EVALUATION & What to look for when visiting a church @CharlesArn

Commentary by Prof. B: Our “Newcomer Integration Course” is designed by Dr. Charles Arn and includes the following guidelines for analyzing a church’s Sunday celebrations.  Used by permission, these guidelines can help you evaluate your Sunday experience.  It is best used on a church other than the one in which you serve.  If you desire to evaluate your own service, then ask a colleague to undertake this exercise for you (and perhaps offer to return the favor for their congregation).

“Visit a Church” by Charles Arn, Ed.D, n.d.

One of the best ways to understand how a person feels when visiting a church for the first time…is to be one! This assignment involves visiting a church in your area that you have never previously attended, and then writing a report on your experiences. As a result of this assignment, you will hopefully be more sensitized to the experiences that visitors have when they attend your church.

When should your visit occur? Plan to visit a church in your community on the first, second, or third Sunday of this course.

What kind of church should you visit? Try to visit a church that is approximately the same size as yours…but a different denomination and liturgical style. DO NOT visit a church of your own denomination.

What are the instructions for your visit? You may attend with a friend, spouse, or family member. In fact, if you bring someone with you, you can debrief and compare notes, which will give you a more comprehensive evaluation of the overall experience. You do not need to attend the educational hour, unless you desire to do so.

Arrive at least ten minutes before the service begins. Do not tell anyone that you are there because of an assignment for a seminary class. Simply indicate that you wanted to visit a church that morning (or some similar response that isn’t exactly a lie, but also doesn’t “blow your cover”…). Play the role of a visitor. If you have children, bring them along as a further way to evaluate the “church visit” experience. If the church has a “coffee hour,” attend that, as well.

What are the contents of the paper? While your paper should be personalized to reflect your own experience and writing style, make an effort to address the seven topics below. A few “starter” questions are included under each topic. (You don’t need to answer every question.)

1. INTRODUCTION. At the beginning of your paper, include the following:

• Name of the church you visited
• Denomination
• City and state
• Approximate number of people in the service the day of your visit
• Your own church’s name, denomination, and average worship attendance

After this, your paper/report should include the following categories:

1. BEFORE Your VISIT. Check out the church the week before your visit in the same manner that a visitor might do so. Include drive-by impressions of the church building and facilities. Does the church have any yellow pages or newspaper advertising? If so, what are your impressions? Does the church have a website? What impressions do you have of the church based on its website?

Call the church office during the week before your visit and ask for more information about the service; adult and children’s classes, service time, style, dress, and other information of interest to a visitor. What impressions of the church did you get from the phone call?

1. Before The service. What were your impressions driving into the parking lot or walking onto campus? Was the parking adequate? Was there parking for visitors? Handicapped? What did the outer appearance say to you about the church? Did you have any formal or informal contact with anyone before entering the building? Were there greeters before you entered the building? Were your initial impressions of the church confirmed or contradicted by your subsequent experience?

Once you were inside, what happened? Did anyone speak to you? Was there any indication that the church was expecting visitors/guests? Was there a Guest Center? If you had (or would have had) children, would you know where to take them? Would you feel comfortable leaving your children? Does the church appear to have considered children’s safety? What were your impressions of the Nursery (facilities and staff)? Restrooms? Signage? Classrooms? What priority does the church seem to place on their children’s ministry, and why do you think so?

When you entered the sanctuary, what first impressions did you have, and why? What about the seats? Lighting? Sound? Visibility?

1. DURING The service. What were your impressions of the service, and why? Did the church seem to be expecting visitors in the service? Did you feel comfortable or uncomfortable as a visitor? Why?

How would you evaluate the following elements of the service:

1. • Opening                                               • Bulletin/program
   • Visitor welcome                                  • Announcements
   • Music                                                   • Flow
   • Theme                                                 • In-house language
   • Bulletin/program                                  • Sermon
   • Announcements                                  • Closing
2. After the service. Did anyone speak to you in the sanctuary/worship center after the service? In the lobby? Did what happened after the service affect or change your opinion of the church? Was there a time of fellowship or refreshments after the service?       Were you personally invited to have refreshments? Did you go? Did anyone ask or invite you to return the following week? If you were an actual church shopper, would you be inclined to return for a second visit? Why or why not?
3. After the visit. Were you contacted in any way the week after your visit? By whom? When?   If you received a follow-up contact and you would have been an actual church shopper, did the contact affect your inclination to return?
4. CONCLUSION. Summarize your visit and experience. Identify any particular experiences which impressed you (positively or negatively) and from which your church might learn. List any experiences or ideas that might be helpful to include in your own church’s welcome. Note any suggested changes in this assignment that might make the experience more beneficial for future classes/students.

 

(adapted from Dr. Arn’s course on “Newcomer Integration” which can be taken online for 3 credits at WesleySeminary.com)

EVALUATION & Researchers List Top 10 “Bad Boss” Behaviors #TransformationalLeadership

Commentary by Prof. B: I encourage my students to do yearly 360° reviews of their leadership. This includes asking direct reports to anonymously evaluate them on a Likert scale and track changes. But what questions should be asked? The following study yields 10 suitable questions you should include to ascertain if you have “bad boss” behavior.

How Can You Tell Someone Has Horrible Leadership Skills? This New Study Just Revealed the Top 10 ‘Bad Boss’ Behaviors
by Marcel Schwantes, Inc. Magazine, 9/9/17.

So what’s your bad bosshorror story? You know you have one. Bad boss behaviors that lead to horrific employee disengagement and turnover are rampant, and study upon study has confirmed this epidemic. The most recent example is via an employee survey conducted by BambooHR.

They asked more than 1,000 US-based employees to rate 24 ‘typical boss behaviors’ from ‘totally acceptable’ to ‘totally unacceptable. Can you guess the worst behavior a boss can have in the workplace?

…Here’s a summary of the findings from the survey, which you can compare with the boss that currently bullies you or steals your thunder.

Bad Boss Behavior | Percentage who call it unacceptable or a deal breaker

Your boss takes credit for your work	63%
Your boss doesn’t trust or empower you	62
Your boss doesn’t care if you’re overworked	58
Your boss doesn’t advocate for you when it comes to compensation	57
Your boss hires and/or promotes the wrong people	56
Your boss doesn’t back you up when there’s a dispute	55
Your boss doesn’t provide proper direction on assignments/roles	54
Your boss micromanages and doesn’t allow you “freedom to work”	53
Your boss focuses more on your weaknesses than strengths	53
Your boss doesn’t set clear expectations	52

Read more at … https://www.inc.com/marcel-schwantes/a-new-survey-finds-that-63-percent-of-employees-ab.html

LEAD 545 LEAD 600 DMIN LEAD 716

FEEDBACK & Research Confirms It Is Better to Get the Bad News First #PsychologyToday

Commentary by Dr. Whitesel:  I tell my students/clients not to avoid conflict (as many pastors do) but rather get the “bad news first”… and then the good news, because your mood will be most affected by the last thing you heard. Research confirms this as cited in this article in Psychology Today magazine.

Why Hearing Good News or Bad News First Really Matters

Whether we want to hear the positive or the negative first says a lot about us.

SOCIAL MEDIA & Online reviews of churches are growing, here’s how to react to them.

Commentary by Dr. Whitesel: Larry Osborne once told me he likes “to get the bad news first,” constantly roaming the halls of his megachurch in Vista, California to talk to the average person and find out how they’re doing. Today in the electronic world of online reviews, church leaders should also be tracking what people are saying about their congregation online. In the business world online reviews have been able to make or break companies. And, the way things are headed there will be an increase in online reviews of churches. Read this article to understand the important aspects of online reviews and how to respond.

5 Unusual Ways Online Reviews Can Make or Break Your Company

Think online reviews don’t matter? Think again.

by Sujan Patel, Inc. Magazine, 8/10/16.

What’s more valuable to your business – a customer who purchases $50 worth of product, or the positive review left online by a customer?

With the power of word-of-mouth amplified by the web, and the impact customers can have on a business by leaving reviews, there’s significant value in customer reviews. Both positive and negative have the potential to dramatically impact your business.

According to a study from Dimensional Research and Zendesk, 90% of customers surveyed claimed that positive reviews influenced their buying decisions. A whopping 86% said their buying experience was influenced by negative reviews…

Here are some ways I recommend approaching reviews – both positive and negative – to have a measurable (positive) impact on your business.

1. Reviews in Organic Search

A simple search query can make or break your business – and customers are searching every day. When you type in “BRANDNAME Reviews,” what kind of results do you see for your business?

… I recommend tactics like creating a testimonial page on your website optimized for “Brand Reviews.” I also recommend:

Read more at … http://www.inc.com/sujan-patel/5-unusual-ways-online-reviews-can-make-or-break-your-company.html

THEORIES & How Theories, Concepts, & Measures Relate to Each Other #ARDA

Theories, Concepts & Measures

by ARDA, Association of Religion Data Archives

Social scientists observe that the world of religion consists of regularities and anomalies, seeking explanations for both. A theorist suggests a set of ideas to explain one aspect of religious behavior, hopefully in terms of a few clear statements using words that can be defined unambiguously. Ideally, it will be possible to derive logical consequences of the ideas that can be stated as formal hypotheses. The concepts in a hypothesis must be operationalized in terms of specific measures for which data can be collected in an empirical study. This will be a collegial effort, enlisting the cooperation of researchers, universities, journal editors, institutes and associations of scholars to increase the impact and awareness of important findings in religion research.

A general introduction to the philosophy of this project is:

About Theories, Concepts & Measures

The site has four categories of articles:

Theories

Concepts

Measures

Managing Measures

We hope this site will provide users with many resources in conducting research or writing scholarly articles, policy briefs, or general information for public consumption. Here are a few of the many uses:

1)	Enhance your citations and knowledge of the literature: Our pages include citations which refer users to major works which utilize the theory, concept or measure in question.
2)	Improve your measurement of concepts: Explore the variables researchers commonly utilize in measuring complex concepts.
3)	Draw links between theoretical orientations: Explore how many concepts and measures are shared across theoretical orientations.
4)	Move seamlessly from theory to research: This site allows users to trace theoretical hypotheses to specific quantitative indicators and back again. Along the way citations to key research help to further clarify this process.

Read more at … http://wiki.thearda.com/tcm/frontpage/about/

EVALUATION & A List of Church Growth/Health Measurements (metrics) from My Books

AN OVERVIEW of MEASUREMENT METRICS: In four of my books I have updated and modified a church measurement tool.  You will find a chapter on measurement in each of these books:

Cure for the Common Church, (Wesleyan Publishing House), chapter “Chapter 6: How Does a Church Grow Learners,” pp. 101-123.
> ORGANIX: Signs of Leadership in a Changing Church (Abingdon Press), “Chapter 8: Measure 4 Types of Church Growth,” pp. 139-159.
> Growth By Accident, Death By Planning (Abingdon Press), “Chapter 7: Missteps with Evaluation,” pp. 97-108/
> A House Divided: Bridging the Generation Gaps In Your Church (Abingdon Press), “Chapter 10: Evaluate Your Success,” pp. 202-221.

I explain that church growth involves four types of congregational growth.  It is a seriously incorrect assumption to assume church growth is all about numbers.  It is only 1/4 about numbers and 3/4 about the other types of growth mentioned in Acts 2:42-47.  In the New Testament we find…

> Maturation Growth, i.e. growth in maturity,Acts 2:42-43.
> Growth in Unity: Acts 2:44-46.
> Growth in Favor, i.e. among non-Christians, Acts 2:47a.
> Growth in number of salvations, i.e. which God does according to this verse, Acts 2:47b.

For more see … https://churchhealthwiki.wordpress.com/2015/06/12/measurement-a-reliable-valid-tool-to-measure-church-growthhealth-organixbook/

EVALUATION & How to Thwart the Tendency to Over Evaluate the Needs of Congregants & Under Evaluate the Needs of Non-churchgoers

By Bob Whitesel D.Min., Ph.D., 5/13/16.

“Churches usually spend way too much time polling their congregation’s opinions, and thus their programming is shaped by their congregational perception, and not community needs.”

Someone once said organizations can have a “paralysis of analysis.” And I believe this is created because we over analyze churchgoers instead of reaching out to analyze non-churchgoers needs.

This is exemplified when students share measurement tools they have found online, in hopes that these tools will help them evaluate programming.

But, often such tools are not focused on meeting the needs of non-churchgoers residents, but rather in assessing if the ministry is meeting the needs of the church.   Here is an example one student found:

1.    Our greatest challenges are … (check all that apply)

ο    We don’t know how to connect with people who need help or with community partners.
ο    We sense our efforts to help people are often abused.
ο    We can only provide short-term solutions, not real transformation.
ο    We struggle to mobilize church support for helping people who are not members.
ο    The people we help don’t seem interested in the gospel or in our church.
ο    Community needs are overwhelming; we don’t know where to start.
ο    We aren’t equipped to plan or manage community-oriented programs.
ο    We don’t have enough resources to engage in substantial ministry.
ο    We are uncomfortable dealing with people from a different ethnicity, culture or economic class.

Adapted with permission from Ministry Inventory Guide: Assess Your Church’s Ministry Capacity and Identity by Heidi Unruh (2007), http://www.fastennetwork.org. Original source: Jay Van Groningen, Communities First: Through God’s Eyes, With God’s Heart (Center on Faith in Communities, 2005), p. 4-5

Now, don’t get me wrong – this is a good assessment, but not of program effectiveness in meeting community needs. Rather, this is an assessment of how the church feels about its programming.

While this is important, it is really more important how the “community” feels about the programs and their ability to meet their needs.

Thus, effective evaluators will want to poll community satisfaction and consider this as more important than church satisfaction.  (The reason I am so adamant about this is that churches usually spend way too much time polling their congregation’s opinions, and thus their programming is shaped by their congregational perception, and not community needs.)

Understanding community satisfaction can only be ascertained by assessing the community (and the example above primarily measures church satisfaction with ministry, i.e. it is focusing on the church, in lieu of the white harvest).

The best approach usually is to create avenues for community feedback, such as focus groups, etc..  In fact, I have written how a church can do this (2004, pp. 100-104) in Growth By Accident, Death By Planning, in a chapter titled “Missteps with Evaluation.”  The “8 Corrective Steps” for evaluation are church and community focused.  Some of you may want to peruse these steps, they are field-tested and should help 🙂

Whitesel, B. (2004). Growth by accident, Death by planning: How not to kill a growing congregation. Nashville: TN. Chapter, “Missteps With Evaluation.” Section, “8 Corrective Steps to Regain Growth (with Evaluation).” Pp. 100-104.

EVALUATION & Who Should Evaluate Your Leadership in a 360 Degree Assessment

by Bob Whitesel D.Min., Ph.D., 1/25/15.

I often tell students, clients and mentees that they will gain remarkable insights from a “360 degree assessment” of their leadership.  But sometimes those with unique ministry situations wonder whom they should poll in their “360 Assessment of their Leadership.”

Basically there are three types of colleagues to whom all of you should be networked and who you can poll regarding your leadership style.

1)  Managers.  These are people that you report to. They have higher authority than you, but oftentimes this may be only one person. Still, for some students this might be a board of a dozen people.  Since you will want to poll only 8-12 people, don’t use up all of your selections from the board if you have one.  Just get two to four people from the board.  If you have only one person you report to, then that one manager is enough.

2)  Peers.  These are people working at the same level as you and who have parallel insights into your leadership “traits, abilities, skills and behaviors” (Northouse 2009:2-3).  If they work on the same level as you, but have little contact with you, then they probably won’t be helpful so don’t poll them.  Basically you are looking for people who observe how you lead and who lead in similar scenarios.  This is sometimes called horizontal polling.

3)  Direct Reports. These are people that report to you.  If you don’t have such people, you need them. Everyone should be discipling others.  These are the people you are discipling in both spiritual and leadership areas. Plus, they are the recipients of your delegations.  This would be analogous to the disciples, whom Jesus discipled over a period of three years.  If you led a volunteer group even for a short period of time, these volunteers are your direct reports even if they did so for only a limited time.  The key is to find those that have experienced your delegation, direction and encouragement and get their input on how you did.

I think you can see that most people should have three readily available groups of people which they can poll.

ASSESSMENT & The 8 Self-Assessments You Need to Improve at Work #HarvardBusinessReview

MANAGING YOURSELF: The 8 Self-Assessments You Need to Improve at Work This Year

by Amy Gallo, Harvard Business Review, 1/20/16.

…we’ve pulled together several of HBR’s best assessments and quizzes to help give you a sense of what you need to work on and how to go about it.

Productivity. Time management is a perennial thorn in most managers’ sides… So before you try out a new program or app, take this assessment to understand your own style and discover productivity tips that like-minded people have found most effective. Then, if you want more information on the different styles, read this article.

Work/life balance… In this assessment, you can compare your priorities with how you actually allocate your time and energy. Once you’ve answered questions about four key areas — work, home, community, self — Wharton professor Stewart Friedman provides practical guidance and a useful exercise for addressing the critical gaps.

Cultural skills… This assessment helps you see key differences in eight areas where cultural gaps are most common, like communicating, scheduling, trusting, and disagreeing — and shows you how you compare with the norm for your culture in each area. The questions and feedback are based on comprehensive research by INSEAD’s Erin Meyer, an expert in cross-cultural management.

Emotional intelligence… With this quiz, you can test yourself on five critical EI skills — emotional self-awareness, positive outlook, emotional self-control, adaptability, and empathy. In addition to your score on each component, Annie McKee of the University of Pennsylvania shares an exercise to help you enhance your self-awareness by getting feedback from trusted friends or colleagues.

You might also take this assessment on emotional agility — the ability to manage your thoughts and feelings. Everyone has an inner stream of thoughts and feelings that includes criticism, doubt, and fear. By answering the questions in this assessment, you can identify your own patterns when it comes to avoiding or buying into those negatives thoughts…

Communication skills…The popularity of our grammar quiz shows just how many struggle with writing. Review the 10 sentences and decide whether you think they’re grammatically correct…

Finance skills…This 10-question finance quiz comes from the HBR Guide to Finance Basics for Managers. When you finish taking it, you’ll see which answers are correct, and why, so you can brush up on key concepts you need to learn to become a more effective manager.

Managing your boss. This assessment asks what you would do in five “managing up” scenarios. After selecting your answers, you learn which approaches experts recommend. You also receive links to further reading on how to cultivate your most important relationship at work­ — your relationship with your boss.

Read more at … https://hbr.org/2016/01/the-8-self-assessments-you-need-to-improve-at-work-this-year

EVALUATION & Clearing the Universal Fog Over 2 Types of Goals: Tactical & Strategic

by Bob Whitesel D.Min., Ph.D., 12/11.15.

One of the primarily culprits of goals not being met is not having “measureable” goals.  And, there are two types of goals that should be measured.

TACTICAL GOALS:  Tactical goals (such as “start an  ESL program” or “launch a new small group”) are specific tactical (i.e. planning) goals that support “broader” and “wide-ranging” church goals.

STRATEGIC GOALS:  These broader, more wide-ranging church goals are strategic goals, and they could be something like: “to have more congregants involved in Bible study, fellowship opportunities and prayer meetings than last year.”  These goals are strategic goals, and they can be traced back to metrics Luke described in Acts 2:42-47. Though Luke was not saying every church needed to use these metric, he did use them himself to describe for posterity “how” the church grew after Peter’s sermon.  For more on these metrics click here … https://churchhealthwiki.wordpress.com/2014/10/20/church-growth-a-definition-mcgavran-housedividedbook/

DIFFERENCES:  For more on the differences between tactics and strategies see … https://churchhealthwiki.wordpress.com/2015/06/12/measurement-a-reliable-valid-tool-to-measure-church-growthhealth-organixbook/

Leadership Exercise

Here is a leadership exercise to help you think about and differentiate between these two types of goals.  This exercise will look at how we should measure individual tactical actions (e.g. start a new ministry, etc.) and how we should measure bigger strategic goals (e.g. if the church is growing in maturity, unity and service to the community paralleling the metrics Luke used).

A) Listen.  The audio attachment though prepared for my students, will give leaders ideas about how to undertake this leadership exercise.

 

 

B) Read.  This exercise will make a lot more sense if you read the pdf from “A House Divided” that is provided here:  (It is also provided to my students in their weekly course materials).   So, read the “House Divided – Evaluate Your Success” pdf and then listen to the audio recording and you should be on your way toward dispelling the “universal fog” that surrounds most church leadership (for more on the universal fog, see “A Universal Fog” and “The Facts Needed” in Donald A. McGavran’s Understanding Church Growth [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1970], 76-120).

C) Discuss by answering the first two questions, and then one of the following of the following questions for discussion.

1) Share two things you learned about the differences between a tactical goal and a strategic goal.

2) Give an example of a strategic goal and then a tactical goal that might support it.

3) Which is usually easier to measure?

4) Which do leaders usually focus upon?

5) What do you think Dr. McGavran meant by the term: “universal fog?”

AN OVERVIEW of MEASUREMENT METRICS: In four of my books I have updated and modified a church measurement tool.  You will find a chapter on measurement in each of these books:

Cure for the Common Church, (Wesleyan Publishing House), chapter “Chapter 6: How Does a Church Grow Learners,” pp. 101-123.
> ORGANIX: Signs of Leadership in a Changing Church (Abingdon Press), “Chapter 8: Measure 4 Types of Church Growth,” pp. 139-159.
> Growth By Accident, Death By Planning (Abingdon Press), “Chapter 7: Missteps with Evaluation,” pp. 97-108/
> A House Divided: Bridging the Generation Gaps In Your Church (Abingdon Press), “Chapter 10: Evaluate Your Success,” pp. 202-221.

I explain that church growth involves four types of congregational growth.  It is a seriously incorrect assumption to assume church growth is all about numbers.  It is only 1/4 about numbers and 3/4 about the other types of growth mentioned in Acts 2:42-47.  In the New Testament we find…

> Maturation Growth, i.e. growth in maturity,Acts 2:42-43.
> Growth in Unity: Acts 2:44-46.
> Growth in Favor, i.e. among non-Christians, Acts 2:47a.
> Growth in number of salvations, i.e. which God does according to this verse, Acts 2:47b.

For more see … https://churchhealthwiki.wordpress.com/2015/06/12/measurement-a-reliable-valid-tool-to-measure-church-growthhealth-organixbook/

MEASUREMENT & How to Create a PERT Chart #ChurchPlanning

by Bob Whitesel D.Min., Ph.D., 12/7/15.

I’ve found that many people are unfamiliar with the value of a PERT chart to help leaders visualize steps in church planning.  And regrettably, I have found that most churches are often remiss in not evaluating nor reviewing their plans.

However, a PERT chart (an acronym for Project [or Program] Evaluation and Review Technique) gives you another tool in your leadership arsenal.

Here are a couple ideas to learn about a PERT chart.

First, search online for examples and to understand the basics. 

There are different varieties of PERT charts. I have found that church leaders resonate best with the simple MILESTONE-ACTIVITIES model (where MILESTONES are represented by a “circle” and ACTIVITIES are represented by an “arrow” with a time attached).  Here is an example of a simple PERT chart:

(retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Program_Evaluation_and_Review_Technique )

Here is an explanation of the above.

MILESTONE 50 is the GOAL. To get there requires four MILESTONES to be accomplished: 10, 20, 30 and 40.

For example, in the above diagram getting from MILESTONE 10 to MILESTONE 20 and MILESTONE 30 requires Activity B and A respectively. The estimated time for activity A is 3 months, and Activity B is 4 months.

Let me explain how the above PERT chart could be used for a need-assessment survey of the unchurched population around your church.

MILESTONE 10 could be “the board agrees to assess needs of community in a five mile radius of the church.”  GOAL 50 is therefore: “to present at an annual leaders’ retreat an assessment of the needs of community in a five mile radius of the church.”

One group of leaders decide they will do secondary research (basically looking into research by others). They will accomplish MILESTONE 30 and 40 on the way to GOAL 50.

MILESTONE 30: the group will meet and divide into two more groups. One sub-group will get demographic information from local leaders such as business people., the chamber of commerce, etc (activity D).  Another sub-group that will look at information that is available online (activity E) and bring it to the retreat (GOAL 50).

Another group of church leaders will do primary research by going out and actually interviewing people in the community (this is called primary research, because they are generating the research themselves and not just summarizing what others have found). Group 2 will accomplish MILESTONE 20 on the way to GOAL 50.

MILESTONE 20: This is a Saturday neighborhood walk-through by a group of church leaders. Each group takes a different neighborhood to cover the 5 communities within a five mile radius.  It takes 4 months to plan this and accomplish it. Then in ACTIVITY C the canvassers get together and pool their responses and create a report.

MILESTONE 40: The group that is going to the local business leaders sees themselves taking an additional step of selecting three business leaders to address the retreat.

MILESTONE 50 (GOAL): In about 7 months the report to the leaders retreat is ready.

Below are my “hints” to some of the PERT fundamentals for church leaders:

• A PERT chart commonly uses “circles” called MILESTONES (sometimes called EVENTS) numbered sequentially by 10s (10, 20, 30, etc.).  This allows adding more MILESTONES in between and numbering them 11, 12 or 21, 22, etc.
• A PERT chart also uses “arrows” (representing ACTIVITIES) that must be completed to get to the next MILESTONE.
• Adjacent to an ACTIVITIES arrow should be a designation of the time you think will be required to complete the activity.  The time is written like this:  t=3 mo.
• The next EVENT cannot take place until the event before it is completed.
• A PERT chart helps you manage several tasks at the same time.
• A PERT chart allows you to see the time needed for each task.
• A PERT chart is flexible, allowing you to add more sub-ACTIVITIES and sub-MILESTONES later.

PROFESSOR’S CAUTION:

Let me give you a caution so that you don’t try to drill down too far in your first PERT chart.  A PERT chart is designed to grow with you as you go through a project.  You will add sub-ACTIVITIES and sub-MILESTONES later as the project unfolds.

However it is best to start with an initial PERT chart, one that you might present to your church your leaders. Thus, do not add too many sub-ACTIVITIES or sub-MILESTONES.  Don’t get too complex with this initial PERT chart.  Remember, sub- MILESTONES (circles) and sub-ACTIVITIES (arrows) can be added as the project unfolds.

It is good to simply begin to grasp the basic goals (i.e. MILESTONES), the ACTIVITIES that link the milestones, and the time needed for each activity.  It is a way for you to evaluate whether your plans are realistic and attainable. And, it will introduce you to a popular and widely used tool with which many of your lay-business people will be familiar.

EVALUATION & Websites for Tracking Ministry Objectives

by Bob Whitesel D.Min., Ph.D., 12/2/15.

I’ve asked my students to help me create a list of helpful websites or software programs that can help track the numbers in a church or ministry.  Such tools can be especially helpful if they let you track participation in small groups as a percentage of overall attendance (this would allow you to track “maturation growth” or what is also called “growth in maturity” Acts 2:42)

Below are a few sites that can help with data gathering. They will probably invigorate tactical leaders (those who lead by numerical analysis) and will make life easier for strategic leaders (those who lead by vision) and operational leaders (those who lead by relationships).(1)

Automated Church Systems:  http://www.acstechnologies.com

Life Church in Edmond, OK http://www.churchmetrics.com (This church you may remember was an example of a church with healthy growth which I profiled in Growth by Accident, Death by Planning: How NOT To Kill a Growing Congregation (2004).

More to come …

Footnotes:
(1) If you can’t remember the distinctions between Strategic-Tactical-Operational leadership see Preparing for Change Reaction: How To Introduce Change in Your Church (The Wesleyan Publishing House, 2007, pp. 31-46).  You can also take a test to discover your leadership traits on pp. 46-47 of the book or click here: https://churchhealthwiki.wordpress.com/2014/11/17/leadership-3-types-strategic-tactical-operational-freedownload-changereactionbook/

MEASUREMENT & Wasn’t David Punished for Measuring? No, for wrong motivation. 1 Chronicles 21

by Bob Whitesel D.Min., Ph.D., 11/27/15.

But some have argued that there is something spiritual about “not counting.”  They would point to God’s displeasure with King David for ordering a census of the people in 1 Chronicles 21:1 – 30.  However, 1 Chronicles 21:1 reveals that it was Satan who inspired David to conduct this counting of his troops.  Even against the counsel of his commander Joab, who discerned David’s inappropriate motivation, David conducts the census.  David’s motivation for the census was to revel in the strength of his army.  But God wanted David to put his trust in God’s protection, rather than the size of his forces.  Hence, wrong motivation and wrong instigation led to an inappropriate counting.

Elsewhere in the Bible, numberings are conducted for meaningful reasons with helpful results.  In Numbers 1:2 and 26:2 God commands numberings of all Israel along with every segment of each tribe before and after the desert wanderings.  In the Gospel accounts we witness accurate countings of Jesus’ team of disciples, and in Luke 10:1 – 24 we see a company of 72 disciples sent out two by two.  In the parable of the lost sheep in Luke 15:3 – 7, only by counting the sheep does the shepherd become aware that one is missing from the fold.  If counting those we are entrusted were odious to Jesus, certainly he would eliminate such imagery from his teaching.  And in Acts 1:15; 2:41; 4:4; Luke records the growth of the church by a careful record of its numerical increase.  McGavran concludes “on biblical grounds one has to affirm that devout use of the numerical approach is in accord with God’s wishes.  On the practical grounds, it is as necessary in congregations and denominations as honest financial dealing.”

The above is excerpted from the sidebar,  “Is Counting Biblical”, Bob Whitesel and Kent R. Hunter, A House Divided: Bridging the Generation Gaps in Your Church (Abingdon Press).

MEASUREMENT & To Measure of Not to Measure?

by Bob Whitesel D.Min., Ph.D., 11/27/15.

Vernon Grounds’ warned about the “bitch goddess of success” (his words, not mine) stating, “It is worshipping [sic] at the shrine of sanctified (or unsanctified) statistics…”  I agree, to a degree.

But, simply because of a potential for abuse we must not ignore measurement, for the Biblical authors did not do so.  Read the full quote by this former president and chancellor of Denver Seminary, followed by my suggestions for a biblical theology of measurement.

“Worldly success is success judged without reference to God or eternity.  Spiritual success is judged by God, success from the perspective of eternity, success without reference to the worlds evaluation. . . . The church has allowed the world to impose on Christian service standards of success which are utterly non-biblical; and when I talk of the church in this context I mean American evangelicalism. . . . the right kind of thinking plus the right programming and motivating plus the right battery of techniques will change any failure into shining success. . . . I am honestly afraid that American evangelicalism is guilty of idolatry.  It is bowing down, if I may borrow a biting phrase from philosopher William James, before the bitch goddess of success.  It is worshipping [sic] at the shrine of sanctified (or unsanctified) statistics. . . . As disciples of Jesus Christ, too many of us are sinfully concerned about size–the size of sanctuaries, the size of salaries, the size of Sunday Schools.  Too many of us are sinfully preoccupied with statistics about budgets and buildings and buses and baptisms.  I say it bluntly: too many of us American evangelicals are worshipping [sic] the bitch goddess of success.” Grounds, F. (1986). “Faith for failure: A meditation on motivation for ministry.” Theological Students Fellowship Bulletin, Mar/Apr, 4.

I have three thoughts.

First, this seems reactionary rather than radical.  To me at least the tenor seems to be a complaint against measurement, while measurement is used remarkably often in the Bible.

Secondly, he is warning about our church preoccupation with size and not quality.  I have written extensively (see these postings) that measuring size is a poor indicator of health and that Acts 2:42-47 gives us Luke’s areas for measurement which were:

• Measure spiritual maturity (growth in maturation)
• Measure unity in Christ (growth in unity)
• Measure service to the community (growth in favor among the community)
• And finally measure salvations, a metric which God sovereignly grows, for as Luke said, “And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved” (see these postings).

Thirdly, here is a short excerpt from A House Divided (Abingdon Press) where Kent Hunter and I look at the scriptures to answer the question: “Is Counting Biblical”  It might throw some Biblical light on the issue.

—-

Is Counting Biblical?  (a sidebar)

Few principles have garnered as much controversy as the principle of measuring numerical growth.  However, missiologist and dean of the Church Growth Movement Donald McGavran states that “the Church is made up of countable people and there is nothing particularly spiritual in not counting them.  Men use the numerical approach in all worthwhile human endeavor.”

But some have argued that there is something spiritual about “not counting.”  They would point to God’s displeasure with King David for ordering a census of the people in 1 Chronicles 21:1 – 30.  However, 1 Chronicles 21:1 reveals that it was Satan who inspired David to conduct this counting of his troops.  Even against the counsel of his commander Joab, who discerned David’s inappropriate motivation, David conducts the census.  David’s motivation for the census was to revel in the strength of his army.  But God wanted David to put his trust in God’s protection, rather than the size of his forces.  Hence, wrong motivation and wrong instigation led to an inappropriate counting.

Elsewhere in the Bible, numberings are conducted for meaningful reasons with helpful results.  In Numbers 1:2 and 26:2 God commands numberings of all Israel along with every segment of each tribe before and after the desert wanderings.  In the Gospel accounts we witness accurate countings of Jesus’ team of disciples, and in Luke 10:1 – 24 we see a company of 72 disciples sent out two by two.  In the parable of the lost sheep in Luke 15:3 – 7, only by counting the sheep does the shepherd become aware that one is missing from the fold.  If counting those we are entrusted were odious to Jesus, certainly he would eliminate such imagery from his teaching.  And in Acts 1:15; 2:41; 4:4; Luke records the growth of the church by a careful record of its numerical increase.  McGavran concludes “on biblical grounds one has to affirm that devout use of the numerical approach is in accord with God’s wishes.  On the practical grounds, it is as necessary in congregations and denominations as honest financial dealing.”

MEASUREMENT & A Biblical Leadership Exercise To Help Leaders See Why Counting Is Critical

by Bob Whitesel D.Min., Ph.D., 11/27/15.

In leadership courses we must look at the important (but often disregarded) strategic tool of quantitative analysis.  Yes, that means numbers.  Now I know you have heard that numbers aren’t what discipleship should be about, and that is right.  Numerical growth (according to Acts 2:42ff) is just one of four elements of biblical church growth.  According to Acts 2:42 there are four arenas of church growth (growth in maturity, growth in favor, growth in unity, and growth in numbers … which, by the way, Luke reminds us that it is God who provides the latter).

A Leadership Exercise.

But church leaders often shy away from numbers except when absolutely necessary. And that is unfortunate because numbers are used in the Scriptures to demonstrate God’s move.

To uncover this, undertake this short leadership exercise.  First, share with other leaders some of the insights that knowing the numbers might give you about your ministry.  Each leader should give two insights (with one paragraph each, for a total of 2 paragraphs) about how knowing the quantitative growth of a ministry can help lead that organization, be it a church, para-church ministry or non-profit.  But, don’t just be brusque in your reply.  Go into a  bit of detail, and tell how knowing the numbers can (and potentially will) help you chart the strategic future of God’s mission.  Use a few scriptures to support your ideas.

Then secondly, share in one paragraph why you think leaders don’t want to know the numbers.  Give some responses that you have heard, and then give me your replies.  Again, a paragraph is sufficient.

Share your results with other leaders and comment upon their responses.

That’s it.  Just three (3) paragraphs for this leadership exercise. But, the insights on why we should (and why we don’t) know the numbers can be insightful.

GENERATIONS & Nonprofits learn to appeal to Xers & Millennials #AmyLynch

 “Growing, but Gray” by Amy Lynch, Generational Speaker, Generational Edge, 10/14/15, (click here to watch the 1971 video).

… Until recently, people supported nonprofits and associations because it was the “right thing to do.” Nothing wrong with that. It just doesn’t work with Gen X and Millennials. The first question younger gens ask is “Will this work?” Associations and nonprofits have to have ready answers.

IDEALISTIC BOOMERS WANTED TO TEACH THE WORLD TO SING. YOUNGER GENERATIONS WANT TO TEACH THE WORLD TO SING, TOO, BUT WITH A QUANTIFIABLE ROI ON THE SONGFEST.

Meanwhile, Millennials expect companies to be good for society, and the nonprofits garnering respect these days are well managed and (yep!) profitable. It’s an odd crossover, and here’s the upshot. As a nonprofit or an association, you absolutely have to be crystal clear about who you are, what your do for whom and how your results are measured.

Here’s a tip for that process. Put numbers on it. If you are an association, survey your members to get percentages of members who got new business, new skills or new management tools. If you are a nonprofit, put hard numbers on your results. Then you can win over prove-it-to-me Gen Xers and mission-based Millennials.

Read more at … http://www.generationaledge.com/blog/growing-but-gray

MEASUREMENT & Who Should You Poll When Conducting A 360 Survey of Your Leadership?

by Bob Whitesel D.Min., Ph.D., 8/21/15.

In my leadership courses, I often give students an assignment to do a 360 Degree Feedback Questionnaire of their leadership.

But sometimes students have unique ministry situations and they wonder whom they should poll in their 360 Assessment of the Leadership.  Basically there are three types of colleagues to whom leadership should be networked and who leaders can poll regarding their leadership style.  Here is how I explain this to students:

Managers.  
These are people that you report to. They have higher authority than you, but oftentimes this may be only one person. Still, for some students this might be a board of a dozen people.  Since you will want to poll only 8-12 people, don’t use up all of your selections from the board if you have one.  Just get two to four people from the board.  If you have only one person you report to, then that one manager is enough.

Peers.  
These are people working at the same level as you and who have parallel insights into your leadership “traits, abilities, skills and behaviors” (Northouse 2009:2-3).  If they work on the same level as you, but have little contact with you, then they probably won’t be helpful so don’t poll them.  Basically you are looking for people who observe how you lead and who lead in similar scenarios.  This is sometimes called horizontal polling.

Direct Reports.
These are people that report to you.  If you don’t have such people, you need them. Everyone should be discipling others.  These are the people you are discipling in both spiritual and leadership areas. Plus, they are the recipients of your delegations.  This would be analogous to the disciples, whom Jesus discipled over a period of three years.

Thus, anyone conducting a 360 Degree Feedback Questionnaire should have three readily available groups of people which they can poll.

EVALUATION & Meet the Quantified Employee – Is Measuring Employee Productivity Good? #ForbesMagazine

by Josh Bersin, founder and Principal of Bersin by Deloitte, a leading research and advisory firm, Forbes Magazine, 8/15.

The Quantified Self Comes to Work

Well, the Quantified Self movement has come to work. Each day day more and more tools are being developed to help employers monitor, track, and better understand the activity of workers. These tools are real-time, often anonymous, and usually invisible. And many of the startups in Human Resources believe that bringing the Quantified Self movement to HR is the next big thing. Here are some examples.

1. Employee Monitoring

Companies have been monitoring our internet access for years. But now they’re monitoring our daily activity, who we meet with, and where we go.

The New York Times just published a great article about a new set of tools that lets employers monitor location. These tools, which fit inside an employee badge, tell your company who you’re meeting with and how “social” you are. So far companies using this technology have already discovered that more social people (people who eat lunch at bigger tables) are better at customer service…

Some companies are even more creative. A well known company I recently met with (I will leave them anonymous) developed a tool to monitor the pattern of employee emails. They look at everyone’s “To” list and “cc” list and also who they are receiving email “from.” Their goal is not to read anyone’s email, but rather to study the patterns of communication in the company. This is a “culture-driven” company and they are using the information to understand who are the “connectors” in the organization and what patterns of communication seem to lead to higher levels of performance…

2. Real Time Employee Engagement

The second explosive area for the Quantified Employee is providing real-time feedback on the work environment. Traditionally companies have used annual engagement surveys to capture this information: that process is rapidly becoming too slow, too coarse, and just not very useful.

Replacing this, a new set of tools (most run on mobile devices) let you speak up about how you feel at work on a real time basis. These tools (companies like CultureAmp, Achievers, BlackbookHR, TinyPulse, OfficeVibe, TemboSocial, Hppy, Waggl, 15Five and many others) are hitting the market like a storm. Companies of all sizes are starting to move away from annual engagement surveys and putting in place real-time feedback systems…

These are all good things. The Japanese Niko Nikocalendar, pioneered in Japan, has given managers real-time feedback on their teams for years. Anything that frees up information and gives people transparency and freedom to share what they feel will make management more accountable and improve the work environment. And let’s face it, people often won’t speak up publicly but they will confidentially.

3. Employee Retention and BigData Monitoring Tools

The third wave of “quantified self” tools is coming from a new breed of companies (Entelo, OrgStars, and others) which mine social data and apply intelligence to figure out if you’re thinking about changing jobs. These tools monitor all your aggregated social activity and try to develop a “score” which tells employers if you’re looking for a new job. The benefit? Fast-growing companies can quickly figure out who is thinking about leaving and try to prevent retention problems.

And many tools go even further. Companies like Evolv On Demand, IBM, Visier, PeopleAnswers, and others now provide turnkey BigData analytics using internal HR data. These companies help you understand the characteristics of high performers to help with management tools, better hiring practices, and pre-hire assessment. Think about these as “off the shelf” analysis tools to help you understand your workforce in detail…

Where Will This Go?

So where is all this going? Should we be worried? Will your employer know so much that you’ll have to hire a lawyer and read your employment contract to decide who owns your data?

Ultimately this is a very good thing. Remember that employers already have plenty of data about all of us: our job history, employment history, salary, performance evaluations, and when we clocked in and out each day. If companies start using this information to improve the workplace, we’ll see better management, better hiring, and improved workplace conditions. Already, Talent Analytics projects are becoming one of the biggest new focus areas for HR.

Should we worry about employees “Yelping” about their boss online? No. Let’s face it – today people can complain publicly about almost anything, so bringing transparency into the workplace in a more structured way lets management and leadership act more quickly to resolve problems. Hate your boss? Pretty soon you won’t have to clam up and just deal with it in silence.

I know these tools will raise many issues about data ownership and workplace privacy. But we already give up much privacy to companies like Google and Facebook so in most cases these tools are just extensions of our consumer life every day.

Our research shows that transparency in HR is almost always a good thing. Old fashioned employment practices like annual performance appraisals (given by managers), secret lists of high-potentials, and politically charged talent reviews which lead to secret salary decisions can be made more accurate with a little more “light” from the outside world.

Not to Quantified Self: Meet the Quantified Employee. Today’s 21st Century workplace is getting more instrumented, more transparent, and more data driven every day.

Read more at … http://www.forbes.com/sites/joshbersin/2014/06/25/quantified-self-meet-the-quantified-employee/

EVALUATION & One way to measure quality

by Jackson Wu, nd. (excerpted from a more comprehensive article on evaluation, linked below).

What about quality?

How does Scripture primarily describe Spiritual fruit? In Gal 5:22–23, Paul writes,

“the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.”

Many mission organizations track statistics regarding the number of churches and professions of faith. How many have a way of recording and celebrating fruitfulness as Paul describes it?

We might think of “quality” fruitfulness in terms of five goals.

1. Clarity (head)

Are we giving a clear witness that is both biblically faithful and culturally meaningful?

2. Conviction (heart)

We want those we serve to have changed hearts. Yet, this is NOT something we can control.

It is a miraculous work of the Spirit. For this reason, we should be careful about how much we push “decisions” as the primary metric for ministry success. How can we be held accountable for something outside our control?

3. Character (head)

We want believers to live godly lives.

4. Calling (mission)

We want believers to serve God in ministry to the world. God’s people are called to join His mission.

5. Community (church)

Ministry to and through individuals is not the primary goal. We cannot claim effectiveness if we are not aiming to build up the Church. Christian faith is inherently communal…

Read more at … http://jacksonwu.org/2015/07/08/is-our-ministry-effective/

EVALUATION & One way to measure quantity # jacksonwu

by Jackson Wu, nd. (excerpted from a more comprehensive article on evaluation, linked below).

What about quantity?

Typically, missionaries (and churches) track the number of “decisions” made by the people with whom they shared the gospel. Practically, this translates into counting how many people “prayed to receive Christ.”

I’ll address this further in a coming blog post. For now, I will simply say this is a misleading metric. There are better ways of measuring ministry effectiveness. For example, . . .

Listening? –– Are people paying attention?

If we share the gospel in a culturally meaningful way, our message will not come across “abstract” or unrelated to daily life. We cannot change people’s hearts; however, we can convey the truth in a manner that makes sense. In this way, we expect more people to pay more attention to us than they otherwise typically do.

Longevity? –– How does attrition affect churches?

When the gospel truly changes people’s hearts, it fosters a new manner of life. There is greater perseverance in genuine faith that in superficial, religious belief or in the response that comes because of social pressure. Therefore, when the gospel takes root, we will see far less church attrition that in “movements” that produce 100 churches in a year but only have a scant few remain after 5 years?

Read more at … http://jacksonwu.org/2015/07/08/is-our-ministry-effective/