Eric offered and I welcomed an opportunity to present an alternative point of view on church health and the bottom line. Dialog is my real goal in presenting my thoughts on the subject and so I offer-with his permission–Eric’s article appearing in the December issue of the Pittsburgh New Church Reporter. ~Amos

Church Health and the Bottom Line: Another Perspective

By Eric Carswell

The series of three Reporter articles “Church Health and the Bottom Line” began with a paragraph that spoke of the tendency of non-profit organizations including churches to wander without having a destination clearly defined. Businesses can define success in terms of financial success or “units sold” and some non-profits can define themselves by other tangible measures. The article then states that New Church communities are “trying to effect change in spiritual terms, terms which are inherently not measurable.”

As Ned Uber, of [the Pittsburgh New Church] congregation, would likely observe, these two extremes present a polarity. Natural things can be focused on and measured and spiritual things can be focused on but cannot be measured. Why is this a polarity? Quite a number of people in business assert that a company that primarily focuses on the natural things such as profit will rarely be as profitable as a company that focuses primarily on service to people while keeping a healthy eye on financial measures. A company dedicated to service will not always give people what they ask for. Similarly I would suggest that a healthy congregation needs to focus on its spiritual mission of teaching the truth and leading to its application in life while keeping a healthy eye on indicators (including financial) that it is succeeding in this mission.

What does this mean practically? If a pastor asserts that he knows, apart from any response from the people he is trying to serve, exactly what makes an effective sermon, he may be making a very foolish mistake. If a number of people in the congregation he serves inform him that they have great difficulty following his pattern of thought, that they find his sermons unusually hard to apply to their lives or that they find them too “light,” he ought to consider how he is preparing and presenting his sermons.

Arcana Caelestia §5949 asserts “if essential and not instrumental things are cared for, they shall have instrumental things in abundance.” The “essential” focus of the pastor and the lay leadership would be on helping the people of the congregation to see how the congregation is serving important goals in its worship services, adult education, education for children and efforts to share the Heavenly Doctrine with new people. If the people of the congregation see this happening they will be far more likely to support it with their attendance, time and financial resources (all instrumental means). Measuring attendance, volunteer time, contributions as prime criteria of success is flawed. But a pastor and the lay leadership can reflect on the trends in these indicators (with an awareness that external factors also affect them) and then look at the qualities of the essential efforts of the pastor and the congregation (whose eternal results are immeasurable) if the indicators give evidence of a possible problem.

Part 3 of this series specifically takes to task the prose in the Vision Summary for the Capital Campaign asserting that it indicates that we are “clearly adopting a business model.” Firstly, this document does not refer to students or church members as customers. Secondly, the entire text of that Vision Summary was sent to the clergy a month before it went to press with a request for input. All suggestions made were incorporated into the document. Wayne Parker, who oversaw this document, neither promotes a business model nor feels pressure to adopt such a model. He strongly believes that our purpose is to help people into a meaningful relationship with the Lord. If we do this with strength, wisdom and love the by-product may be meaningful contact with more than a million people but it has never been about counting this as the measure of success. The outcome is the Lord’s. Our effort is to try to serve His goals wisely. I strongly support this view.

I think there are legitimate differences of opinion, principle and goals among many people in the General Church today. There is fear and anger that vital things may be lost and hope and confidence that we are serving the health and growth of the New Church in this world not to mention many other reactions. I pray that we can listen and learn from each other as we seek to be in the stream of the Lord’s providence.