph bega with a 1963 quote from Marti Luther Kig that wared of over attetio to umbers ad size. From the last half of the 20th cetury ito the begiig of the 21st cetury, attetio to size has domiated. Some claimed, at a earlier time, that our umbers idicated the importace of the church; some ow poit to the umbers as evidece of the irrelevace of the church. Some are hopeful; some are critical. Whatever the size of the church, its purpose is ot dimiished. I the same sermo, Kig wet o to say, May cotiue to kock at the door of the church at midight, eve after the church has so bitterly disappoited them, because they kow that the bread of life is there. xi First, ad above all, if we are true to our purpose as the holders of the bread of life, ad if we lear to offer this bread to the ew cultural missio field aroud us, the costacy of purpose will care for our couts ad measures. Learig to cout ad learig to measure are simply tools we use to hold ourselves accoutable to the purpose upo which we are to stad. 11
Edotes i Marti Luther Kig, from the sermo A Kock at Midight. Foud i Stregth to Love (Mieapolis: Fortress Press, 2010) 56. ii Mary Walto, The Demig Maagemet Method (New York: Perigee Books, 1986). See chapter 1 for a biographical summary of Edwards Demig. iii W. Edwards Demig, Out of Crisis (Cambridge: Massachusetts Istitute of Techology Ceter for Advaced Egieerig Study, 1982) 97-99. iv Ibid., 99. v Ibid., 121. vi Ibid., 105. vii Daiel Pik, Drive: The Surprisig Truth about What Motivates Us (New York: Riverhead Books, 2009) 2. viii Ibid, 27. ix Ibid. 48. x Barry Schwartz ad Keeth Sharpe, Practical Wisdom: The right Way to do the Right Thig (New York: Riverhead books, 2010) 28. xi Kig, 61.