The Kingdom stewardship of evaluation requires a 360 degree approach when considering our methods and strategies. We must not take a cafeteria-style, pick-and-choose what we want to critique. Honest, and sometimes hard, conversations are necessary when it comes to Great Commission labors. Jesus has commanded us to bear fruit that lasts as we make disciples. We are doers of the Word. We seek to walk by faith and in fruitfulness. We want to know what works and trend in that direction. This is not pragmatism. However, it does mean being pragmatic.
The double-edge of evaluation requires we evaluate both what is “working” and what is “not working,” based on desired Kingdom outcomes.
We are often critical of those in ministry contexts whereby large numbers of professions of faith, baptisms, and new churches are reported. These incredible reports on the growth chart are suspect as they defy the status quo. Our default: evaluate those methods and strategies for gospel compromise, shallow discipleship, and squishy ecclesiology. These situations are too good to be true.
This is nothing new. Throughout the early to mid-twentieth century when Waskom Pickett addressed mass movements in India, followed by Donald McGavran and people movements (described awkwardly as multi-individualistic, mutually interdependent conversions), people began to decry church growth. There is no way such large numbers of people can come to faith in such a short period of time. Something must be unhealthy. In the latter twentieth and early twentieth-first centuries, the responses were similar when church planting movements and disciple making movements became common in missiological discussions: evaluate these things for something smells fishy.
And sometimes fish were discovered–but not every time.
While I am not one to become defensive and resistant when initially hearing of methods and strategies resulting in large numbers of disciples and churches, I wholeheartedly agree with the critics: we must evaluate.
If we fear evaluation’s magnifying glass when turned toward “success” stories, then we are not walking as wise Kingdom stewards.
But evaluation is double-edged.
While critics are often quick to call for scrutiny of that which breaks the status quo, I have observed they are not quick to make the same argument for methods and strategies which result in few to no professions of faith, baptisms, and new churches. Somehow it is cool to evaluate astounding growth but astounding stagnancy should go without evaluation. Faithfulness, not results, is how we are called to live–as long as faithfulness does not involve methodological and strategic evaluation.
Something smells fishy.
Yes, history is filled with methods and strategies that resulted in terribly “great” results. However, I fear that history is filled with even more methods and strategies that have resulted in terribly poor results. Instead of being quick to evaluate the former alone, let’s be quick to evaluate both and adjust accordingly. Such is the way of wise Kingdom stewardship. The five billion remain.