Episcopal Church Foundation Vital Practices

Growth Charts

by Richelle Thompson on October 18, 2010

When my parents moved from my childhood home, they asked if there was anything I wanted. They expected, I think, for me to ask for a favorite piece of furniture or artwork.

I asked for part of a doorframe.

From the time we moved into the house when I was 5 years old, Mom and Dad marked my growth with stubby pencil marks along the frame of the basement door. My younger sisters charted their growth there too. And I can still remember their triumph when they passed me up – the baby sisters now taller than big sister.

This chart didn’t just track our growth. Each tick was a milestone as I changed from a little girl to a teenager to a woman. And when I think of the doorframe, I think not only of where I was but also where I was going.

I wonder how churches chart their growth.

Tom Ehrich, a church consultant, spends a lot of his time talking about metrics. (Check out some of his tips and tools here.) From first-glance, it sounds pretty boring – I mean, we all want the magic fix – the panacea to make our churches vibrant, dynamic and growing. But if we don’t take the time to measure ourselves, to know where we stand right now, we won’t know where we’ve been or where we’re going. Without charting a path, we don’t know if we attain our goals or if we are falling behind.

What’s the best way to measure our congregations? Does the highest Sunday attendance translate into the best churches? Is it most mouths fed in a soup kitchen or number of baptisms in a year?

What should be forms of measurement? How do we track our successes – and failures?

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