Service to God does not carry with it an exemption from evaluation. Seeking to do God’s will doesn’t mean that we are excused from carefully examining the effectiveness of our activity.
God deserves our best. We’re told this throughout the Bible (Lev. 22:20-22, Col. 3:22-24). But how can know if we are giving our best apart from evaluation? The concept of “best” assumes that which is “less,” which we can only know that through evaluation. It is only through an honest, intentional appraisal that we know if we can still do better in our service to Him.
Some will say, “Well, what we do in ministry can’t be measured, it is intangible.” Anything that is real and takes place in this world can be measured. If you tell me that something can’t be measured, then what you are talking about is extraterrestrial.
Having been a pastor for a long time, I know that evaluation takes place whether I like it or not. One pastor asked a parishioner whose spiritual gift was not that of tactfulness what he thought of his sermon. The man replied, “It was poorly written, poorly delivered, and a complete waste of time.” This troubled that pastor who told another church member about it, who replied, “Oh, don’t worry about it, pastor, he just goes around repeating what he hears other people say.”
In light of the inevitability of evaluation, churches and ministries should give thought to how they will do it. A key question is, “Should we measure activity or results?” The answer is both. If we only measure activity, then we become the standard of measurement. However, since ultimately we seek to do God’s work, we must not only look at the final outcomes, which belong in His hands. Someone has said that we measure what we do and celebrate what God does.
Ultimately, we must measure our work in light of the mission of God, the mission for which Christ sends us to the world—making disciples. We must ask two questions, what is the business of the church and how’s business? To make disciples, we do the five functions of the church (Acts 2:42-47). In regards to each function of the church—worship, evangelism, discipleship, ministry, fellowship—we must establish progress indicators. These are benchmarks to help us see what success looks like.
What is the ultimate end of our existence as a church? What are the means to that end? What are the signs that we are effectively performing those means? These are questions we must ask and answer. Why? God has made us stewards (managers) of the gospel and of His mission. The parables of Jesus on stewardship—and there are many—all contain the idea of evaluation. There is no escape from evaluation. It is only a question of when. We should do it now (2 Cor. 13:5-6) in order to prepare for what is to come.
