Using Assessment Results in Ways that Line Up

Assessments can be good tools for us to determine how our ministries are aligning with God’s purposes for our Church. In using them, however, let’s be sure that we also look at the results through the lens of our Church Purpose. If our primary purposes are to love God with all of who we are and to love our neighbor as ourselves, then the way we use the results of our assessments must also reflect that love.

Ways We Might Use Assessment Results That Counteract Love . . . Continue reading Using Assessment Results in Ways that Line Up

Guard Body Life When Doing Assessments

Church leaders may find ministry assessments quite beneficial to the growth and on-going health of the church. However, the assessment process sometimes comes with issues that can divide rather than fuse a church together. The solution? Always guard the Body Life of the Church. Make sure the use of assessments lines up with God’s design for the Body. . . . Continue reading Guard Body Life When Doing Assessments

Great Commission: Encompassing or Complicated?

We tend to narrow the Great Commission down to going and making disciples of all nations. So, it’s fairly easy to look at our missions’ budget or how many missionaries have gone out from our midst and determine how well we’re doing. We might also include what programs we have to reach out to our own community. If that’s all there is to the Great Commission, we could arrive at conclusions about how well we’re doing without a formal assessment. But, if we look at the all-encompassing nature . . . Continue reading Great Commission: Encompassing or Complicated?

Assessment Questions from the Great Commission

Before ascending to heaven, Jesus commissioned his disciples to “go and make disciples of all nations” (Matt. 28:18-20). As communicated in the article God’s Mission for the Church — The Great Commission, there’s much more to this directive than evangelizing the world around us. If we look at the outline from the above mentioned post, we can come up with a number of questions we might want to include in assessments. . . . Continue reading Assessment Questions from the Great Commission

Christ-like Standard in Assessments

If we’re going to do an assessment, we need something against which to measure ourselves. It only makes sense that we use a standard higher and better than ourselves. We have that in Jesus Christ. — fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith (Heb. 12:2)

Since He’s gone before us and did it all perfectly, what better example do we have? He experienced all the ups and downs along the way and joyfully endured for the greater good yet to come. . . . Continue reading Christ-like Standard in Assessments

Assessing Christ-like Character

God intends for us to be “conformed to the image of his Son” (Rom. 8:29). He made us a new creation in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17) which means we no longer walk in our old sin nature but rather become more and more like Him. God’s Word clearly shows us that Christlikeness goes beyond our conduct to the very core of our being, our character. . . . Continue reading Assessing Christ-like Character

Assessing Christ-like Conduct & Conversation

When we are who we should be, we will tend to do what we should do. If you haven’t read the previous post about <>assessing Christ-like character, please do so as those traits lay the groundwork for assessing conduct. As Christ-followers, we need to get beyond a standard that merely measure numbers, productivity, efficiency, and many of the other typical success markers. A Christ-like standard turns the attention of our assessments toward processes not just end results.
. . . Continue reading Assessing Christ-like Conduct & Conversation