What You Measure Matters

The Scoreboard

What do you measure? What is the scoreboard you keep that defines Kingdom success?

A church’s measures, or metrics, help them see when they are successful in accomplishing the church’s mission.

Most churches track… attendance, baptisms, and offerings. I have a friend who says churches measure “The Three B’s” – buildings, bucks, butts in seats.

That’s what we tend to track, but what if we’re not tracking the right things?

Could you measure all that and not really know if you are making disciples of Jesus? Not truly understand if your people are actually obeying Jesus?

We seek to track things that will lead to mobilizing disciples of Jesus in the mission he’s given us and create movement.

Controllable vs. Uncontrollable

I’ll tell you my dumbed-down version, but the business world calls them “leading” and “lag indicators.” What are they?

• A leading indicator is an input measurement. It’s the thing you do that leads to a specific output.

• A lagging indicator is an output measurement. It’s what happens because of what you are doing.

The problem is:

• Leading indicators may not be obvious and are difficult to measure.
• Lagging indicators are obvious and easy to measure.

Why is that a problem?

• You can control leading indicators.
• You cannot control lagging indicators, except by doing the leading indicators.

Confused? Let me give you a couple examples.

You don’t want people to die on your construction site. That is a lagging indicator. It’s obvious and easy to measure, but you can’t directly control it. What you can control is requiring everyone to wear hard hats. If you do that, it will lead to less deaths.

You want people to come to your party. That is a lagging indicator. You can’t control if people show up. But, if you know people love Chick-fil-A chicken, you can let everyone know you’ll have eight-foot-high stacks of delicious nuggets. If you do that, it should lead to more people coming to your amazing blowout.

I heard Chris McChesney – a business expert and author of The Four Disciplines of Execution – give a real-life example. He consulted with a shoe company, who was measuring… sales. Of course, they were measuring sales. Sales are what you want and are easy to measure. But sales are a lagging indicator we can’t directly control. McChesney coached them to search for a leading indicator. What was something the shoe salespeople could directly control that would lead to sales? They soon discovered that the probability of someone who walked into a store and actually bought shoes soared if they got their feet measured by an employee. That is a leading indicator and something the store could control. So, instead of hoping for sales, employees began focusing on asking every potential customer if they’d like to get their feet measured… and sales increased exponentially.

I hope you’re getting leading versus lagging indicators now but, again, I’m a simple guy so we dumbed it down and call these indicators controllables and uncontrollables. What’s out of our control? What can we control? What controllable things can we do that will lead to the uncontrollable things we want to happen?

An example?

Do you want people coming to faith in Jesus? Yes! It’s easy to track and fun to celebrate. But… you can’t control it. It’s up to Jesus and the Holy Spirit. That makes it an uncontrollable (or lagging indicator for you brainiacs.)

What can you control that can lead to people coming to faith? I think we find the answer in Romans 10.

Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”  How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent?…  (Romans 10:13-15)

 People come to faith because they hear about Jesus by having someone preach to them. And what you can control is how many people you shared the gospel with. That’s up to you. It’s not Jesus’ job; it’s yours. Opening your mouth and talking about Jesus is something you control every day. The more people you tell, the more people will say yes. The controllable will lead to the uncontrollable.

Pastors often ask me, “Josh, why isn’t my church growing? Why aren’t we seeing many people come to faith?” (They’re focused on the uncontrollable lagging indicator.) I answer their question in terms of seeds. I ask, “How many seeds are you throwing?” Usually, I get blank stares in response. So, I continue, “This may be hard to believe, it may blow your mind, but your harvest is in direct relation to the number of seeds you sow. If I have a 10 x 10 plot of land in my backyard and I plant corn, how much corn will I get? I’ll get a 10 x 10 plot of corn. But if I have a huge field and I plant corn through the whole thing, how much corn will I get? A huge field’s worth. It all depends on the amount of seed you sow.”

I hope it’s becoming more clear – the controllable of how many people we share the gospel with will lead to the uncontrollable of people coming to faith.

Another example.

Do you want to start churches? Yes! It’s also pretty easy to track and awesome to celebrate. But it’s another thing you can’t control as it is also up to the Holy Spirit. What can we control?

• How many believers we’re training on how to share their faith.
• How many believers we’re training on how to make disciples.
• How many believers we’re training to invite people to study the Bible with them.
• How many believers we’re training on how to lead a Bible study to become a simple church.

If we do those controllables, the uncontrollable of new churches planted will happen.

I would encourage you to think about what you can control and what you can’t. If you do, I would bet you’ll find that you are tracking uncontrollables, like:

• Your budget. You can’t control how much money you have coming in, but you can control what you teach about money.

• Your attendance. You can’t control how many people come to your church on a Sunday, but you can control how many people you’re inviting.

• Your baptisms. You can’t control how many people choose to put their faith in Jesus and get baptized, but you can control how many people you’re sharing the gospel with and how many hours a week you spend praying for lost people to come to Jesus.

If you focus on the controllables – the right controllables – you’ll see the uncontrollables go through the roof.

For King Jesus,

Josh Howard