The Leprosy Mission is looking at the indicators we use to measure the success of our projects.
We have lots of indicators for the medical work we do, and a growing list for our community development work. The question is "How do we measure the 'spiritual bit'."
How can we measure the success of integral mission?
Jannine
Global Disability Adviser
The Leprosy Mission International
Replies
Hello Jannine,
You ask a very interesting question and it deserves some serious consideration. It is something that many of us are wrestling with as we look for providing accountability and justification for what we are doing.
Thing which I cam to realise a long time back was that communicating the Gospel was a whole lot more than providing Content - knowledge about God and what people need to believe. It was also about building relationships and trust - simply because we care and because we want to share the love of Christ as a practical outworking and expression of God's Kingdom.
Trust has to be earned. It is not something that can be directly measured. But there may be events where attendance could be measured, for example, as a demonstration of the level of trust that is being built. Or it could be tied to the number of people showing up for Bible study - or requesting study materials.
Or it could be measured through simple on-going surveys where people's impressions, concerns, or questions are monitored and tracked over time.
Maybe you could share a bit more of specific contexts and then we might be able to explore some possible ways of selecting indicators that can be measured.
In the meantime you might be interested in exploring The Gray Matrix at http://thegraymatrix.org which unpacks the issues relating to the twin dimensions of Cognitive and Affective elements of communication/ministry. I know this is being used by a number of different ventures in tracking progress of individuals in their pilgrimage of faith.
Hope this helps...
Frank