Effective Church Planting in Europe
The language may change with each generation but the formation of new Christian communities has been one of the features of the advancement of the gospel since the time of the apostles.
Church planting is often claimed to be the most effective form of evangelism, or the surest way to impact a community for God, yet can this claim be justified? And just what do we mean by effectiveness? Putting it in other words, how can we measure the effectiveness of church planting, especially in a challenging context like Europe?
In some parts of the world churches can be planted in a matter of weeks so church planters can easily evaluate their efforts. Church planting in Europe is often much harder, needing years to see fruit among the rocky ground. How can church planters measure the effectiveness of their work in these conditions? Reflecting on these issues led us at the Nova Research Centre to conduct a unique survey of church planting effectiveness in Europe.
Methodology and sampling issues
We contacted some 500 church planters across Europe making use of the eurochurch.net church planting database. Responses were gathered using a self-administered online questionnaire.
Our research looked at three principal questions:
Do European church planters use specific tools to measure the effectiveness of their church planting approach, and if so, which ones?
Do European church planters use specific tools to measure their own personal effectiveness, and if so, which ones?
Do European church planters use specific tools to measure the impact or influence of their church plant on the local community?
Further questions were added on prior training in church planting, the use of mentoring by church planters, training needs, their identification with missions, church denominations and church planting networks, as well as demographic questions.
In total 125 people responded to the survey. On average they have just under 12 years of experience of church planting. The sample included nationals from 18 different countries but there was a distinct Anglo-bias with one third of respondents being of British origin and one in six from the USA. However these church planters were working in 24 different European countries.
The question about affiliation revealed a significant diversity in the dataset with over 20 different church denominations, 12 mission organizations and over 20 local or international church planting networks. Nevertheless it should be noted that 24 of the respondents said they were associated with the Baptist Church and 19 were missionaries with the European Christian Mission. It should also be stated that 90% of respondents were male.
“Church planting is often claimed to be the most effective form of evangelism, or the surest way to impact a community for God, yet can this claim be justified? ”
Preliminary results
1. The effectiveness of the church planting approach
47% of respondents said they did use some sort of tool to evaluate the effectiveness of their church planting approach, though many seemed reluctant to specify it. The most popular tools (20 mentions) were simple quantitative measures: the number of church plants or groups, leaders trained, attendance, conversions, disciples, financial data and so on. Some use specific tools such as ChurchMetrics but most simply count heads.
The second most popular tool (13) was some sort of peer evaluation. This might be a formal evaluation with colleagues or leaders, monthly ministry reports, participation in a learning community or reflective practice. Other respondents (9) focus on the qualitative tools to assess the spiritual health of the new Christian community, the quality of discipleship, the development of leaders, and/or the spiritual health of participants. As one respondent put it, “Are authentic relationships built? Is love encouraged and practiced?”
Seven people used surveys to evaluate their work and four made specific mention of Natural Church Development (NCD). Seven others measure progress by reference to objectives, purposes or a vision statement, such as the strategic plan of the mission agency or Rick Warren’s five purposes. Just one respondent saw the community around the church as a valid measure of the effectiveness of their strategy, citing the visibility, witness, reputation and integration of the church in the community as significant.
2. The personal effectiveness of the church planter
Only 37% of church planters in this survey say that they consciously evaluate their own personal effectiveness. Most do this by measuring themselves against the objectives, purposes or vision statement of their mission or ministry (15 respondents). Some do this for themselves; others do it as part of their periodic evaluation with their leaders. Two measure themselves by a timesheet!
Quantitative tools are also popular with eight people saying that the number of attendees, converts, baptisms, cell groups, giving, reflect on their personal effectiveness. Five consider peer evaluation to be important enabling accountability and feedback from other missionaries. Only three consider the spiritual health of their congregation as an indicator of how well they are doing their work. Those that do, however, seem to ask some valuable questions: “Am I praying for the community, for the church plant and for all the relationships being established? Am I being bold and meeting new people regularly? What is my motivation when I meet people?”
3. Measuring the impact or influence of the church on the community
When it comes to evaluating the impact or influence that the church plant is having on its community only 32% of respondents said they had some way of measuring this. Once again, most (10) who suggested a specific measure focussed on the numbers attending activities, the size of the group, the number of leaders or the number of missional communities.
Seven respondents use some sort of survey to evaluate the impact or influence they are having on the local community though three of those were in reality internal church health surveys like NCD. Only six engaged more directly with the community to ask their evaluation of the church plant. The specific methods include listening and observation, dialogue with visitors, feedback forms, interviews with people outside the church, developing partnerships, and “finding out what people in town are saying about the church”.
Surprisingly five said their peers were the best people to evaluate the impact they were having on their community, and one said the discipleship vision of their organization was the only legitimate measure for this.
Conclusions
Given the small sample size, the gender and nationality bias of the respondents and the over representation of Baptists and ECM missionaries, we cannot say that the sample is representative of church planters in Europe. Nevertheless, it does indicate issues which might be addressed in future studies, or taken into account by mission agencies as they reflect on their own evaluation strategies.
1. Many church planters don’t take time to evaluate what they do
More than half of the church planters in this study say they do not use any tool to evaluate their work. That church planters are more interested in action than reflection is not surprising, but that only half of them engage in any evaluation of their ministry is perhaps indicative of a blinkered overactivity which may weaken the impact of their ministry longterm.
2. Many church planters are solely focussed on numbers
When church planters do stop to evaluate what they are doing they depend on quantitative measures more than anything else. For some this involves a simple head count of attendees, conversions or leaders in training, for others it involves financial data, or the number of groups established in a given timeframe. Given that the very mission of a church planter is to see new Christian communities formed some degree of evaluation by numbers is useful.
More worrying however was the significant number of church planters who judge their own personal effectiveness in this way. Take this comment for example: "If the church grows by a couple or more people becoming Christians every week my work as a missionary has been effective". Given the challenging context of mission in Europe, this way of thinking puts huge pressure on the missionary to produce results and may lead to frustration or worse.
3. Peer review is a very important tool for the evaluation of CP strategy
After raw numbers, the second most important tool for evaluating the church planting approach or strategy is some form of peer review. Church planters look to their colleagues to validate their work, to give them meaningful feedback and thus evaluate the effectiveness of their approach. In some cases this happens formally, through regular team meetings, participation in a learning community, or by coaching, supervision and review, but however it happens, it is clear that a significant number of church planters do engage in reflective practice and look to their peers for an honest appraisal of their work.
4. Quality is important to church planters
The spiritual health of the planted congregation is the third tool that this group of church planters mentioned as a means of evaluating the effectiveness of their approach. Often this is done through questioning: "Is the church growing spiritually? How are the people doing in their personal growth in Jesus? How are they using their spiritual gifts?” Most church planters use either quantitative or qualitative measures. Only a small minority use both.
5. The personal effectiveness of church planters is principally measured against objective
It is common for church planters or their leadership/organization to establish a vision, purposes or objectives to orient and evaluate the development of a church planting initiative. What this research has shown, however, is that these objectives are not used as much to evaluate the strategy or impact on the community, but rather as the principal means to evaluate the church planter’s personal effectiveness. This might satisfy the requirements of the mission organization and or sponsoring agency but one wonders whether a timesheet, the setting of goals and an annual review by checklist satisfies the church planter’s need for meaningful feedback on their effectiveness.
6. Church planters do use surveys to evaluate their work but not always for the right things
Surveys are used by church planters to evaluate their work, especially the Natural Church Development approach of Christian Schwarz. However the church profiles resulting from the NCD survey focus on the internal quality characteristics of the congregation, not the effectiveness of the planter nor the impact on the local community, yet several of the respondents said they used NCD to evaluate these things. Other surveys were used to evaluate the impact of the church on the community by some church planters though no specifics were forthcoming.
7. Very few church planters measure the impact that their church has on the community
My final observation from this data is that church planters seem reluctant to use their community to evaluate what they are doing. Even when the question is specifically asking for what tools they use to measure the impact or influence of the congregation on their community only six respondents said they looked to the community to find this out. Surely some degree of contextual research would give church planters valuable information and feedback on their impact in the locality they are working.
Perhaps all those engaged in church planting in Europe would do well to ask themselves the types of questions that one of our respondents posed : “is the church plant identifying with the community by fully being a part of the community? Is the church plant working towards a better future for the community and enabling transformation to happen?"
Jim Memory