An illustration of how to use process measures to drive church goals

Now if that title doesn't make you run screaming into the night, nothing will.

Last time on Church Performance Measures:  the key to measuring activity is to use a touches, handshakes, hugs framework - how much money the church rakes in or how pretty the buildings are really doesn't measure what Churches seek to do.  Churches seek to communicate and engage the transforming power of the Holy Spirit to lead people to redemption by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  To do so they interact with people in many different ways.  These interactions can be characterized as 'Touches' - simple, polite interactions that have little if any 'faith' content, 'handshakes' where the interaction includes some exchange of kingdom messages and values and 'hugs' where there is a two way commitment to enter into a deeper relationship with God or the church or ideally, both.

So how would a Church like say, mine use this in a ministry, say like our Tuesday and Thursday Mom's (really parent's) day out program?  Well the program has many parents that do not belong to or attend the Church.  And while their children have a 'hug' relationship with us, the parents barely 'touch' us, just to drop off and pick up their kids.  A Church that measured its interactions and was committed to increasing the frequency and quality of those interactions - to move from touches to handshakes and from handshakes to hugs - would organize the interactions in the program differently than a mere 'day care' center would.  (Incidentally, I'm not saying my Church doesn't do some of these things, but they suffer the fate of pastor's kids everywhere:  doomed to be the butt of their parent's examples in front of everyone.)  So what would the sophisticated 'Church about town' do?

First, They would make sure that every parent formally met with ministry staff (not day care staff, but trained ministry staff or lay volunteers) each year at the start of the program - the goal would be to understand the child but also understand the family's life and faith and any issues that need to be ministered to.

Second, these same ministry team members would be there at every drop off and pick up to interact primarily with the parents, build relationships with them, solicit their issues, show care and concern - to turn touches into handshakes.  Every parent who used the program would get polite invitations to Church events by members that they had gotten to know.

Third, the pick up and drop off process would be engineered to give the ministry team the opportunity to do this, to make a couple minutes of small talk with parents coming and going.  The goal:  increase meaningful interaction, not minimize the elapsed time to drop off their little bundles of 'joy'.

Fourth any issue regarding a child's care, its adaptation, illness or behavior would be looked upon by the ministry team as an opportunity to minister to the parents.  Addressed as family issues, not child issues.

The whole point of measuring how a Church interacts with its community is to increase the quantity and especially the quality of interactions.  Once you begin to measure what you are doing, then you put yourself in a position to manage towards more meaningful outcomes.  This isn't rocket science I'm talking about, it's soul science.