Is Your Church Successful? New Benchmarks
Jesus was immeasurably the most successful person in human history. In every way. Yet, if we were to measure his lifetime effectiveness using today’s Church benchmarks of success, Jesus would probably find it hard to get hired on at most churches. What are you measuring?
This week on the Everyday Disciple Podcast, we look at why some of the traditional ways we’ve been measuring church success are not producing kingdom growth and mature disciples. Here are the new benchmarks of a successful church.
Your church or community really can shift toward missional engagement. By changing what you measure, you’ll begin to change your focus to accomplishing the Church’s true mission and its ultimate purpose.
In This Episode You’ll Learn:
- Why what your church is measuring may actually be toxic.
- How our current standards of success are very different than Jesus’.
- What happens when we begin to measure and fund different goals.
- 10 new benchmarks of a successful, missional church.
From this episode:
“Sure Jesus could draw a crowd, usually around healings and massive meal times, yet he primarily spent the bulk of his leadership energy and time with only a dozen people. In our modern church, Jesus would not get great marks here and would probably not get that promotion up the ladder… Senior leadership usually relegates discipleship to lower team members or ‘directors.’ Sorry, Jesus.”
Each week the Big 3 will give you immediate action steps to get you started.
Download today’s BIG 3 right now. Read and think over them again later. You might even want to share them with others…
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Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
Free Download of the Big 3 For Episode #405
10 Missional Benchmarks Guide, Test and Assessment
Coaching with Caesar and Tina in discipleship and missional living.
Get Caesar’s latest book: Bigger Gospel for FREE… Click Here
Transcript
Jesus was easily and immeasurably the most successful person in human history in every way.
Caesar:Yet, if we are to measure his lifetime effectiveness using today's church standards of success for like our staff and leadership, Jesus would probably find it hard to get hired on it.
Caesar:Most churches now.
Caesar:Sure.
Caesar:Jesus could draw a crowd.
Caesar:Usually around healings and massive meal times yet, he primarily spent the bulk of his leadership energy and time with only a dozen people.
Caesar:And in our modern church, Jesus would not get great marks here.
Caesar:And he'd probably not get that promotion up.
Caesar:The ladder senior leadership, usually relegates discipleship to lower team members or.
Caesar:Directors, sorry.
Caesar:Jesus.
Caesar:Welcome to the Everyday Disciple Podcast where
Heath:you'll learn how to live with greater intentionality and an integrated faith that naturally fits into every area of life.
Heath:In other words, discipleship as a
Heath:lifestyle, this is the stuff your parents, pastors, and seminar.
Heath:Professors probably forgot to tell you.
Heath:And now here's your host Caesar.
Heath:Kalinowski
Caesar:okay.
Caesar:Here we are.
Caesar:Again.
Caesar:Good to be with you.
Caesar:Really good to be with you, man.
Caesar:I'm still kind of buzzing.
Caesar:I just hopped off a zoom call with one of our coaching cohorts.
Caesar:These are some folks we've been in coaching with for over a couple years now.
Caesar:And I'll tell you it's so encouraging.
Caesar:There's so much breakthrough as we always start out our calls by rehearsing evidences of grace.
Caesar:Like where you see God just blessing you and unmerited favor breaking into your everyday life and all that.
Caesar:And everybody had so many, this particular cohort always has a lot of evidences of grace, and we're just seeing so much breakthrough, so much movement and momentum, and they're on really a lot of different contexts.
Caesar:This is a bit of an international group and then a whole bunch of 'em are pastoring churches, but some of them aren't, and it's amazing across the board.
Caesar:There's so much more freedom.
Caesar:To lead in the ways that they feel God's leading them to and make disciples and see the thing behind the thing speak good news to those.
Caesar:I'm so encouraged by all of.
Caesar:And one of the couples from this cohort's on the road right now, kind of heading our way they've been on this road trip, celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary.
Caesar:And they're way past retirement age, and really making hay in their neighborhood, making disciples in their neighborhood.
Caesar:It's an amazing story they have after living in the same neighborhood for a very, very long time and being really.
Caesar:Professionally in ministry.
Caesar:They've now dug deep into relationships and we're just seeing a lot of fruit, but, uh, they're on their way coming this way.
Caesar:And they're gonna be visiting our home for a few days later this week, getting to hang out with team K so Woohoo and happy anniversary to Phil and Barb 50 years.
Caesar:Wow.
Caesar:That's amazing.
Caesar:I love it.
Caesar:I get so much encouragement through the coaching that we get to be a part of with folks because we're the recipient of hearing all the good news and all that God's doing in and through their lives.
Caesar:So that's why we are wanting to get as many people as we can into open slots.
Caesar:When coaching opens up, we're filling up a coaching cohort right now.
Caesar:Not sure when the next slots will open, but I'd love to have you in it.
Caesar:If you wanna know more about our coaching and how that all works, if you're pretty sure.
Caesar:Convinced or whatever, either way you can go over to everyday Disciple dot com slash coaching to learn a lot more about it.
Caesar:Okay.
Caesar:Now also I want you to join me on our Facebook group.
Caesar:Everyday Disciple has a Facebook group.
Caesar:So find us there, go find that join the group.
Caesar:We're starting to see more and more conversation around different things connected to guess what every day Disciple making.
Caesar:All right.
Caesar:And if you've not subscribed to the show on.
Caesar:Platform, you listen to it on, please do that.
Caesar:We put out new episodes every week, right?
Caesar:There's another episode, another episode.
Caesar:And I want you to get those, not missed those.
Caesar:So if you've not subscribed, please do that.
Caesar:Well, there's all kinds of devices too.
Caesar:We're in every platform in the world out there.
Caesar:So whatever one you're on.
Caesar:And another thing is, if you haven't shared the podcast recently with anybody, either on your Facebook group, or just told people about it, Or if you're leading a church, maybe put it on the church, Facebook or any of that, please share the podcast so we can bless more people hopefully, and encourage them to believe what God says is true of them and live making discipleship a lifestyle.
Caesar:Now let's get to today's topic.
Caesar:We continue.
Caesar:It seems lately here to be barrage by horrifying statistics regarding the shift in church attendance worldwide.
Caesar:And obviously as an American living here, I pay closest attention to the statistics that reflect our country.
Caesar:But I've noticed that things we're experiencing here as the church is pretty reflective.
Caesar:Maybe in slightly different stats, but pretty consistent around the world and about a week or so back a report from pew research came out there, huge research firm, all kinds of data takes forever to do the research they do, but they put out a new, pretty startling, uh, report that said Christianity could possibly become a minority religion in the us as early as 2045
Caesar:. And their research found a surge of adults leaving Christianity to become atheist or agnostic or nothing in particular.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:And maybe that's not surprising, but it wasn't all that long ago where 75, 85, 90% of people would say, oh yeah, well we're Christians, regardless of how much they believed really.
Caesar:And lived it.
Caesar:and this report had predicted that if the number of Christians under the age of 30 abandoning their faith accelerates beyond its current pace, which all indicators are at, will that adherence of the, what has been the historically dominant religion in the us is gonna become a minority by 2045.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:Yikes.
Caesar:And this study noted that approximately 90% of Americans used to identify as Christians.
Caesar:Back in the early 1990s.
Caesar:That's not that long ago.
Caesar:And the study observed that the number which includes children had fallen to only 64% by 2020.
Caesar:Wow.
Caesar:The number of people in the us who identify as religiously unaffiliated, they said, meanwhile has skyrocketed that used to be 16% back in 2007.
Caesar:Like, Hey, we're not affiliated just 16% to now in 2020, the report said it 29% of people identify as unaffiliate.
Caesar:and I have to believe, I, I thought about this quite a bit.
Caesar:Actually, this kind of bummed me, this kinda rocked me.
Caesar:I, I have to believe that with such a steep increase in people identifying as unaffiliated.
Caesar:Has to do something with the way we've been being or doing the church thing it really has.
Caesar:And I don't think that there's a stark increase in how many people say no, Jesus, ain't real.
Caesar:Don't believe in that guy.
Caesar:Don't see his life as amazing and wonderful.
Caesar:And I know a lot of people who would identify as unaffiliated, but.
Caesar:Still say, oh no, I believe in Jesus for sure.
Caesar:And that's where my forgiveness came from.
Caesar:I think so much of it has to do with what they feel like they're affiliating with and what the culture sees as Christianity and what we're aligned with in our views and politics and all that.
Caesar:And, and some of that's ugly and icky to a lot of people.
Caesar:Yeah, and kind of convoluted and that's the thing they're not wanting to affiliate with.
Caesar:I really think so.
Caesar:And so a lot of dots kind of are starting to connect for me.
Caesar:And while back I had a conversation with Heath about how we measure what really is success.
Caesar:And it kind of all has to do with all this too, because if we keep doing things the way we've been doing and what we measure.
Caesar:Often time equals what we then chase after, of course.
Caesar:Right.
Caesar:But if we keep doing things the way we've been doing them, I, I think that this pew research is gonna be right on the money and it's maybe gonna even be a darker, worse story.
Caesar:So, um, I've been compiling a list for quite a while now of what I think are successful.
Caesar:New.
Caesar:Benchmarks and measurements of a healthy church, a church that believes the Gospel and it, that it applies to all of life and discipleship is our only mission.
Caesar:And I've been compiling that list for a while.
Caesar:And I wanna share it with you today in this conversation.
Caesar:I think it may push a few buttons out there, but my goal is not to offend anyone, but I think it's time to start looking at some new, more Missional benchmarks of success as the church.
Caesar:So here take a listen to our convers.
Caesar:You, and
Heath:I both have a history of working like in a traditional institutional church.
Heath:And it's safe to say that we've both come quite away since those days of working in that, but the institution has a way of measuring what they deem to be success and what you call the three BS.
Heath:And we kind of joke about it, but I think you're right on with it, right?
Heath:Yeah.
Heath:Let's talk
Caesar:about that.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:And some people have quoted me on the three BS, but then they change the bees and all that.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:I mean, we've both been around church a long time, like you said, and even worked for sort of traditional institutional churches, but it starts to become, uh, like you are very aware on staff of what's being measured.
Caesar:Sure.
Caesar:Right.
Caesar:And, um, I remember one time, even I was a guy I was coaching and he told me like, oh, here's what, here's one of the things we measure.
Caesar:And it is like how happy people are with our ministries, because like our staff, we.
Caesar:We get small salary and then larger bonuses.
Caesar:Mm-hmm and our bonuses are based on like how much money comes in every month or every quarter.
Caesar:Like through giving.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:And so like, if you do something like as a youth director or whatever, a youth, you know, pastor and like there's upset, parents you'll get talked to by the XP because it's like, do you realize they might slow?
Caesar:They might not give anymore.
Caesar:They might stop their giving.
Caesar:And like, you're gonna kill all of our bonuses.
Caesar:You know, it's too familiar.
Caesar:I'm like, are you freaking kidding me?
Caesar:Anyway?
Caesar:So yeah, the three BS, what I say is that most churches tend to measure these, whatever you want to call 'em.
Caesar:But the three, the three BS are butts of building size and budget.
Caesar:Okay.
Caesar:So butts are like attendance on Sunday.
Caesar:How many butts in seats.
Caesar:Okay.
Caesar:Right.
Caesar:Building size.
Caesar:That's a big thing.
Caesar:Like sure.
Caesar:Maybe not to your average attender.
Caesar:I don't know.
Caesar:But like pastors or way into like, Hey, we're putting on the numbers wing, you know, we got this thing going on capital.
Caesar:Yeah, exactly.
Caesar:All that stuff.
Caesar:And then budgets, everybody will say like, like I've heard this so many times.
Caesar:Like when I was, you know, sort of more involved in the big, big megachurch life and consulting there, and those, it was like, they would say, well, what are you running on Sundays?
Caesar:And they would like, they meant attendance.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:Like what do you running in these days?
Caesar:You know, that was always first question.
Caesar:And then they go like, so what do you guys running annually?
Caesar:And they were wanting know the budget.
Caesar:Hmm.
Caesar:Like, and that was a big thing too.
Caesar:And.
Caesar:, you know, you think about those things, butts like attendance building size and budgets, and you go like, does that even line up with like anything we see in scripture?
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:I was just
Heath:thinking, as you're talking, I'm like, Jesus didn't seem to have the stress of any of those, you know, in fact it seems like he ran from some of that nor
Caesar:nor did, nor did any.
Caesar:Any of the church that we see talked about in acts or in the epistles.
Caesar:Sure.
Caesar:None of that stuff was ever brought up once.
Caesar:Never.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:It's not funny.
Caesar:I mean, other than like, and daily numbers were, you know, people were being added to their numbers.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:But they were talking about their households.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:Like daily, more people were hanging out in their homes.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:Not membership numbers.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:All this on membership don't get me started.
Caesar:Right.
Heath:You know, I find it amazing that, you know, it's not even in one sense, but in these sense that Jesus was the most successful Disciple maker
Caesar:of all time.
Caesar:Absolutely.
Caesar:Here we are.
Caesar:12 dies.
Caesar:Well, 11, really?
Caesar:When it was all and here we are worldwide phenomenon still.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:Still later he's the best that's
Heath:ever lived, right?
Heath:Yeah.
Heath:Mm-hmm yet.
Heath:Based off what you're saying.
Heath:It doesn't seem like he would even be qualified to be on staff at most institutional
Caesar:churches anymore.
Caesar:No, it's crazy.
Caesar:Right.
Caesar:I mean, Jesus was easily immeasurably, the most successful person in human history in every way yet.
Caesar:If we were to measure his lifetime effectiveness using today's church standards of success for staff and leadership, Jesus would probably find it pretty hard to get hired at most churches, you know, and sure he could draw a crowd usually around healings and massive meal times, right?
Caesar:Loaves and fishes, thousands of people.
Caesar:Um, yet he primarily spent the bulk of his leadership energy and time with only a dozen people, his disciples.
Caesar:Hmm.
Caesar:And in our modern church, Jesus wouldn't get great marks for.
Caesar:And, and probably not get that promotion up the ladder because senior leadership usually Del, you know, delegates or relegates discipleship to lower team members or a director of discipleship.
Caesar:So, sorry.
Caesar:Jesus.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:Isn't that funny?
Caesar:And you could look at a lot of the different like butts budgets.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:And building size.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:Jesus didn't have church building, uh, no budget.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:You know, it was completely dependent on others' gifts and just hanging out and, and, and trusting his father for all their provision.
Caesar:In fact, when he sent out his disciples, he said, don't take any extra, don't take stuff, don't take a purse.
Caesar:Don't even take extra clothing.
Caesar:You're gonna be provided for just watch.
Caesar:Right.
Caesar:So none of the three BS would've like Jesus been rallying for those, you know?
Caesar:So I just came out
Heath:of a church that just finished a six plus million dollar capital campaign.
Heath:And I've been around a lot of senior pastors, executive pastors who.
Heath:Are so vision, like we set vision, that's the role of the senior pastor.
Heath:And like you're saying, make the Disciple makers, we already have the vision.
Heath:Oh my gosh.
Heath:Yeah, I know.
Heath:Right?
Heath:Like we're spending so much time in it.
Heath:How do we, Jesus gave it to
Caesar:us, you know, how do we
Heath:get so far away from the source here?
Caesar:I've thought about this a lot, brother.
Caesar:I, I don't think it's any one simple reason, but I, I, if I have.
Caesar:Well, I mean, we can, all, we can go all the way back to Constantine, right?
Caesar:Sure.
Caesar:Around 300 and all that, but I won't, I'm gonna go that far back, I'll say in our lifetime.
Caesar:Okay.
Caesar:I think part of what's really leapfrogged us far away from the source and what, what we saw Jesus about in the early church about, and what they were measuring is when the church decided that we had to, you know, modernity hit and we had to kind of start competing.
Caesar:TV and media and concerts in the world and marketing and all this stuff.
Caesar:And, and, and then we started listening to leaders, both secular and Christian leaders that were all about like, Hey, here's the business model that will totally set your church on fire and turn this around.
Caesar:And a lot of leaders, church leaders.
Caesar:Sure.
Caesar:Think seventies, eighties, I'm not gonna name names.
Caesar:Church growth movement.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:Big, big megachurches.
Caesar:They all started adopting business models.
Caesar:And business titles and top down leadership.
Caesar:Yep.
Caesar:And lording over kind of leadership.
Caesar:And I wouldn't call it that, but it's super top down.
Caesar:It wasn't about the, it wasn't about the priesthood believers being served.
Caesar:Sure.
Caesar:By elders and other leader, it was, it was, it was really a business model.
Caesar:And I think when the church got away from our identity as family primarily, and how do we, how do we make decisions?
Caesar:Well, how would a healthy family make a decision?
Caesar:How would a family who's got God is their father.
Caesar:Jesus is a brother.
Caesar:How would we decide.
Caesar:Who's doing what and how we spend money and how we bless and what are we prioritizing right now as a family, when we got away from that and got to business, I think we started measuring the three BS.
Caesar:Hmm.
Caesar:And it makes sense.
Caesar:It worked if that's what you valued.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:But if you valued life and community as a family and mission.
Caesar:That just kept taking us further, further, further away until it started to die until, until we started to see, wait a minute, there aren't as many butts and seats.
Caesar:And when there's not as many butts and seats, there's not as much budget, which means we're not building as many buildings.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:So when all these other churches in our city.
Caesar:Start to bail and die.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:Well, we'll just scoop 'em into ours cuz we gotta fill this big building, you know?
Caesar:So you have a flux of certain churches.
Caesar:So now we think, oh, we got more butts and seats.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:But we just lost four other really, you know what used to be healthy communities, serving people, making disciples in the, in the, you know, in the city.
Caesar:Yep.
Caesar:Well now they're butts in our seats.
Caesar:yeah.
Caesar:Aw,
Heath:just moving them around.
Heath:Oh yeah.
Heath:Now you have this 10 sort of measurements of how a church can test and see if healthy growth is happening.
Heath:And I think I would argue that your measurements.
Heath:Are a lot more biblical than what we've seen quite a bit.
Heath:But do you mind walking through those
Caesar:10?
Caesar:Yeah, no, no sweat.
Caesar:And I've actually been kind of accumulating these as we go.
Caesar:You know what I mean?
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:The sense of like, when we first started trying to live like a family missionary servants and, and plant churches, that way sort of an upside down model of like, Hey, let's.
Caesar:Let's live like family let's, let's see Oikos as the primary organizing structure, we'll still, we're still gonna gather up, like we're gonna gather up and worship and, you know, preach the word hard and all that.
Caesar:But, but, um, when we started living that way, we started realizing that, oh, wait a minute.
Caesar:If we're measuring the three BS, this is not taking us anywhere where we wanna go.
Caesar:Yeah, it just isn't.
Caesar:And so what are, what if we keep measuring the same old things, we'll keep sort of recreating the same old church, which isn't.
Caesar:Really that well anymore.
Caesar:Right?
Caesar:So we're going like, wait a minute.
Caesar:If we wanna make disciples who make disciples and live like a family of missionary servants, we're gonna have to start measuring some different things.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:But we, we didn't even know what they were at first.
Caesar:We really didn't.
Caesar:We're like, what do we measure?
Caesar:You know?
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:And so little by little, I started just kind of keeping a list when I go like, oh, that's an important thing to measure.
Caesar:Hmm.
Caesar:And someone would say, Hey, you guys seem to really put a lot of focus on this.
Caesar:I'm like, yeah.
Caesar:We, in fact we do.
Caesar:And like, do you measure it all?
Caesar:Well, some things are very tangibly measurably.
Caesar:Sure like numerically and other things are more like, oh, that's growing like crazy, isn't it that's really motivating people.
Caesar:That's helping people grasp the Gospel and it's not as numerical.
Caesar:Sure.
Caesar:But it's very obvious that it's in the up, it's moving upward.
Caesar:Right?
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:And so, yes, I've kind of put together sort of 10, you know, benchmarks, if you will.
Caesar:Yeah, of, of a healthy Missional church.
Caesar:And what I mean by healthy and Missional, both the mission is Missional means make disciples.
Caesar:Right.
Caesar:So we're focused on what Jesus gave us to do.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:The thing that we were created for saved for that would get to be the church, the family of God for, and so in fact, um, I'm gonna put it in the, in the show notes.
Caesar:I'm gonna share 'em right now, but like, I have had a whole little like 10 Missional benchmarks guide, and then there's a little test you can take to see, like, where are we at in these?
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:And then even a little assessment.
Caesar:To kind of say, okay, let's rate ourselves.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:Where we're at.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:So we, yeah, exactly where we need to go.
Caesar:So let's start walking through these and you, you know, see what you think.
Caesar:Challenge me on 'em.
Caesar:Give me your thoughts on where we go.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:So the first one, uh, maybe it's super obvious.
Caesar:I don't know is, um, the number of mature disciples being made.
Caesar:I think that's something worth measuring, you know, disciples make disciples.
Caesar:They don't just hang out or sit in rows together once a week.
Caesar:Yep.
Caesar:And so if you see people who are.
Caesar:Maturing maturing in Christ and, and helping others walk in his ways and mature and know him and know the father and become more, you know, more and more like Jesus.
Caesar:That's what we do as disciples.
Caesar:That is, that is I think the top measurement.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:That's great.
Caesar:Right?
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:For a while, I'll just be honest.
Caesar:We used to kind of measure like the growth of our Missional communities.
Caesar:Okay.
Caesar:And that's not horrible, but that's con that's the container.
Caesar:Just like a building is a container.
Caesar:Right.
Caesar:And so I don't think Jesus and, and our father is about measuring containers since Jesus said, go and make disciples, fill the world with my glory.
Caesar:I, you know, I, I think.
Caesar:Measuring the number of mature disciples being made.
Caesar:That's key.
Caesar:That's great, man.
Heath:All right.
Heath:I, I do agree with that.
Heath:Yeah.
Heath:Like there's another way around.
Heath:So
Heath:I
Caesar:have to put that one first.
Caesar:I don't know that all these necessarily in order of importance, you know?
Caesar:Sure.
Caesar:But I have to go with that.
Caesar:So, uh, the second one, I go, number of relationships that Christians, you know, there, people in the church, uh, have with not yet believers with non non-Christians.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:You know, is, is ask yourself is the relational base among those who are not a part of our church?
Caesar:Is it growing.
Caesar:or are we moving beyond, you know, uh, are, are we yet moving beyond like this tight holy huddle and, and building true meaningful relationships?
Caesar:I can remember when I was on staff at the megachurch, um, I was there.
Caesar:Almost all the time, really.
Caesar:I mean, it was six days a week and I remember really, really being super convicted.
Caesar:You have no relationships with not yet believers.
Caesar:Ooh, you don't, it's hard to hear.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:You know, like, I mean, relationships, people, you know, people, you do friendships with you do life with, I'm not talking about like, well, I'm pretty sure the guy, the dry cleaners isn't a Christian, cuz you know, I think he's a Muslim or something.
Caesar:It's like I have a relationship with him.
Caesar:No, that's not what I'm talking about.
Caesar:I'm talking about relationships, friends, people who invite you over and go, Hey, you guys wanna go to the beach and we're going on vacation next month might wanna, you know, like relationship.
Caesar:So I think that's also important to remember to, to, to sort of measure.
Caesar:Now there, again, it might not be as tangible, like you're gonna hand out lists of people, like how many do you have?
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:But there's, you can definitely get a sense of that.
Caesar:Who are you hanging out with?
Caesar:Who are you people in your church hanging out with?
Caesar:Is it, are you keeping, 'em so busy with programs that they're just at the church the whole time, sort of, like I said, that holy huddle.
Caesar:Sure.
Caesar:Or are the number of relationships with not yet believers
Caesar:growing that's key
Caesar:great, man.
Heath:If you lose that Missional impulse.
Heath:Yeah.
Heath:You need to step back and go.
Heath:We, we got insular.
Heath:Yeah.
Heath:We're incestual . Now we need to figure out to break out the exactly.
Caesar:All right.
Caesar:Number three.
Caesar:All right.
Caesar:Number three.
Caesar:Um, is, and these are benchmarks or measurements, right?
Caesar:Measuring the Gospel display in and through culture.
Caesar:And what I mean by that is, is our physical proclamation of the Gospel expanding through serving others, especially the least of these is the good news being demonstrated as good news for today.
Caesar:Wow.
Caesar:It's like, it's one thing to preach the Gospel.
Caesar:Uh, in a service and we need to right.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:And proclaim the good news, but there's another that we're actually out in and through culture displaying the, the results of the good news.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:In physical proclamations too.
Caesar:Absolutely.
Caesar:Right.
Caesar:You know, uh, when Jesus says, you know, like when someone's hungry, what do, what do you give them?
Caesar:Like a track or an invitation to an Easter service?
Caesar:No, you feed them,.
Caesar:Yeah, right.
Caesar:A cup of cold water for someone who's thirsty.
Caesar:Yep.
Caesar:Right.
Caesar:And so is our Gospel display of service cuz that's part of our Gospel identity is servants.
Caesar:Yep.
Caesar:Is, is, is that growing?
Caesar:Are we, are we out more serving and displaying the Gospel?
Caesar:That's not to the exclusion of, of a Gospel proclamation.
Caesar:Sure.
Caesar:Because in fact that's number four are Gospel conversations growing and taking place.
Caesar:Natural.
Caesar:Like is our verbal proclamation of the good news increasing.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:Are folks growing in their Gospel fluency.
Caesar:And we, we use that term a lot on the show, but just to define it again, gospel fluency is the ability to speak and live and enjoy the good news in every area of life.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:Not just like connected to our afterlife.
Caesar:Right.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:Does the Gospel come up naturally and often in conversation amongst Christians and they're not yet believing friends in ways that natural and make sense, or is it like, no, we really don't talk about that cuz quote unquote, no one wants to hear it.
Caesar:And so when we do, we finally swallow hard and hand, 'em a little green booklet, all crumpled up, you know, with the four spiritual flaws.
Caesar:It's like what, you know, that's quite a jump.
Caesar:It's a good thing to measure our Gospel conversations taking place naturally.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:I remember years ago, um, we had an intern uh, with us at Soma.
Caesar:Yep.
Caesar:And she spent summer with us and we were having sort of like a thanks and, you know, so long, like luncheon at the end of the summer.
Caesar:And she was getting ready to have we said, so what are some of the things, like what surprised you about, you know, hanging out with us for the last three months?
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:You know, community and kind of serving our family.
Caesar:And she said, I mean, I don't know, this is not exact words, but she said something like this.
Caesar:She says, here's what surprised me the most.
Caesar:You guys talk about Jesus in the Gospel, like all the time.
Caesar:It's just kind of part of like, life.
Caesar:It just comes up all the time.
Caesar:Not in weird creepy ways, but you just do, it's just natural.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:And it convicted me.
Caesar:Like, I never talk about Jesus or the Gospel with people like hardly ever.
Caesar:It's like gotta be like time to do evangelist, you know, presentation, you know?
Caesar:And she says, but it for you, like your family here, you guys as a community, you just, it just rolls out all the time.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:But it's not.
Caesar:Like it's normal.
Caesar:It's natural.
Caesar:It's beautiful.
Caesar:We were like complex.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:That's great.
Caesar:That was surprising to her, but I'm like thankful, right?
Heath:Yeah, absolutely.
Heath:All right.
Heath:Number five.
Caesar:Number five was one of the first ones we actually kind of started paying attention to.
Caesar:Um, like I said, these aren't necessarily in order, but it's something to measure I think is really important.
Caesar:Benchmark is the number of indigenous leaders.
Caesar:That are being developed.
Caesar:Okay.
Caesar:Unpack that a bit.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:So here's, here's the, here's the thought our, our new leaders and teachers and preachers coming to faith through your ministry, you know, and they came to faith through you guys and now they're teaching and preaching and all that, you know, um,
Heath:That's really good.
Caesar:Or, or are you mostly hiring from outside the family?
Caesar:Yeah, you, you get online, you go to Willette or whatever, church.com or whatever, and you go, like, we gotta get a new, you know, children's ministry director.
Caesar:We need a new worship guy, whatever.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:Why aren't we developing these people?
Heath:You know, one of my favorite sermon series at Soma did was when I first moved here, they did a whole summer.
Heath:And, uh, they picked like 12 or 15 people that felt like they had the gifting of, of preaching or teaching.
Heath:And they gave each one of them a week and, and.
Heath:At that time you were in New York, but Jeff sat with him and he walked through like, awesome.
Heath:Let's, let's walk through your sermon.
Heath:And then you had 12 guys that we actually, as a, as a body were able to affirm.
Heath:Hey, absolutely.
Heath:This is your gifting.
Heath:Let's let's get you up here more.
Heath:Isn't that?
Heath:It's just really beautiful.
Heath:Yeah, it
Heath:wasn't for the rockstar pastor
Caesar:and it's not just teaching, but like, you know, our, our indigenous leaders being developed through your ministry.
Caesar:In other words, they they're here.
Caesar:They're local.
Caesar:They came to know Christ through us.
Caesar:They've been Disciple to maturity and now they're leading others and they're passing on those same gifting and skills, you know, to others.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:That is super important.
Caesar:Cuz I, the reason I love that one yep.
Caesar:Is that one seems to kind of indicate that a lot of other stuff is firing.
Caesar:Sure.
Caesar:Like you're not developing in a sense.
Caesar:Yeah, exactly.
Caesar:You're not developing indigenous leaders if you're not doing discipleship.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:And you're not doing evangelism.
Caesar:well, if there's no, you know, you're not gonna have new leaders that are indigenous, that are not coming to faith, which means you're never proclaiming anything either on word or action indeed.
Caesar:Right?
Caesar:So that one is key.
Caesar:So it's right in the middle of the list.
Caesar:Number five
Heath:no, I love, I do love too that it's not just the same two or three people leading all the professionals, leading the service, you know, you get the flare of
Caesar:it always killed me, like in a megachurch and, and we'd been a part of them.
Caesar:And like, even like with giant churches, There again that we maybe all would know.
Caesar:And I knew a lot of leadership.
Caesar:It's like, why is every time they need another teaching pastor or even a small group's pastor or something like that.
Caesar:It's always like they gotta hire.
Caesar:And rob em from another church.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:You, you got 20,000 people here in your church 30 years.
Caesar:You haven't developed point.
Caesar:Not one guy can preach.
Caesar:Nope.
Caesar:Not one gal can get up and lead something like fail.
Caesar:That's a fail.
Caesar:Come on.
Caesar:That's a crazy.
Heath:Yeah.
Heath:Oh, gosh, forgiveness, Lord.
Heath:Number six,
Caesar:exactly.
Caesar:Number six.
Caesar:Um, measuring.
Caesar:This is important.
Caesar:Multiplication of Missional and discipleship communities.
Caesar:Yep.
Caesar:So healthy things grow.
Caesar:And if we're making disciples who make disciples, the number of our Missional communities, they will be expanding and growing.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:And we saw that.
Caesar:We saw that consistently, if we number five were developing indigenous leaders.
Caesar:That could lead new communities and help people become disciples.
Caesar:And then apprentice more people.
Caesar:We saw a multiplication of Missional Community communities.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:And like I said, that's not primary only measurement tool, like to measure the containers, but we live in family groups.
Caesar:We live in community.
Caesar:Right.
Caesar:That's life.
Caesar:It's good measurement.
Caesar:And it's important.
Caesar:And you can't make disciples to maturity outside of community.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:And so that's an important one.
Caesar:Like I, you know, I've seen churches where it's like, well, we've got sort of three missional communities.
Caesar:Two of them kind of suck.
Caesar:One of 'em is pretty legit.
Caesar:How long you had that.
Caesar:Mm, 20 years, 10 years, five years now.
Caesar:Um, I, I worked with a community for a while that had, um, literally 80 sort of house churches slash Missional Community communities.
Caesar:Wow.
Caesar:That's a, that's a ton healthy things.
Caesar:Always grow.
Caesar:I mean, you guys are gonna be at like 160, 200 pretty soon.
Caesar:Like now we've been at 80 for like five, six years.
Caesar:Oh, wow.
Caesar:Now eighties.
Caesar:Great.
Caesar:Yeah, but apparently something's not.
Caesar:Grow and multiply there.
Caesar:So probably back to number five, they're not developing leaders in all that, right?
Heath:Yeah.
Heath:And 80% of those are closed groups.
Heath:Oh boy, let me, let me keep going.
Heath:We're run.
Heath:We're run along here.
Heath:Number seven.
Caesar:Um, measuring ministry ownership levels are going up amongst the saints.
Caesar:You know, meaning are people increasingly willingly taking on the responsibility for every area of life and ministry as a community or congregation.
Caesar:Hmm.
Caesar:So it's not just that 80 20 thing, but yeah.
Caesar:Are, do you see more and more percentages of people going like, this is my family?
Caesar:Like, what do you need?
Caesar:You know, watching kids, you know, teaching owner, kids.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:Teaching, preaching, cleaning the building, doing the stuff.
Caesar:It's like, oh, we got, you know, we got an $80,000 budget a year to cut the grass.
Caesar:You got 20,000 people here, someone can cut the grass, as, I don't know, whatever.
Caesar:Right.
Caesar:You know?
Caesar:No, but our, our ministry ownership levels.
Caesar:And, and I use that word because it's like, you know how it is.
Caesar:We all treat like a place.
Caesar:We live different if we're renting versus owner, you know?
Caesar:Oh yeah.
Caesar:It's like, I want owners, man.
Caesar:I want people to see this.
Caesar:This is my family.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:This is our ministry.
Caesar:We're taking this city.
Caesar:Like we're gonna transform this.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:That's good.
Caesar:It's the buy-in right?
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:Number eight.
Caesar:Exactly.
Caesar:Number eight is, um, fivefold maturity.
Caesar:Which is, you know, are your, are there maturing leaders being allowed to lead in all five of the key giftings that are outlined in Ephesians four?
Caesar:You know, we call fivefold ministries, you know?
Caesar:So are you seeing apostles and prophets and evangelists and pastors and teachers both maturing, but given like permission to lead.
Caesar:This is so key to maturity throughout the entire church.
Caesar:And I don't have time to do a study on Ephesians four, but most churches, you know, that I've been a part of and grown up you, you couldn't even point out a staff member, much less somebody you go like, oh man, they're super involved in the church.
Caesar:That was crazy.
Caesar:Mature in equipping others in all five of those areas.
Caesar:Sure.
Caesar:We mostly.
Caesar:We usually have pastors and teachers, that's it.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:And no one else is kind of allowed to do anything.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:it's like that.
Caesar:Well, they might have a bit of a prophetic gift or I kinda likes to do Evangel, like no, no.
Caesar:These are gifts.
Caesar:These are the gifts that are people that are given to the church for the maturing of the saints and unity in Christ.
Caesar:They, we, we need all five.
Caesar:So are you measuring that?
Caesar:And if you see a lack, don't, don't be content yep.
Caesar:Figure it out, go after it develop people, give people permission to lead and to grow in their gifting.
Caesar:Just like, you know, we say, well, yeah, but if, if it's really God's anointing , you know, and they're a prophet it's gonna be spot on from the get, go, wait a minute.
Caesar:You're a teacher.
Caesar:You're a preacher.
Caesar:Preaching, like just nailing perfect at the beginning.
Caesar:B plus no way.
Caesar:No, like everybody, like I listen back to your earliest stuff.
Caesar:It's like heresy , you know, it's not, it's not that good.
Caesar:And it's not even that accurate, right?
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:Okay.
Caesar:Number nine, number nine.
Caesar:Um, measuring the priesthood of all believers, engaged in every area of ministry and mission.
Heath:Ooh, that's good.
Caesar:Okay.
Caesar:Another thing we learned from Ephesians four is that leaders are to equip the saints for the ministry and acts of service.
Caesar:I kind of mentioned that a minute ago, um, leaders are not to be doing all the ministries.
Caesar:So you look at a staff and they do everything.
Caesar:And then you got a ton of volunteers kind of just to fill in blanks and set up chairs and stuff like that.
Caesar:Look across your church, your community, who's doing most of the teaching and preaching and counseling and strategic planning and all that.
Caesar:Is it paid or non-paid people?
Caesar:Is it mostly men.
Caesar:You know, what about the women?
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:How diverse is, what about teens and kids?
Caesar:Are they engaged in the ministry?
Caesar:Do you actually believe in the priesthood of all believers?
Caesar:And is it, are, is their engagement growing in every area of ministry?
Caesar:Not just in sort of the lesser areas, you know?
Caesar:Sure.
Caesar:Like kids ministry and youth ministry and setting up chairs and stuff like that, you know?
Caesar:Or is it every area of ministry?
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:It's good.
Caesar:Remember it's the priesthood of believers here.
Caesar:Priesthood.
Caesar:Same thing.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:All hands on deck, right?
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:And then number 10.
Caesar:measuring people who are sent to start new works and new church plants.
Caesar:And it should be the most normal thing for a church or a Missional Community to be sending their folks out to start new communities, new churches.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:In other words, are we raising the kids to move out?
Caesar:see multiplication always beats addition.
Caesar:So that's an important thing to measure churches that haven't planted.
Caesar:A new church are started new works in like years or decades.
Caesar:That's not healthy.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:There's an issue there.
Caesar:That's not, that's not healthy.
Caesar:There should be cuz guess what?
Caesar:Healthy things always grow.
Caesar:Yep.
Caesar:They do.
Caesar:So, you know, if the ways that we're teaching and preaching and making disciples disciples is not being easily reproduced to the third and fourth generation and then beyond.
Caesar:Well, then we've got some rethinking to do.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:We're probably not measuring the things that add up to that kind of multiplication.
Caesar:So anyway, there's the 10 benchmarks man
Heath:and Caesar, I'll take your 10 over, over the three we
Heath:started out with,
Caesar:I know three B's are remember, right, but 10 start a pick one.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:So you can download the free assessment and the full 10 benchmarks by going to everyday Disciple dot com slash.
Caesar:Benchmarks, if you want to get this thing.
Caesar:And I think you do you want to get it?
Caesar:Trust me, get this, print it off.
Caesar:Maybe read it at your next staff meeting or with your elders.
Caesar:There's a little assessment you can do there.
Caesar:And then watch what people say, whoa, you know, what's going on?
Caesar:What do you guys think and how are we doing on this number or number three or number seven?
Caesar:Or how are we doing on this one?
Caesar:And they're all biblical.
Caesar:I didn't make those up.
Caesar:This is all stuff you see going on in the early church.
Caesar:For a long time, right.
Caesar:In the first century and how Jesus was with his disciples.
Caesar:So trust me, you're gonna wanna check that out again.
Caesar:You can just get it everyday.
Caesar:Disciple dot com slash benchmarks, plural like that.
Caesar:Okay.
Caesar:Well now, as always, I wanna leave you with the big three takeaways from our talk today.
Caesar:If nothing else don't wanna miss these and you can get that and I'll put the link to.
Caesar:Free benchmarks in there as well, but you can get the big three and that link just go to everyday Disciple dot com slash big three.
Caesar:That's the number three.
Caesar:All right.
Heath:Caesar.
Heath:What are the big three for this week?
Caesar:All right.
Caesar:Um, if nothing else don't miss these.
Caesar:Okay.
Caesar:First thing, measuring things that Jesus never measured will not grow his church.
Caesar:Amen.
Caesar:It might for a season or seem like it is, but it's, it's really, it's, it's a waste of time.
Caesar:Yep.
Caesar:And it leads to burnout.
Caesar:Okay.
Caesar:I'm just gonna say that.
Caesar:So loving and treating others like family.
Caesar:Proclaiming and demonstrating the good news, serving the least in our midst, inviting people to walk in the ways with Jesus, with us in every area of life.
Caesar:That's discipleship.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:Those are the things on God's hearts and that will change this world.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:Start to measure those kind of things.
Caesar:Really, please.
Caesar:Yep.
Heath:That's a sustainable way.
Heath:Yeah.
Heath:Yeah.
Caesar:Please do number two.
Caesar:Second thing.
Caesar:Don't miss this.
Caesar:God's love for us.
Caesar:His children goes well beyond how.
Caesar:You know, individually, each of us attend a church service or how much we throw in the offering each week.
Caesar:Mm-hmm okay.
Caesar:Those are important things, but, but that, his love goes so far beyond that.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:Our father sent his son to rescue us and transform our lives and it cost Jesus his life that we might have true life.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:And his desires for us to also lay down our lives for others under the father's glory and be super engaged in this mission.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:You're right now we get to measure those things, you know?
Heath:Yeah.
Heath:We don't have to feel the guilt of it.
Heath:No.
Heath:Absolutely because his love is not.
Heath:Yeah, it's not do to be his love is no,
Heath:absolutely bingo right there.
Heath:Yeah.
Heath:Number three.
Caesar:Okay.
Caesar:Number three, figure out what you've been currently given the most measurement, weight and attention to in your church or community and see if it aligns with true Gospel centered Disciple focused Missional health.
Caesar:Okay.
Caesar:And if it's not producing mature disciples, it's time to get serious about changing it really like today.
Caesar:Now the church only has one true mission and that's gonna make disciples that make disciples.
Caesar:So let's reorient our measurements of success around that.
Caesar:Okay, please.
Heath:It's the way Jesus told us to do it in the first place.
Caesar:And again, you can get the big three for this week by going to everyday Disciple dot com slash big.
Caesar:B I G the number three.
Caesar:And again, if you get that download of the big three, there'll also be the link to that E guide to the 10 benchmarks and that assessment, you can get that for yourself.
Caesar:Print that off.
Caesar:It's really quite a booklet.
Caesar:There's a lot there.
Caesar:It's not just a list of 10 items.
Caesar:It's a whole assessment and test and it'll help you walk your people through that.
Caesar:So I, I hope you'll get that again.
Caesar:Just go to everyday Disciple dot com slash big three, get the big three, get the link to the assessment.
Caesar:And I hope you'll join me next week.
Caesar:We're kind of out of time today, next week, we'll be talking about why church elders should be lead Disciple makers.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:Not just a once a month meeting type of thing or in charge of a lot of important stuff, but shouldn't our church elders be lead Disciple makers.
Caesar:I think so.
Caesar:Anyway, I think you'll like it I'll talk to you.
Caesar:Thanks for joining us today for more information on this show and to get loads of free discipleship resources, visit everyday Disciple dot com.