Changing the Scorecard

So, it's time to get this blog rolling a bit. I'll start.

At the RCA's One Thing conference in San Antonio, we heard from Reggie McNeal [author of Revolution in Leadership (Abingdon Press, 1998), A Work of Heart: Understanding How God Shapes Spiritual Leaders (Jossey-Bass, 2000), The Present Future (Jossey-Bass, 2003), and Practicing Greatness (Jossey-Bass, 2006).

One of the things that Reggie talked about was "changing the score-card." What he seems to have meant by that was an encouragement to measure our success or effectiveness as churches more upon the outcomes of the kingdom mission than in traditional (or maybe these are more "contemporary" than tradition - but that's another topic) methods - largely based around attendance numbers, finances, etc. His example was, "How many more marriages are healthy this year than last." I imagine you could add to that, "How many more people have arisen from poverty," or "How many former drug addicts are clean this year?" The idea being that the work of the Holy Spirit through the church on mission (or missional church) is life-transformative, and hence community transformative - both within the church and in its surrouding community and culture.

I'm drawn to these kinds of views of the church - one that takes seriously the breaking in of the eschatological Kingdom of Jesus into the present day with hints of the future through real life resurrection in re-creation in our midst. It seems, to me at least, more motivational to be a part of that kind of church on mission than one that's merely measuring - as some say - "butts in the pew." (excuse the cultural idiom - it's crassness is not of my making)

So, here are the discipleship questions around a changing scorecard swirling in my head:

• What are the current things we are measuring and "scoring" in discipleship?
• Are these the right things to be measuring?
• If the scorecard needs to change in discipleship, what should we be measuring?

I have some thoughts and my own answers to these questions, but I'd love to hear what you think.