Scorecard or Scoreboard?

I remember visiting many churches and seeing a wooden plaque in the foyer that was updated every week. It was titled “Attendance and Offering,” and it gave the stats from the previous week and one year ago, enabling people to compare.

No doubt, folks felt that as long as the current numbers were better than before, the church was winning. While the plaques are gone in many places now, we do the same thing with spreadsheets.

But there are two potential problems if the two categories of crowds and cash (or butts and bucks) are the primary way we keep score.

2 Problems with Crowds and Cash Counting

For one thing, it’s entirely possible for a church’s attendance to be growing while the Kingdom of God is shrinking. Why? Because while more people may be attending church overall, it’s a smaller percentage of the total population. In reality, the Kingdom is losing ground.

It’s entirely possible for a church’s attendance to be growing while the Kingdom of God is shrinking.

Also, it’s possible for a church’s attendance to be growing, but the maturity of the attenders is not. Such numbers say nothing qualitative about personal transformation and Kingdom impact.

It’s possible for a church’s attendance to be growing, but the maturity of the attenders is not.

There’s a parallel to this in baseball. A scorecard tracks various statistics: AB (at bats), RBI (runs batted in), HR (home runs), ERA (earned run average) and much more. However, while interesting, the scorecard fails to record the most important thing: whether the team won the game.

That’s the function of the scoreboard. And, at the end of the day, that’s really all that matters. Is the team winning?

A church leader named Dave Travis makes a very insightful observation regarding this: “Churches have to be careful not to confuse the scorecard with the scoreboard. The scorecard offers you some interesting facts that you can track, but the scoreboard tells you whether you are winning or losing the game.”

“Churches have to be careful not to confuse the scorecard with the scoreboard. The scorecard offers you some interesting facts that you can track, but the scoreboard tells you whether you are winning or losing the game.” - Dave Travis

Measure What Matters

So, what should we count? And how do we determine whether the team is winning or losing?

While there’s nothing wrong with counting the number of people who are attending and keeping track of the offerings, you shouldn’t quit there.

Chris Norman is a lead pastor and friend of mine who is determined to prioritize the scoreboard over the scorecard. “We need to measure what matters,” he says.

“We need to measure what matters.” - Chris Norman

Toward that end, he sends out an annual Spiritual Assessment Survey to his congregation. You can see it HERE.

You’ll see that there is some of the typical data-gathering. However, note some other questions that are asked. Questions such as…

Over the past 12 months, do you feel that you have grown in your spiritual character (i.e. fruit of the Spirit, loving enemies, devotional life, humility, compassion, etc.)?
Over the past 12months, do you feel that you have grown in your spiritual influence (using your spiritual gifts, sharing the gospel, praying for others, etc.)?
Do you have someone who is intentionally discipling you on a regular basis and helping you grow in your character and leadership?
Are you intentionally discipling people (outside your immediate family) to help them grow in their spiritual character and leadership?
How many times in the last year have you shared the gospel with someone and encouraged them to surrender their life to Jesus?
How many times in the last year have you prayed for someone (in-person and out loud) for God to bring physical, emotional, or relational healing?

It’s obvious that Chris is far more interested in the scoreboard than the scorecard.

By the way, if you’d like to know the results of the survey, you can find them HERE.

You will see at the end of the summary that this church is in fact “winning.” Genuine personal transformation is being produced and genuine Kingdom advancement is being realized.

Survey Says…

So, what about your church? Is it winning or losing? And how do you really know?

As the new year approaches, I would encourage you to consider surveying your congregation so that you have a baseline of data. To be sure, the results might be discouraging. But, as has often been said, “Facts are our friends.”

With those facts in mind, you can begin to look for ways throughout the next months where you can start addressing various areas. Progress may be slow. But it’s also slow when trying to put together a winning baseball team.

In making this switch from valuing the scorecard to valuing the scoreboard, you’ll be measuring what really matters. And that will result in a Kingdom win.

The Everyday Pastor Blog is brought to you by our partners.

To support Dave DeSelm Ministries by becoming a partner, CLICK HERE.