In this week’s lead story about discipleship, Editor Rebecca Barnes notes the difficulty of measuring such spiritual disciplines as prayer life, Bible reading and serving outside the Church.

A similar challenge awaits churches that want to transform from program-driven entities to missional congregations that make an impact on their communities. How will they measure their results? Leadership Network consultant Reggie McNeal says it’s all about your scorecard.

Scorecards are how churches measure what they do. Typically, they have revolved around numbers: attendance, enrollment, offerings and frequency of meetings. However, McNeal believes churches have to change their scorecards if they hope to become effective at reaching outside the four walls.

"How many" and "how much" no longer fit the needs of today’s world, McNeal says. He proposes churches "expand the bandwith" of what they measure in order to celebrate the dimensional richness of missional ministry.

Instead of asking how many people showed up for an event, the author of "Missional Renaissance: Changing the Scorecard for the Church," suggests asking such questions as:

* How many better marriages do we have in our church today than a year ago?

* How much money did we give away last year? How much did we invest in our community?

* How many members are prayer partners with a public school teacher?

* How many people have figured out a way to show love for their neighbor instead of just coming to support our stuff?

"In a missional world, it’s about the size of your vision and impacting your community," McNeal says. "A church with 33 people in the inner city that’s about making an impact is making a bigger difference than a big old honking suburban church with 3,000 people who are as busy as can be running the cruise ship."

Such talk may stir up conference crowds, but inflame folks comfortable with tradition and churches that rarely challenge them to step outside their comfort zone. Still, changing the scorecard is likely to change the focus of what churches do and how they carry out the task of serving the world.

For example, I heard of one church that decided being involved in missions was just as important as coming on Sunday. So in their bulletin each week they include the number of people who were involved in mission projects the previous Sunday in addition to those who were in worship service.

While that may not sound too radical, try implementing such a strategy and see how many complain about the missing bodies. Cancel mid-week services so members can get involved in community service and you may start an exodus of the faithful.

Granted, it may not be easy making the transition to an outward-focused church. But McNeal thinks it is worth the effort. He says many ministers are frustrated because they felt called to ministry and instead wound up becoming program managers.

Changing one’s scorecard to serving the community instead of members may also prove to be more popular than you suspect. McNeal says today’s younger generation wants to make a difference and will give to outreach much faster than a building program.

"I’m not against buildings, but don’t build another church building," he says. "Build a building that blesses the community."

Such a step may ultimately bless your church.