TEO IS BONED WHEN…
…Episcotools like Tom Ehrich think ASA is overrated:
The go-to number in American religion is “ASA” average Sunday attendance. Or as an irreverent colleague put it, “Fannies in the pews.”
It’s a meaningless metric, but it’s easy. Open the doors on Sunday, wait for the stragglers, then dispatch ushers to count the house.
Entire methodologies for church development have been built around this number, as if fanny count dictated how a church should behave. Problem is, ASA isn’t a useful measure of quantity, and it says nothing about quality.
Tom’s an Episcopalian so naturally he’s going to fall all over himself to deflect attention away from the Episcopal Organization’s across-the-board, dismal ASA. But what would Ehrich replace it with? Basically, with a “measurement” of how awesome TEO is.
A much better quantitative measure would get at “touches,” that is, how many lives are being touched by contact with the faith community in its various Sunday, weekday, off-site and online ministries and then, for a qualitative measure, asking how those lives are being transformed.
Which, Tom realizes, can’t be accurately measured and can be easily faked.
Those are difficult metrics to track, of course, and that’s why many congregations stick to ASA and shun the harder work of measuring outcomes and impact.
While it’s true that numbers alone are not a reliable indicator of influence, I think it’s safe to say that if that storefront Pentecostal place regularly crams in 75 to 100 people for its services while your giant Episcopal barn quite comfortably seats the no more than 75 to 100 people who regularly show up, I think it’s pretty safe to say that that Pentecostal place is having far more of an impact on the community than your joint is.
The go-to number in American religion is “ASA” average Sunday attendance. Or as an irreverent colleague put it, “Fannies in the pews.”
It’s a meaningless metric, but it’s easy. Open the doors on Sunday, wait for the stragglers, then dispatch ushers to count the house.
Entire methodologies for church development have been built around this number, as if fanny count dictated how a church should behave. Problem is, ASA isn’t a useful measure of quantity, and it says nothing about quality.
Tom’s an Episcopalian so naturally he’s going to fall all over himself to deflect attention away from the Episcopal Organization’s across-the-board, dismal ASA. But what would Ehrich replace it with? Basically, with a “measurement” of how awesome TEO is.
A much better quantitative measure would get at “touches,” that is, how many lives are being touched by contact with the faith community in its various Sunday, weekday, off-site and online ministries and then, for a qualitative measure, asking how those lives are being transformed.
Which, Tom realizes, can’t be accurately measured and can be easily faked.
Those are difficult metrics to track, of course, and that’s why many congregations stick to ASA and shun the harder work of measuring outcomes and impact.
While it’s true that numbers alone are not a reliable indicator of influence, I think it’s safe to say that if that storefront Pentecostal place regularly crams in 75 to 100 people for its services while your giant Episcopal barn quite comfortably seats the no more than 75 to 100 people who regularly show up, I think it’s pretty safe to say that that Pentecostal place is having far more of an impact on the community than your joint is.
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