Resources that Address the Importance of Outcomes
In the June 8, 2009 Alban Weekly article, “The Importance of Outcomes,” Gil Rendle and Susan Beaumont emphasize the value of individuals and teams knowing what to produce in a congregation; otherwise people expend often futile amounts of energy on simply doing what they know—whether it works or not. Of course, knowing what to produce stems from knowing a congregation’s mission and vision.
Years ago I received a call from the senior minister of a church who said he needed a mission statement by 6:00 that evening. I jokingly said I could make one up for him, although it probably wouldn’t be very meaningful. Nevertheless, he was in earnest, saying that his board had tinkered with this issue for years and it was time to just say “something.”
Well, tinkering with an issue usually doesn’t suffice. There’s no easy way to arrive at a congregation’s mission and vision. It requires the hard but ultimately satisfying work of discernment. Fortunately, the Congregational Resource Guide (CRG) offers some helpful resources. Please check out the “Mission and Vision” section of the Guide—as well as the sections on “Strategic Planning” and “Staffing.”
There’s a supplemental point that Rendle and Beaumont make in today’s Weekly: “Keeping people in the congregation happy so that they don’t complain is not an appropriate product of ministry.” And yet how often does “keeping people happy” become a default goal—particularly if some people are quite vocal about their unhappiness and particularly if congregations do not have a clearly understood mission and vision?
An article from the CRG, also by Gil Rendle, addresses this issue: “The Illusion of Congregational Happiness.” Here Rendle emphasizes that the search for congregational “happiness” forces leaders to focus on problem questions rather than purpose and identity questions. It pushes leaders into a largely reactive stance when a proactive stance is called for.
What are your thoughts—on congregational outcomes, mission and vision, or the goal of “keeping people happy”?
Dear Colleagues:
As much as “get” your drift on mission/vision statements, let me tell you what happened in my parish this week—a church without a mission or a vision statement, in crisis after the pastor’s wife served her husband divorce papers because he’s been diagnosed with bipolar illness leading to his resigation from the church. Thus my presence as transitional interim pastor.
* Double the number of men came to a bi-monthly fellowship breakfast because the faithfuls invited their unchurched friends.
* Our lawyer vice-chair joined the Praise Team and led the church in worship yesterday along with others while singing haltingly from a piece of sheet music—after the service he spok to me about pursuing a bi-vocational license with our denomination.
* An elderly lady walked into church and hugged me before I could even extend my hand to greet her to thank me for my voice-mail last week.
* Over lunch with a young couple, the husband stated he had a vision for men’s ministry and could I help him get a discipleship group started.
* During a visit to another couple yesterday, a past chairman of the church expressd his willingness for nomination to that post, given some struggles we’re having in that position.
* During a third visit to a home, a couple offered me and my wife their New England summer home anytime we could get there.
* Yeserday’s sermon was on the Trinity…what is the role of the Holy Spirit ecclesiologically when doing the church in terms of outcomes and prductivity making the Trinity necessary without succumbing to the Western capitalism of Mission / Vision statements as an accommodation of US corporate culture that follows Deweyian notions of what “works.”?
I was weary of all this when I worked in middle management for AT&T.
Is this all I get now that I’m following the Bishop’s orders to save our churches in crisis?
An excellent article. I’m a big fan of outcomes. Years ago, I was running a church-based food pantry for people with HIV/AIDS, paid for through a federal Ryan White contract. The contract called for us to measure activities such as number of unduplicated clients and meals served and numbers of pantry bags given out, etc. At one point the local funding agency began to move toward outcomes measurement and I received a call from our contract manager asking me what our “outcomes” were. I had no idea, and I said well we feed xx# people and served yy# of meals, and he said, “no, I mean the “outcomes.” What was the result of you feeding all these people?” Back and forth we went for a while, and at one point he suggested that we could measure our outcomes by putting a scale in the pantry and measure clients’ body weight to ascertain if we were actually doing them any good! Of course, I objected to that as humiliating for our clients and refused, but we finally worked out a way to measure the achievement of “food security.” We would survey the clients to see if our pantry bags were feeding them enough so that they could spend less time looking for their next meal and more time on stabilizing their lives, i.e. looking for work or managing their entitlement appointments, health care, housing needs, etc.
Making the leap from measuring activities to outcomes is hard, but the hardest step is envisioning the outcomes you want. After that, measurable goals, objectives and indicators of success/failure fall into place. One doesn’t need to be a statistician to measure. I say, just start measuring something, anything, and it will tell you whether it’s the right thing to measure or not, and give you your next set of questions to ask. But it is the vision, i.e. the outcome that is the most difficult and the most important to articulate.
I have been thinking along these lines as the ole report of #of visits, services, meetings etc. seem to not get at what is happening or needs to happen.
I would be interested in how a report from the pastor as to what ministry has happened, not only the pastors but others in the church as well. if this were to happen i am wondering if it would encourage others to think and act as ministers from/in the church??
Any thoughts would be greatfully accepted.
WaynO
I, too, enjoyed the article very much and continue, as a youth and C.E. Minister, to deal with pursuing a vision that results in personal and joyful outcomes. While “keeping the people happy so they won’t complain” leads to fear-based and crisis-motivated responses, it’s imperative for church leaders to keep their hearts and ears open to the expectations and needs of the congregation. Picture a mid-sized church (attendance that a couple of years ago averaged 150), where 70+ unhappy people have chosen to leave… Yes, it’s a time for renewal, but such radical rededication surely must begin (as in Dr. Bischoff’s scenario) in the pew through church leaders and worshippers.
This was a thoughtful and challenging article, but I wish it had provided some examples of what the authors had in mind. There is a reason that some of the best management training includes case studies.