I think the basic answer to, How do you measure “growing spiritually” or “loving God’s word” is through participation. We’ve been influenced by Willow Creek’s Reveal study, so we know simple participation in programs is not a measure of deepening discipleship, but we do think that use of specific tools can be one measure of growing spiritually and beginning to love God’s word. So, we know we can’t measure someone’s heart; only God can do that. But even Wesley would have agreed with that and still measured participation in Class Meetings, Bands, etc. He didn’t “know” they were growing spiritually, but he knew they were participating in the means of grace. So for us, growing spiritually would be indicated by regular participation in small groups and loving God’s word would be indicated, broadly speaking, by people taking advantage of whole church initiatives like daily bible reading plans. For instance, if we had 200 people participate in a “year through the bible” one year and 500 the next, we would say we’ve gone some distance toward accomplishing that particular goal. Measurement is challenging, but there are indicators we can measure.

So on another of your questions, sharing faith is generally indicated by how many people use the tools we give them to share their faith (invitations to certain seasons, sharing information via Facebook or Twitter, etc). To ask someone to do something they aren’t trained or equipped to do is crazy. We try not to ask people to do something without giving them tools to do it. You’re right though – it’s about introducing people to Christ and involving them in the discipleship process, which takes a lifetime, not just getting them to commit and then abandoning them.

One thing I’d push back on a bit is your comment that confirmands are only here because their parents are. We are pretty adamant and intentional about helping our students know this is their decision to follow Christ and not their parents. Even though there are social pressures to commit to faith (GOOD!), this is a personal commitment.

Hope this helps understand a little more where I’m coming from. Keep asking good questions!

Just found your blog and am interested in some of what you are talking about. I am a Methodist layman with a father who’s a retired Methodist minister and son who is preparing to enter Duke Divinity School in the fall. I am involved in a “vision” team at our Methodist church in North Carolina trying to discern the direction in which God is calling us. A side note, it would be helpful if you could have an email share option, or facebook too, on your posts. Anyway, I like your direction but my only observation is that measures should actually be measurable and observable. Some of yours aren’t. My dad, who writes a column for United Methodist Reporter and just wrote a book on Methodist Fundamentals, recently told me that Will Willimon says that Wesley was very adamant about measuring things as part of our “methodical” process, I guess. He apparently is catching some flak for introducing “dashboard indicators” in his conference, which are common in business. How do you measure “loving God’s word” or “growing spiritually.” I own a learning business and we test each student’s reading and math skills to understand exactly what they know. I’m not saying that everything related to faith can be measured…after all it is faith. But if we adopt standards or “measures” for our churches, how do we measure them? As I look at the data in our church historically, it is clear that we measure new members but don’t really take out confirmands (who are just there because their parents are) or deaths or transfers in the totals for a net. We don’t have many non-confirmation professions of faith, which would seem to be a measure we should deem important. Finally, regarding sharing faith…it is clear this is imperative. However, I am saddened by people I know who talk about sharing faith as how many notches they put on their belt for “saving people” simply by getting them to say a prayer. If you are a Calvinist (or Baptist), then once saved always saved. But our tradition from Wesley believes it’s a journey in which we slide back at times…so how is it we are to measure “sharing faith”? I don’t have the answer, but I do believe we need to have a good way to suggest to Methodist lay people how best to share their faith in ways that work. Most people don’t want to be like the “bullhorn guy” in Rob Bell’s Nooma film. But then it’s a bit of a cop out to say that we just won’t do it at all because they aren’t comfortable raising the issue, which is often what we do. Certainly we can just be a friend or neighbor and share Christ’s love, but I would think Mr. Wesley would recommend a standardized process by which we could empower people to share trusting Christ. Sorry to be so long but if you have any thoughts let me know. Keep up the good work.

Doug

I dropped email, social media, etc. for a week last year and found it very enlightening as well: http://www.jonathanandersen.com/2010/03/13/terror-and-joy/

And may I say: I hope your renewed activity in blogging is here to stay!

Looking at the list, I notice some of the marks seem more specific than others. I wonder what kind of conversation you had around the exact phrasing of some of them. Were there conversations about being more or less concrete on some of them?