“Direct results always come first. In the care of feeding of an organization, they play the role calories pay in the nutrition of the human body.” — Peter Drucker
One of the critical issues that we don’t recognize in church leadership is that it’s not the activities that matter, but the fruit that those activities yield. Attendance or participation is one thing to measure, but far more important is measuring the outcome created by that attendance or participation. For example, are we measuring church service attendance or life change? Just because something is easier to measure doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the right thing to be measuring.
What are you measuring? Here are some examples of direct results:
- New disciples being made
- New missional communities being started
- New churches being formed
- Number of meals served to the poor
- Number of children tutored
- Number of people who have developed and put into place a plan for their spiritual development
It’s not the activity, but the outcome of the activity that matters– the lives changed, the people served.