fiftytwo

THOUGHTFULLY DRIVING THE PORCELAIN BUS

A Column by John S Schroeder

January 18, 2003

"You get what you measure," was the thesis of an article I wrote a few years ago that was published in an industry magazine. Another way to state the point is that success is in how you define it. Let me give you an example. When I was in high school it was common to talk about automobile engines in terms of displacement. That is to say, and engine was a "406," or a "350," or some other number that referred to the cubic inches of working volume in the cylinders. This convention existed because in general more displacement meant more power, which in turn meant GO FASTER! (I am strongly tempted to make a joke about comparing cars and the size of male genitalia, but for the sake of this column we will assume I have some sense of decorum.)

Well, since then C.A.F.E. standards and the metric system have taken hold, engine displacements have gotten much smaller. For the last 20 years or so the game in car engines has been getting more power out of less displacement. Therefore we talk about horsepower and torque and acceleration rather than displacement. We measure engine performance by a different meter because we no longer want just power, but fuel-efficient power.

This lesson about measurement has been driven home to me in a new way in the last couple of weeks. I am assisting the junior-in-high-school daughter of some friends of ours with her Advanced Placement, "AP," Chemistry class. If you don’t understand the terminology, let me enlighten you. There are a series of standardized examinations that have been invented, that if successfully passed will allow a high school graduate to skip the introductory college classes in the topic examined. Thus, if my young protégé passes the AP chemistry exam she will be able to skip General Chemistry 101 and 102 her freshman year and move straight into Organic.

Well, because "AP" is all about passing the tests, it seems that teachers are teaching the exam instead of the subject. In the case of the young lady I am helping, her teacher shows her how to answer example questions and problems, but then in class exams when she is confronted with essentially the same problem in a different form she fails. As soon as I help her see the similarity in the questions, she knows the answer. She has mastered the examples, but because she has not mastered the subject, when the subject is removed from its specific context, she is unable to use what she has learned. This is a crying shame.

When it comes to chemistry, I am truly an expert. This is a very bright girl who, when she learns the principals instead of the context, can be quite successful. It seems to me that we are measuring the wrong things here. The exam itself is not the problem; it is an instrument designed specifically to measure the student’s mastery of the subject. The problem is how we measure the teacher’s performance. The teacher’s success is measured by how many students pass the exam. Thus it behooves the teacher to teach the exam instead of the subject. By so teaching students that probably are not good candidates to study chemistry, they have a better shot at passing the exam. More students pass the exam, the teacher is considered more successful. Exams measure the student’s performance, not the teacher’s.

Against this backdrop, I read an article in the Seattle Times this week about something called an "emerging church." The article contends that mega-churches are now becoming passe and beginning to be replaced by smaller, more intimate congregations with more inventive forms of expression. Being the curmudgeon that I am I can see as many, perhaps more, pitfalls with this trend than even the apparently now dying mega-church trend, even though this trend seems in line with much of what I have championed in this space. But let’s set aside those pitfalls for the moments and look at a quote from the article:

"Some experts say it's the next phase of development for Western churches. Traditional services flourished for nearly two centuries in America before contemporary-style mega-churches were founded mostly by baby boomers in the 1970s and '80s. Those church founders were, in part, rebelling against the layers of elaborate ritual found in traditional services.

Beginning in the mid- to late 1990s, members of so-called Generation X — very roughly defined as those born between 1961 and 1981 — began founding the emerging churches, believing both the traditional churches and the boomer-generation mega-churches had become too authoritarian and too entrenched in preserving the institutions.

Some thought traditional churches lacked flexibility and openness to new styles of worship; others thought contemporary churches lacked a mystical element or were too focused on membership size and glossy production values"
First of all I find the comparison of something that lasted for 200 years, and frankly is not dead yet (traditional churches), with a trend that now appears to be passing after only 30 years or so a little disconcerting. From my perspective something that has lasted 200 years is probably of some value. Something that has lasted 30 years is a fad. I have banged on mega-churches enough though.

What this really speaks to is how we measure the success of a church. Mega-churches definitely measure success by numbers. The more members they claim, the more attendance they can count, and the more successful they claim to be. The emerging churches talk about freedom of expression and personal relationships. At the current moment, the traditional churches measure simple survival. Historically I think they measured institutional power in the community as success. All I can say is no wonder that are all coming and going.

The church is supposed to be the body of Christ on earth -- the community of believers. Are any of those things really a good measure of the success or failure of such an enterprise? I don’t think so. As I read scripture, God measured the success or failure of those He communicated with by very different standards. God generally measured the success of the Israelites by their obedience to His Word, both as a community, but also as individuals. Jesus seemed to measure success in individuals only, and again, that success was measured by their devotion to Him.

This is why I end up so frustrated working in the leadership of a church. Everyone seems to be headed to a goal I do not see. As a Christian one of the more important questions you can ask yourself is how will you measure your success. I am just bold enough to suggest that you may need to find the answer to that question somewhere besides the church. I strongly recommend that you ask God.
With Love,