What Do You Count?

Notes on “The Lapel Pin Principle” and other fresh ways to measure church growth

I’ve been trying to come up with a clever way to write about this. But I’m a little stuck.

So I’ll just say it.

When I’m writing about growing churches and ministries, I’m not writing (solely) about getting more people to worship on Sunday.

I don’t only care about “butts in pews.”

Attendance is a helpful but incomplete piece of data. I want to think more broadly about how we count growth.

If church is not just what happens on Sunday morning in the sanctuary. If it is more than the events. If it isn’t only about generous financial exchange. If it isn’t about the old model, what’s the new model?

And friends… I’m not trying to write a theology of church life. I believe The Church is the body of Christ (and we can exchange sermons on that topic another time if you’d like). I believe discipleship and transformation are laudable goals. But that’s not what I’m writing about here.

This is a practical question.

If you’re trying to grow your church, what are you counting? Beyond attendance. Beyond tithes. Beyond baptisms?

How can we come alongside our neighbors without requiring them to come inside the institution?

How can we create space for transformation without necessitating existing institutional integration?

How can someone be a part of our church without necessarily setting foot in our church?

Let me propose an answer. I believe someone can belong to our faith community if these three things are true. They…

• Have a small group of close friends within the community.

• Have a role to play for the community.

• Have a story to tell about why the community matters to them.

There are some people they know and who know them within the faith community. They have a little pocket of friendship, comfort, and trust (which is how community actually works, by the way — little groups make up big groups).

They contribute in some (even very small) way. They have a task, a role, a job. Even if it is very tiny. Even if it is reciprocating kindness or sharing gratitude. They contribute to the community.

They tell the story of belonging to the faith community. Even if only to themselves. They’re proud of be a part of the cause, the group, and their understanding of what your church or ministry is.

I don’t know if that’s helpful to anyone, but it’s what I’ve been thinking about for my own work. For the local churches I support and for the ministry I lead… these are the things I’d like to measure.

Of course discipleship is the goal. Of course baptisms are beautiful. Of course attendance and participation in the biggest aspects of the church are wonderful.

But I am of the belief that we need lower barriers of entry and longer tables. We need to offer grace without condition. We need to make space for people no matter where they are in their life. For church to be what we believe it to be in our heart, we have to identify better ways to measure it

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I was going to call this “The Lapel Pin Principle,” but I’m not sure if that concept makes sense.

See… I have this little trinket box full of lapel pins.

I’m probably the only person who actually really likes lapel pins.

I’m not even sure where all of mine came from. They’ve just kind of accumulated over the years.

I belong to a few organizations that issue them as tokens of membership and official belonging.

I have one that I think was given as a gift to conference attendees to commemorate the 10th anniversary of 9/11. I don’t ever wear that one, but it seems like one I should hold onto.

I have an old Chicago Cubs pin that used to be on a hat I wore when I was a kid. I love that one. It is at least 40 years old.

I have a few from St. Jude Children’s Hospital. They share them with volunteers and I used to spend a lot of time supporting that incredible organization.

And I’ve got a few other random ones.

I’m not really a collector of trinkets and knick knacks. I think I just love lapel pins.

They feel, to me, like a little formal, public symbol… worn subtly and preciously right by my heart… representing something deeper and more meaningful than what they might seem to be on the surface… symbolizing something I am proud to be associated with and want to contribute to.

They aren’t jewelry.

They aren’t showy.

They aren’t particularly valuable.

Anymore, the only ones I wear are the ones I had designed for people in the faith community I help to lead. These little BETWEEN pins. And the real reason I wear them is so that if/when someone asks about them, I can take the pin off and hand it to them as a gift as I tell the story of BETWEEN.

I know it’s not normal for a church to offer lapel pins to its members. That’s not what I’m suggesting.

But as I think about church growth, this Lapel Pin Principle idea comes to the surface for me.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if more of your neighbors would cherish a symbol of your church community?

I don’t necessarily mean this literally. It’s more of a parable-ish principle.

So many neighbors don’t want to come to Sunday worship. Maybe your church schedule doesn’t work for them. Maybe they’ve been hurt by church before. Maybe there are any number of reasons the default participation model of your church simply doesn’t work for them. Does that mean they don’t deserve the good news of togetherness and resurrection? Should that mean they can’t benefit from your church?

Would you give them a lapel pin? And would they accept it with warmth?

Hypothetically?

Parabolically?

Metaphorically?

That’s the question.

If you had a special lapel pin that symbolized your beliefs, your love, your ministry, your hopes, your care… would you give it to them once they understood its meaning… and would they accept it with warmth?

The Lapel Pin Principle is this: growth is happening when people are meaningfully connected enough, proud enough, and invested enough that they would gladly carry a symbol of your community into the world.

Again, the pin is not the point. The belonging is the point.

Anyway… all this is to ask in another way… do you know what you actually want to count when it comes to church growth?

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I started writing this because I was on a Zoom call with this really forward-thinking pastor in Florida recently. He and I were deep in creative conversation about new ways to think about church.

Near the beginning of the call he said something smart that made me write this:

One of our biggest problems is that we do not have an alternative legitimate way to talk about church growth beyond “butts in pews”(Sunday attendance).

Of course we could also talk about…

• Active donors

• Baptisms per month

• New members

…and the like. But if I asked your church leaders how big their church is, they’d almost all likely answer with, “We have about _____ people every Sunday.” (And the number they’d give me would almost always be a little inflated).

So, then, this smart, creative Florida pastor — who leads the only affirming church in his county — and I started trying to imagine better things to count.

If counting Sunday attendance ain’t it.

And counting donations ain’t it.

And counting baptisms can be a little manipulative.

And counting “new members” likely means that they’re coming to Sunday service and so it’s just another name for the same thing.

Then what should we count when we’re talking about church growth?

Lapel pin wearers? Maybe.

People who meet the three simple criteria I suggested at the beginning of this piece? Maybe.

I don’t know for sure. I think every church has to decide for themselves. These were just kind of some notes to myself that I decided to publish. I wonder what you think…

What do you count when you think about “church growth”?