Reflections From Sunday Evening

Today at church between services, a lady introduced herself to me.  She has recently begun coming to PWC and wanted to know how to volunteer for Vacation Bible School!  That made the day. 
We have been thinking about how to best evaluate our participation at church.  When I began in ministry we based things on membership.  Even our apportionments heavily factored in membership to the equation.  Some years back we decreased the emphasis on membership and focused more on average worship attendance.  Today it becomes increasingly difficult to know what to count.
Statistics tell us that people attending church one out of six weekends consider themselves regular attenders.  When I was growing up fifty-two weeks a year was considered regular.  (Of course we always walked to church, in six feet of snow, uphill both ways!)  Anyway, times change.
Today we are learning to look for ways to evaluate "engaged participates".  We still do membership and we count attendance, but here is a different way to look at our involvement.
An engaged participant is one who attends worship a minimum of eight times a year.  An engaged participant is one who is "learning in groups".  An engaged participant is one who serves.  An engaged participant is one who practices generosity.
This is certainly not fool proof but it does offer some indication of who is growing in grace and pursuing Christian Discipleship by following Jesus.
We still have much work to do but we are learning some things. 
It's been a good day.  I hope you've had a good day too.
steve