Measuring What Matters: A Conversation About Metrics and Mission
February 2, 2015
Note: Bishop Ken Carter posted this article on Facebook last week, and it had many shares. It was posted by Leading Ideas a day later, and has gotten its share of traffic through social media. Below is an excerpt with a link to the full article on Leading Ideas. By Ken Carter
If your life is anything like mine, you may find yourself at the beginning of the year focusing on numbers from the past year. In both professional and personal spheres, these numbers become more important, whether they relate to personal finance, denominational data, institutional capacity, or charitable giving.
There is currently a lively conversation underway in the mainline church about numbers and metrics. This conversation is often dominated by two extreme and less-than-helpful perspectives. One seeks to quantify everything. In its most pronounced expression, this is the ascendency of the M.B.A. into every other professional guild, including ministry. The second perspective is an overreaction to the first. It insists that metrics should be ignored in favor of higher values — persons, or communities, or contexts.