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August 19, 2010

A Fast (and Free) Way to Assess a Church's Health

Discerning a church's spiritual vitality beyond "nickels and noses."


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"Recent church assessments, such as Natural Church Development, Church Health Assessment Tool, Transforming Church Index, and REVEAL's Spiritual Life Survey, are very helpful—if your church has the time, money, and motivation to hire a consultant and/or get people to take surveys," Kevin Miller recently wrote in Leadership. "Many pastors, though, need a measure that is free and simple, more complete than weekly attendance but just as easy to determine."

Miller, the former publisher of Your Church who now serves as assistant pastor for a church in Wheaton, Illinois, set out to do just that. Inspired by the story of Virginia Apgar, the anesthesiologist who developed a five-point check for newborns (which is now largely credited with radically reducing infant mortality rates in the United States), Miller developed two different "Apgar" scores that churches can use.

They're free, and provide instant results.

The first, based on Acts 2, can be taken here: http://bit.ly/cTKOB8

The second, based on Revelation 2, also can be taken here: http://bit.ly/cTKOB8

What's your church's Apgar? As church administrators, executive pastors, or pastors, do you find this way of assessing your church's vitality a helpful alternative to the "nickels and noses" (budgets and attendance) approach commonly used?

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Posted by Matt Branaugh on August 19, 2010 8:00 AM

Related Tags: administration, board, Budget, business administrators, Change, church, Communication, executive pastors, leadership, Management, ministry, outreach, pastors, planning, staff, stewardship, Teamwork

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