What Do You Count?
By Lyle E. Schaller

An ancient bit of wisdom in management theory reminds us, "We count what we believe to be important and what we count becomes important."

The choice of what to count usually reflects values, goals, and the choice of a planning model. During the 1930s, for example, farmers counted income, expenditures, and inches of rain. The happy farmers were those who were able to pay cash for all purchases rather than have to borrow to buy feed for the livestock or to pay property taxes or replace machinery.

The annual budget continued to be the basic planning model for profit-driven, non-profit, and governmental organizations well into the 1950s. (That continues to be the No. 1 planning model for thousands of congregations as well as for scores of denominational agencies.)

During the 1880s the population of the United States increased by 25 percent. That was followed by a 21 percent increase during the 1890s and another 21 percent during the first decade of the 20th century. Those percentages contrast with an increase of 7 percent in the 1960s and 9 percent during the 1990s.

As denominational policy-makers and pastors reflected on that rapid increase in population in what today is sometimes referred to as the earliest stage of the "third great religious revival" in American church history, one natural response was to organize new congregations to react and serve that rapidly growing population. The Census of Religious Bodies for 1906 was conducted by the United States Bureau of the Census and published in 1910. It found that 85 percent of the 212,230 religious congregations in existence in 1906 reported the year they were established. That figure for the 1880s was 32,771 plus 34,827 for the 1890s and 31,386 for the seven years of 1900 to 1906 inclusive. That averaged out to 56 percent of the 179,331 that reported their date of organization and nearly 47 percent of the total number of congregations identified by that census of 1906. In other words, a reasonable estimate is that by 1910, well over one-half of the religious congregations in the United States had been in existence for three decades or less.

What is the relevance of that long paragraph in the first decade of the 21st century? First, we know that Americans seeking a new church home tend to be found in disproportionately large numbers in congregations that have been gathering at the same address for the corporate worship of God for less than 20 years. These searchers prefer to help pioneer the new rather than perpetuate the past.

Second, we know that the longer a Protestant congregation in America has been meeting in the same building, the greater the internal pressure in planning and in the allocation of scarce resources is to perpetuate the past.

Third, the four predecessor denominations of the United Church of Christ reported a combined total of approximately 8,900 congregations in 1906. That contrasts with fewer than 6,000 today. If we multiply 8,900 by 3.5, the answer is 31,150. Does that suggest the appropriate priority for the United Church of Christ should be to plant at least 25,000 new missions?

In 1906 the six predecessor denominations of what today is the United Methodist Church reported a combined total of 5.2 million baptized members in 57,087 congregations. If that baptized membership had increased at the same pace as the growth in population, the baptized membership of this denomination in 2006 would have been 16.5 million, not 9.3 million in 34,000 congregations.

That takes us back to the first sentence in this paragraph. What we count does become important. A hundred years ago, locating a public, tax-supported public school within walking distance of every child was a widely shared value. One consequence was, in 1918, local governments in the United States supported a combined total of 196,037 one-teacher public elementary schools. The vast majority were located in rural America . That number dropped, as a result of the successes of the school consolidation movement, to slightly over 75,000 in 1948 and to 35,000 in 1956. During the past half century, the number of one-teacher public schools in the United States has plunged to fewer than 400 or less than two-tenths of one percent of that number 90 years ago! The total number of public schools serving grades K to 12 has dropped from 62,000 in 1930 to 26,200 in 2005, but the combined total enrollment climbed from slightly under 26 million in 1930 to 48 million in 2005.

The value behind the counting changed from accessibility to outcomes. What are the children learning? The slogan "No Child Left Behind" had not been articulated in 1950, but if it had been, it would have focused on an input called reasonable accessibility. One response to that value of accessibility was and is the yellow school bus. Today, the top value emphasizes learning. Every state now counts the proportion of students who score at or above the average for that grade level in three areas of learning.

From Inputs to Outcomes
The late 1950s introduced the concept of systems theory to a variety of institutions. That famous television program "If Japan Can...Why Can't We?" was broadcast on NBC on the evening of June 24, 1980. The last 15 minutes were allocated to an interview with W. Edwards Deming. That program undermined the arguments of those who identified their adversaries as "bean-counters." Systems theory and the affirmation of focusing on the outcomes produced by the system, rather than inputs required to feed the system had won that battle!

This new perspective plus the expanding role of the laity also gave a voice to economists in policy-making circles in several circles including that growing number of nondenominational megachurches as well as denominational systems.

"Our denominational statistics can be used to document what I believe to be the crucial issue," declared an economist. "The past 50 years have brought a free market to nearly all sectors of the American economy from agriculture to transportation to the delivery of health care to manufacturing to journalism to financial services, and that list includes organized religion. The market place is far more competitive today than it was in the 1950s! I am convinced the reason our share of the church membership market has dropped so sharply is most of our churches are not competitive. Therefore, I believe we should focus on how we can help our regional judicatories and our congregations to become more competitive in reaching younger generations."

"That's simply another diagnosis of my central point," replied the systems analyst. "Our current system is producing congregations that cannot compete with other churches for the loyalty of younger generations."

Six Lessons
One lesson is that the appropriate response in one era or one set of circumstances may not be the appropriate response in another. Counting the number of new congregations founded each year may have been a useful way to measure progress in response to the settling of the West and the rise of the cities between 1880 and 1915, but the context for church planting has changed radically since 1950!

One example is institutions must be larger today to be able to mobilize the resources required to fulfill the expectations of the generations born after World War II. That long list includes hospitals, public schools, grocery stores, financial institutions, variety stores, public libraries, institutions of higher education, municipal governments, and religious congregations.

One consequence is, as recently as the 1970s, a regional judicatory of a Protestant denomination might adopt a goal of planting four new missions annually over the next five years.

A decade or two after that 1975 goal calling for a total of 20 new missions in five years had become history, the outcomes might include four congregations each averaging over 350 at worship, five that had plateaued in size, each with an average worship attendance between 135 and 250, nine that no longer existed, and two that were averaging fewer than 85 at worship.

Today, that goal might be stated as two new missions to reach and serve immigrants whose first language is Spanish, two that are designed to become multisite megachurches that are launched on 60 acre or larger sites, one to serve recent immigrants from Korea, two that include a Christian day school for children ages 4 to 8, two to serve residents of large retirement communities, and one that will be designed as a multicultural parish with five worship services in five different languages in one building every Sunday morning by its third birthday.

A decade after that second plan had been completed, one of the 10 no longer existed, and the combined average worship attendance of the other nine had passed the 9,000 level.

That introduces a second lesson. The "one size fits all" assumption that was part of the foundation for planting new missions in the 1947-1985 era has been replaced. The new design calls for first identifying the needs and expectations of the people to be served. The second step is to design a distinctive customized plan for each new mission. That makes it possible to decide how to staff that design and the real estate required to house it.

That introduces a third lesson. If the site purchased for that new mission turns out to be too large, it usually is easy to sell the excess. If the site is too small, it often is difficult to enlarge it.

A fourth lesson distinguishes between focusing on "What's not working?" and "What's working?" Seven sacraments are central in the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. One of these is penance. The second stage of penance is confession. A survey conducted in 2005 revealed that only 2 percent of American Catholics go to confession regularly, 14 percent go once a year, while 42 percent never go. Those numbers generate the question, "What can we do about that?"

A parallel question for both congregational and denominational leaders is, "What are the desirable outcomes our system should be producing, but is not producing, and what should we do about that?"

A different question is evoked by a different question. When leaders in nondenominational Protestant megachurches founded since 1975 are asked, "What proportion of your regular attendees in worship were born, baptized, reared, and confirmed in a Roman Catholic family?" one frequent response is "60 percent." Another is "40 percent." A third estimate is "About half." That raises the question of "Why?" When the "cradle Catholics" are asked why they chose this congregation, the most frequent explanation is "The preaching" or "The sermons." A second refers to specialized ministries and a third to "local control."

A fifth, and a recent lesson, goes back to the 1970s. The question raised back in the 1950s was, "Should we ask large congregations to sponsor new congregations or should denominational agencies accept the responsibility to plant new missions?" One version of the contemporary approach is, "Which of our congregations with discretionary resources should be challenged to implement the multisite model and who are the people who can be served most effectively by a new single-site mission?"

Finally, a sixth lesson applies to that annual congregational report. What should be counted in preparing that report? Going back to the first sentence in this essay, the answer is count what you believe is important! If the leaders agree that the most important facet of congregational life is paying all bills in full and on time, make the annual financial report the highlight of that annual report.

If, however, the corporate worship of God is widely perceived to be the central purpose, changes in worship attendance may be the central theme of that report.

In those congregations experiencing rapid numerical growth, two useful numbers are (1) the ratio of average worship attendance-to-confirmed or baptized membership for each of the past five years and (2) the number of small face-to-face groups that meet weekly and their combined attendance in the typical week. Sometimes those two numbers will suggest the congregation is more effective in attracting new people than it is in assimilating newcomers.

If evangelism is a top priority, the number of adults received by baptism and/or confession of faith for each of the past five years may be the most useful numbers in that annual report.

If the transformation of the lives of Christian believers is the top priority, and if this is relevant to that congregation, a useful paragraph is the number of adults who spent seven to 15 days engaged in doing ministry with fellow Christians in a sister church on another continent for each of the past three to five years.

In summary, does that annual congregational report reflect the top values in your ministries?

Lyle E. Schaller is a retired parish pastor and parish consultant. His most recent book, From Cooperation to Competition , was published by Abingdon Press in May 2006. He enjoyed eight years in a one-teacher elementary school from 1929 to 1937.

Copyright 2008 by Lyle E. Schaller