Leading Ideas: Lewis Center for Church Leadership of The Wesley Theological Semonary of Washington, D.C., United States for Wednesday, 6 January 2016 "Take an Annual Church Health Checkup | Setting Stewardship Goals for the New Year"

Leading Ideas: Lewis Center for Church Leadership of The Wesley Theological Semonary of Washington, D.C., United States for Wednesday, 6 January 2016 "Take an Annual Church Health Checkup | Setting Stewardship Goals for the New Year"

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Wednesday, January 6, 2016
"Take an Annual Church Health Checkup" by Eric Seiberling

At the beginning of every year, many people take time to evaluate their lives and determine new priorities and directions. The same should be true for churches. You need to evaluate honestly your church’s progress during the previous year to define the right direction.

Measure Your Church’s Vital Signs

You probably have heard discussion about metrics within the church. Metrics serve as indicators much like height, weight, blood pressure, temperature, and cholesterol levels do for individuals. They indicate health or illness and guide further diagnoses. Look at each of the “church vital signs” across the long term to identify potential trends.

• Church membership.  Membership shows the historical trends of the church and may help show how committed congregants are.
• Worship attendance. Worship attendance shows the “heartbeat” of the church. Review attendance relative to previous years, and look to understand rises and falls over the year and over multiple years. Also, compare attendance as a percentage of overall membership.
• Age distribution of the church versus the community. Obtain census data to identify the age distribution of your community, and compare it to the same distribution for your membership, worship attendance and discipleship attendance. Examining the differences for each area will show potential issues and opportunities for your church.
• Giving patterns. Understanding the finances of your church and giving patterns provides an indication of spiritual health and obedience. It also helps you gauge the church’s capacity for making changes to improve effectiveness.
• Discipleship activity attendance. This provides an indicator of spiritual formation, as measured by small groups, Sunday school classes and Bible studies. Look at discipleship activity attendance as a percentage of membership and of attendance. Ask if your congregation is committed to spiritual growth through discipleship.
• Missions. Measure the number of people in the congregation engaged in local, national and international outreach.
• Transfers in versus out. Compare transfers into and out of the church. This will show your ability to retain and attract members. Look at significant shifts up and down.
• Baptisms, confirmations and professions of faith. Look at these numbers in the context of your congregation. Are you making the appropriate number of disciples relative to your congregation’s size?
• Removals. Look at the number of removals per year, and seek to understand the reason for the removals. If they are deaths, compare to baptisms, confirmations and professions of faith to determine if you can sustain the life of the church.

Diagnose the Symptoms

Look for changes and trends in the data and ask what happened. Was there a change in pastors? Was there a plant closing or new manufacturer that moved to town? Avoid blaming others or external factors, but look at your church’s actions or inactions and how they influenced the trends. Seek out opinions of a broad spectrum of people inside and outside your church, and seek the truth courageously. Clarity on the current situation is the only way to create a path forward.

Like going to the doctor, the annual church health checkup may not be enjoyable. However, it can help prevent major problems by diagnosing changes necessary to create or maintain a healthy church.

Eric Seiberling writes for United Methodist Communications. This material is adapted from an article on umcom.org and is used by permission. 

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"Setting Stewardship Goals for the New Year" by Clayton L. Smith

Setting annual goals for your stewardship and generosity ministry is very important to help create focus and energy. These goals can come out of brainstorming sessions; however, they will need to be refined with those who are going to be working on these goals before final decisions and approvals are made because ownership is important for best results. Your leadership will result in growth in stewardship and generosity for your congregation.

My experience is that it helps to limit your strategic goals to three to four per year. Too few will not generate the leadership dynamic you need, and too many will be frustrating to all involved. Every year, it is helpful to evaluate the previous year and set your strategic goals for the new year.

Whether it is a one-year plan or a three-year plan, goals need to be specific, measurable, assignable, realistic, and time-related. Specific goals can be identified from those areas of your ministry that need improvement. Measurable ways of quantifying the progress or results are essential for evaluation. Assignable simply means who will be responsible for the project. Realistic expectations are important, and yet the expectations should encourage risk and great results. Failure should not be punished. Time-related results keep moving us forward toward completion or at least a sense of accomplishment.

Here are some strategic priorities for your stewardship and generosity team to consider as you seek to create a culture of stewardship that celebrates joyful and faithful giving, and also sacrificial giving. Which three or four are most needed in your congregation just now?

• To teach and interpret the biblical stewardship principles so that all members become disciples of Jesus Christ who are theologically informed, spiritually transformed, and daily living their faith.
• To preach and teach stewardship as an act of worship, and generosity as an expression of faith and a spiritual discipline.
• To invite all members to give a percentage of their income with the tithe (10 percent) as a goal.
• To lift up a clear expectation that every member will return an estimate of giving card every year as a faith witness.
• To conduct annual and capital stewardship campaigns that raise faith, commitment, and funds that enable your church to fulfill its vision and purpose.
• To integrate stewardship education into all ages and stages of Christian education programs.
• To call upon our members as well as church and public leaders to work for economic justice and to support ministries and causes that demonstrate generous stewardship.
• To provide stewardship coaching and support to those who are in financial crises.
• To celebrate and champion the act of generous giving by sharing stewardship stories of changed lives.
• To ask members to consider giving a legacy gift so that our church’s future will be sustained.
• To call all church leaders and staff to put God first in our living and giving.
• To steward and nurture relationships so that every member will be connected to a pastor, life group, task group, or ministry area.

Clayton Smith is Executive Pastor for Stewardship and Generosity at the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas. He is the author of Propel: Good Stewardship, Greater Generosity (Abingdon Press, 2015), available through Amazon or Cokesbury.

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Quotable Leadership:
We must look behind the things of organizations to work with the processes that gave them birth.[Margaret J. Wheatley]

Pursue Your Doctor of Ministry in the Nation’s Capital

Wesley Theological Seminary and the Lewis Center for Church Leadership together offer a Doctor of Ministry in Church Leadership Excellence. With this track, clergy will receive the enhanced knowledge, skills, and motivation to increase congregational and denominational service, vitality, and growth. The next cohort begins in May 2016 in Washington, DC. Learn more and apply today.
The Right Question
Leaders do not need answers. Leaders must have the right questions.
Many congregations have found that asking a range of members to spend time in their communities simply paying attention to what they experience can provide new clues for a more relevant ministry. Alan J. Roxburgh suggests going for a 45-minute walk with some observation questions. Among the questions are:
What do you see? Not see?
What do you smell? Not smell?
What do you hear? Not hear?
What do you feel? Not feel?
What effect did any of these things have on you?
Did you stop to listen to anyone on your walks?
Want more Right Questions? Check out “Right Questions for Church Leaders, Volumes 1–4.”
Editors: Lovett H. Weems, Jr., and Ann A. Michel. Production: Carol Follett
Lewis Center for Church Leadership of Wesley Theological Seminary.
4500 Massachusetts Avenue NW

Washington, D.C. 20016, United States

(202) 885-8757

lewiscenter@wesleyseminary.edu
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Lewis Center for Church Leadership

Wesley Theological Seminary

4500 Massachusetts Avenue NW

Washington, D.C. 20016, United States
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