metrics

Input vs Output Goals for Discipleship

August 15, 2017 By Daniel Im

Have you ever judged the effectiveness of your ministry by the size of attendance?

On Easter Sunday, after setting up extra chairs, perhaps you had to pull out even more to accommodate the influx of people. It may have felt good to preach to a full room. Lives were changed and there was a tangible buzz in the air.

By all accounts, that service felt like a win.

But then what happened in the following weeks? Where did all the people go? Did they stick with their faith? Or did everything go back to “normal?”

And if that happened, did you end up feeling like a failure?

The fact is, we can’t help having responses like this.

From report cards and standardized testing scores to gas mileage in our cars and the square footage of our homes, we measure everything—especially what “success” looks like in ministry.

How many people were baptized last year?
What is your average weekend attendance?
How many campuses do you have?
How many do you have on staff?
What about your budget?

Those can be great indicators of health. But they don’t measure matters of the heart. And they don’t tell us whether someone in our church is a disciple and whether people are maturing in their faith.

I want to introduce a different way to measure success in discipleship—one that is based on one of the largest studies done to date on discipleship in North America. So let’s dig in.

Measuring discipleship can be a little like measuring other kinds of human endeavors aimed at changing your life—like losing weight or saving money.

There are two factors to keep in mind: input goals and output goals.

Input goals are the behaviors or habits you adopt when trying to make a change.

In weight loss, input goals would be things like counting calories, exercising, or cutting back on fast food. For saving money, they’d be things like bringing your lunch to work or setting a family budget.

We adopt those input goals in order to see some kind of output in the future.

Output goals equal feeling better physically, losing a certain number of pounds, or having a certain amount of money in the bank.

The two are linked; certain kinds of inputs lead to certain kinds of outputs.

Churches often measure success in ministry and whether someone is a mature disciple by using output goals, such as attendance, giving, and serving. But we need to think about input goals as well.

3 Ways Tesla Affects Your Church Metrics

January 5, 2016 By Daniel Im

*My post here was originally published on Oct 13, 2015 in Christianity Today.

When you think of Tesla, what’s the first thing that comes to your mind?

For most people, it’s electric cars, but what if I were to tell you that this was not going to be their greatest legacy? Yes, they did vastly expand the driving range of an electric vehicle from 73 miles (117 km) to 200 miles (320 km) on a single charge. Yes, they did reimagine the electric car and the way that it is powered. Yes, they did open up the black box on their technology patents so that other car manufacturers can benefit from and improve on their technology. However, since electric vehicles only account for one percent of the market, unless more people begin to buy electric vehicles, Tesla’s impact will be small, if not negligible. In addition, with the recent report that revealed Tesla loses more than $4000 on every Model S car that they sell, the future is looking dim for them.

Although Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, may want his company to be remembered for electric vehicle technology, he might actually be inadvertantly writing his legacy elsewhere. Even more than their advancement in battery technology, I believe that the greatest impact that Tesla will make in the automobile industry is from their dashboards. After all, while only one percent of customers might buy an electric car, one hundred percent of vehicles have dashboards. Have you ever seen the dashboard on a Tesla? It feels like a thing of the future. Not only have they gotten rid of all the manual dials and gauges and made them digital, but they have also reimagined what a dashboard could be. I wouldn’t be surprised if other car manufacturers quickly follow suit.

Here are three ways that Tesla has reimagined the dashboard:

1. From static to dynamic. Most cars still have manual gauges to change the temperature, measure the RPM, or change the radio station. In the Tesla dashboard, everything is digital and dynamic.

2. From single-function to multi-function. If you look at the dashboard in a common vehicle, you’ll have single-function gauges. In the Tesla, you have the ability to display anything you would like on your dashboard. For example, you could measure the energy consumption on your car, while adjusting your car’s height suspension, and follow your GPS all at the same time. Your dashboards are digital screens.