Video Transcript: Lesson 25 Defining Success

Hope you're having a great day hope we can make it a little better with the  lecture we have for you today, John Kenny here with you, I am in your corner I  am pulling for you. As a brother in Christ, I am excited about what God is going  to be doing and is doing in your life and in your ministry. Trust me, we are in this  together. revitalization is the tough thing. In anybody who is in that place. We  have a kinship, we have a connection. And I'm just praying for you all the way,  all the way to the finish line, that God's gonna be doing something good and  wonderful in and through your life and your leadership. So let's hop in this next  series of lectures, we're going to be talking about thinking differently, kind of how do we change our mental model and our mindset of what, what we're supposed  to be doing? And how do we do it? So these are three. Each one is just thinking  a little differently about things. So they're related in that sense, but kind of each  one stands alone. So hopefully, as we go through this, you're gonna have some  aha moments of like, oh, like, I never thought about it that way. That's kind of my goal. And to kind of, maybe give me some new tools or ways to come at things.  Okay. So let's just hop right in here. Lecture 25. Can you believe it? We're at 25. already. You're doing great. Hang in there. 36. isn't that far away? Okay. So  today, I want to talk to you about thinking differently about defining success.  Okay, what is success in the church? Now? In the previous lectures, we've  talked about the church growth model, right. And the success according to the  church growth model is numbers, like more members, more people in  attendance. Giving is, you know, those kinds of things. But again, we talked  about we, you know, some of those things are really out of our control in many  ways, depending on our ministry context, right. And that's not what God  necessarily calls us to. And he doesn't say draw a big crowd, I want lots of  numbers. Jesus talks about there's a wide road that leads to destruction and a  narrow path that leads to life. Right. So what does success look like? Okay, so  what I'd like to just kind of challenge you with in this lecture is about developing  a new scorecard for ministry, getting away from this idea of worship, attendance, or membership, and all that kind of stuff. Now, that can be something we use,  that can be part of a scorecard. But that's not just a scorecard. Now, when I talk  about scorecard, I mean, you know, really just how do we track how things are  going? What are the kinds of things we're looking at, just like if you're playing  golf, and, you know, you keep score on? Well, I got three on the first hole, I got  six on the second hole, I got a five on the third hole, you know, you there's a  scorecard for you to fill out. Or if you're playing a game, like, you know, Yatze or  whatever, there's a scorecard, and you fill it out. And that's how you know how  you're doing right you how you're doing compared to others. So let's think about  a scorecard for church that goes beyond just the statistics that are most often  thought of, okay, so this, we're we're going to be thinking differently. Now. There  are some ways that we can keep score, I'd say more formally. Now. That's, for  example, if you're doing church assessments, we talked about assessments a 

bunch of time. So here's one of the reasons why assessments are really helpful, because there are ways that you can track Church Health. So for example, my  church, we've done the NCD survey. We've done it now four times in the last six  years. And we're able to really track very closely very accurately how we're  doing in certain areas. And so if you're not familiar with the NCD survey is areas  of like inspiring worship, passionate, you know, spiritual formation, effective  structures, loving relationships, gospel sharing. And so we can look at that. So  we have a very formal way that we kind of keep track of things. And I can say,  here's where we were three years ago, here's where we're at now. Now, again,  this is independent of attendance and memberships. It's really a measure of  Church Health. So there's definitely some advantages to that. Because you  have a baseline, and then you can kind of move forward and see how you're  doing. So if you're, if you are doing assessments, which again, I highly  recommend, just so you have an idea of what you're dealing with in your, in your ministry context. Use that as the base baseline, do the same assessment in a  year and a half, or in three years or whatever. And you can kind of see how  you're doing with, with assessment with with your church growth, okay. With  your health, as well. So I've got church growth, I really talked about the health,  how are you growing in terms of health and in vitality yet, not just sheer  numbers? Okay. So that's one way you can do it, it's kind of again, more  formally, a way that you can track. And then there's another way that you can do it, which is much more informally, kind of organic. So how is the church doing  let's think a little bit differently about it, rather than you know, as Harry Reeder  says, you know, nickels and noses how many people are there? How much  money do we have? So I'm just gonna give you a list of things, I don't have them up on the screen, you can either write them down, or you can rewatch the  lecture, or you can do whatever you can type them in. onto your phone or a  computer, whatever, you've got your tablet. One would be thinking differently, in  terms of scorecard would be personal spiritual formation. Alright. Tracking kind  of Church Health in terms of, are people reading the Bible more? Do they read it more consistently? How many people are praying? How often do they pray?  How long are they praying? What kinds of things are they praying for? Right?  That's, that's a different way of keeping score than more people are coming to  say, you know, a year ago, we didn't hear stories about people praying and  people being you know, long periods of time, like reading scripture, you know,  we've got a group of people here who are committed to reading through the  Bible in a year. Like, that's amazing. That's awesome. Like, that's a real indicator like that something is happening in your church. So what's going on with  people's own personal spiritual practices? Okay, that's kind of just a good way of tracking health in a different sort of way. Let's think in terms of community, we've talked about the importance of loving, covenantal relationships. So are there  restored relationships does the church get along better, you know, leadership 

meetings, there's they don't fight like they used to, there's been some conflicts  that have been resolved. We've seen some marriages come together. We have  healthy ways of resolving issues now. We have more fellowship events, and  people come to them and, and they really enjoying each other. You know, there's just a better sense of when we, when we gather together before worship, and  after worship, people seem to linger longer. There's more conversation, there's  more laughter. All these kinds of things. Okay. Like, we're thinking again,  differently about a scorecard you wouldn't necessarily think of, we track Church  Health based on how much laughter there is right. But isn't that I mean, a sense  of like, how it could be a sense of how well we're doing. You could be thinking, in terms of how, how many people are involved in ministry and service. You know,  what kinds of things are people doing? How many volunteers are there in your  church? Oh, what kinds of ministries are they involved in? Are they getting more  committed? Do you have new leaders for these ministries who were growing  and developing and maturing and good things are happening through them?  Maybe there's a new ministry that you know somebody had on their heart and  you're doing something, it's just something new and something exciting. You can be also thinking In terms of tracking in terms of impact that your church or your  ministry is having on the community, how many meals have you served this past year? How many backpacks have you given away, and maybe it was zero last  year, maybe, you know, we gave out 50 backpacks this year at the start of the  school year, and we did a food drive for the local food pantry, or we gave food  away, or we, we collected 30 coats for winter, because of the cold weather. All  kinds of I mean, there's all kinds of things that, you know, those are things that  are happening, that are signs of like health, the church is doing, what it's  supposed to be doing and celebrating that, you know, last year, we gave 30  coats this year, we gave 60. This year, we helped out with the Habitat for  Humanity build for two weekends, like it's great stuff, you know, you know, you  know, let's think in terms of, again, like rethinking kind of a scorecard and how  we're tracking things. Another really important one would be how much better do people understand theology, are people growing and their knowledge of  doctrine, you know, we had so many people or whatever go through a class that  you taught, that really kind of got maybe down a little deeper, you did a book, a  more challenging book, read with just a couple of people. And then they really  drew through that. That's a great thing. Again, this is a vitality. This is health,  your leaders, your elders, or deacons, whoever, you know, walking them  through, you know, the just the foundation of faith and just the cornerstones of  what we believe in solidifying them. Again, teaching the doctrine getting people  just squared away on that. That's a great thing. I mean, that's something Paul  did. That's a strengthening the church move. We can think I mentioned this just  a moment ago, but thinking in terms of developing new leaders, how many new  ministry leaders do we have, how many people are being apprentice, maybe 

you've got a new way of identifying them, and you're expanding your leadership  base, and you've got two new deacons helping out this year, you've got  somebody leading a ministry, and now they've got somebody coming alongside  who they're investing in, like, wow, you're developed, you've got new leaders  who are stepping out. You could be thinking about how many people are  discovering their gifts in ministry, how many people have done like a spiritual gift assessment, how many people know the way that God has shaped them and  equip them for ministry? How many people are, and I know, I keep saying how  many in terms of you know, it sounds like numbers. But I mean, we are trying to  keep track of some kind of thing here. But I don't necessarily mean like, you  know, writing down numbers, but just, you know, looking for these things, the  way that people's faith has increased when they're facing trials that somebody  just, you know, their faith really matured and developed when they went through  this really, valley, season of life. And you just saw really wonderful things  happening in them. Or we can think about the spiritual conversations we're  having with a loss. And this is something that I tried to track with people in our  church, because I can't control whether somebody again comes to Christ. That's the work of the Holy Spirit. But I can say, have you had more than, you know,  four or six spiritual conversations with somebody who doesn't know Christ in the  last year? And something? Yeah. And I know, they said no, the previous year.  That's just, that's just a great thing. Right? I mean, that's, that's a mark of, of  church becoming healthier, proclaiming the gospel, more and more, we can  think about the number of people if your church has a small group ministry, or if  you have a Sunday school ministry, maybe more people are coming or maybe  just the content is better, maybe the relationships within it are more meaningful  and are deeper. Perhaps in your place, you've got college students who are  away from your church, and you see that, you know, they're just sticking with  their faith and they're, they're being leaders on their campus or their dorms and  you know that more kids are just staying with their faith as as they grow up. It  can be just something as simple as your pastor, if you're a pastor, you're just  choosing to stay in ministry. You were thinking about quitting because you were  so overwhelmed, but you know, you're in a better place now and you want to  stay in ministry or you want to stay where you're at You know, in your location.  Now on top of this, of course, we can talk about conversions and baptisms and  worship attendance. But why I gave you kind of that long list is to say that we  need to think more holistically about what does success look like, for a church?  Right? I mean, what does it look like and in the the breadth of things, that was  just the width of things that we can think about kind of on a more informal basis,  it's a lot larger than than we might imagine. So I think that the, the importance  here is, when we think about keeping score, and kind of all those informal  things, you're likely to see progress there first, rather than on the more formal  kind of assessment scales, there's going to be a lot of things that are happening 

kind of more on the informal way that you're going to be able to see daily or  track, then you will kind of every other year kind of assessment sort of thing.  Again, assessments, I think, are really valuable. But I think the informal is kind of more on the ground, it's more organic, it's, you can see it happening, you can  share it much, much more quickly. And I think there's value in both of these, I  think that we need to kind of think differently about how we're tracking the  church. both formally and informally. I use both, I think they're both really helpful. So what we want to do is kind of use a new scorecard to build momentum. And  momentum is a huge thing in terms of church revitalization. Imagine just this like Boulder that's like stuck in mud, and like, just can't move it. And as long as it's  stuck, it's like, it's, it's near impossible to get rolling. So what happens with  something large, once it gets rolling, like, it's a whole lot easier to keep it going,  right. So once we can get something unstuck, it's a lot easier to keep, keep  going, you know, keep that momentum going, keep things moving in the right  direction. So the reason I wanted to talk to you about a new scorecard is  because we can use that to build momentum early on, and then to sustain  momentum. So how do we do that? How do we use this new scorecard to build  momentum? Well, capturing stories write that list of that long list of all the  informal things that you can be looking for, capture those stories, share those  stories, either you can share them, or you can ask people to share a testimony  about something that's changing in their life, something that's new, how God is  showing up, like, you know, I was never in a small group before, but I did it this  year. And I've been really blessed by it. Praise the Lord. You know what, that's  gonna go a long way in other people's life, or, you know, I never wanted to help  serve in the local mission soup kitchen, but I did it and I had a ball, praise the  Lord, you have a kid come back from college and say, you know, I've gotten  involved in this Bible study, and my faith is growing. And I'm so grateful to have  this church that I came from, you know, I mean, these are all the kinds of stories  you want to you want to capture and you want to share. It gets people really,  their eyes open to see that, hey, God is at work like God's here. He's moving in  other people's lives. It gets them to start thinking, how is he moving in my life, it  starts to build confidence in the church. I remember when we had started really  this process of revitalization. And we were really trying to grab as many stories  in his testimony as we could. One gentleman after we've been doing this for a  few months, and he'd been at the church a long time. He goes, you know, for a  long time he goes, I've really hesitated inviting anybody to our church, because  they felt like it was dead. And nothing was happening is like, all of a sudden,  he's like, I just feel really good about being able to invite people and I was gonna invite his neighbor the following week. And it was like, hey, that's awesome.  What was the change? He started to hear stories, because we had changed the  scorecard. We had new things to celebrate. We could see evidence of God's  presence and God's Word in just a number of different ways. And so kind of right

alongside that is this idea of celebrating victories, hey, we, you know, we did this and not we did I mean, God did this through us, like, again, stories and  testimonies. Just like Yeah, like we're doing something and it can be small.  When we're looking at really redoing a number of things with our worship, we  want to just have a deeper experience of the presence of God. And so our  leadership team decided that we were going to have additional worship services several times a year that were not on Sunday morning. And so we came up with  like four services we were going to do on Friday nights, that were a little more  unstructured, just a little more time for singing and praying and just open time to  experience God. And so when we met to evaluate, like, how did that go? You  know, the first thing we said was, we did it, like we were talking about it for like a year, we had all different, but it never happened. And so regardless of how many people showed up, or you know how well it went, we were just like, so excited,  like we did it. That was a victory, the fact that we got it on the calendar, we we  put it together, we rehearse for it, we did it and people actually showed up.  Amen. And so we just celebrate that. So that's just an example from from our  church, and kind of what this looks like and, and I hope that you're encouraged  by this. And you can really be thinking in terms of what are things that we can be looking for, that we can track that we can share, that we can celebrate, to build  momentum and get this thing moving and get this thing going in the right  direction. Okay, that's it for thinking differently about a scorecard and  momentum. And so let me pray for you as we wrap this up. Father, thanks so  much again, for your your wisdom and the way that you're leading us through  this whole discussion on revitalization. And God, we do want to celebrate you, I  pray that for my brothers and sisters watching this God, you would open their  eyes and even now, Lord, as they're thinking of what is going on in their ministry, God that you would bring to mind right now. Just things that where you're at  work and they would see, Lord that they are not there. They are not alone in  this, that your spirit is active and is waiting to be released in full measure in their  context. So God bless them and open their eyes to all that you are and all that  you're doing. Amen.