The Slow Club
The Slow Club sounds like a great place to just “be” who we claim to be. And while we might try to schedule sabbaticals or study breaks, the Slow Club is waiting for us every day.
The Slow Club sounds like a great place to just “be” who we claim to be. And while we might try to schedule sabbaticals or study breaks, the Slow Club is waiting for us every day.
May 1, 2024
Each year, Christian Standard collects data from hundreds of churches about their average worship attendance, number of baptisms, minister’s name, website, etc., and compiles this into charts based on church size. Columnist Kent Fillinger uses this information as the basis for several articles during the year. This data in this link, collected in early 2024, is based on statistics from 2023. DOWNLOAD THE 2023 CS CHURCH ATTENDANCE CHARTS
October 28, 2014
By Mark A. Taylor How do you measure the success of your ministry? Joe Boyd and Rich Gorman and I talked about that for almost an hour last week in Christian Standard”s monthly Beyond the Standard online interview program, all while trying to address our assigned topic, “Church and Culture.” “The hardest thing about vocational ministry,” Boyd said, “is you never really know if you”ve done a good job or not.” Boyd doesn”t believe numbers alone can tell the story. He spoke about the ministry of Jesus who preached to the thousands but soon had only a dozen followers. And
May 6, 2013
By Brian Mavis The church has a problem. The things that matter the most””spiritual growth, changed lives, ministry impact””are the toughest to measure. How are you supposed to measure things like peace, patience, kindness, a transformed heart, and kingdom impact? As the saying goes, “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.” Our mission is to go and make disciples of Jesus; not merely decisions for Jesus (though that is a start), but disciples. Yet it seems to me there is a disconnect between our mission and what we measure. It is not
June 20, 2012
By Darrel Rowland At 38, Jon Weece, senior pastor of Southland Christian Christ in Lexington, Kentucky, is one of the younger leaders of our megachurches. But listen to him speak his heart with the wisdom of years on why long-term ministries can be so difficult: I fear what our limited metrics do to many faithful servants in the kingdom. For those servant leaders who are experiencing explosive numeric growth in the ministries they”ve been entrusted with, I fear a loss of humility may visit their hearts. For those servant leaders who are not experiencing explosive numeric growth in the
January 3, 2007
Mark Kitts explains how planting Crosspointe Church led him to build People Driven Software (PDS), and why better reporting and online interaction can help churches align systems with mission.