Passionate Worship: The obvious indicator of passionate worship is the “average weekly worship attendance at primary worship services.”  In order to express this in terms which transcend size, a passionate worship metric could be the percent of change over one year.  To get a better indication of the trend of your congregation, look at the percent of change each year over the last 3 or 5 years.  Is that number trending up or down?

Radical Hospitality:  The fruit of radical hospitality is a person coming to know and accept the justifying love of Jesus Christ in the context of a community of faith.  United Methodists have sought to measure this in Professions of Faith (PoF) and Reaffirmations of Faith (RoF).  In order to express this in terms which transcend size, a radical hospitality metric could be the total of PoF and RoF as a percent of the Average Weekly Worship Attendance each year.  In other words, are the numbers of people coming to Christ each year trending up or down in proportion to our size?

Intentional Discipling:  Assuming that discipling happens primarily in small, face-to-face groups that are intentional about discipling, United Methodists have sought to measure discipling through counting the number of persons weekly involved in “Sunday School,” in “on-going classes,” in “short-term classes,” and in “Christian formation groups, other than Sunday School.”  To express this in terms which transcend size, an intentional discipling metric could be the percentage of people in our Average Weekly Worship Attendance involved in weekly discipling groups.  Is this percentage trending up or down over recent years?

Salty Service:  There is currently no historically gathered statistic which distinguishes between a congregation which is missionally involved in their community and one which is self-absorbed – a light under a basket.  One Annual Conference is having congregations ask worshipers weekly if they have been involved during the past week in a ministry focused primarily on those outside their church membership.  In order to express this in terms which transcend size, a salty service metric could be the percentage of those in Average Weekly Worship Attendance involved in weekly salty service.  Is this percentage trending up or down over recent years?

Extravagant Generosity: By looking at the total dollars that people give to their congregation annually, one sees a measure of their generosity.  Historically, a distinction is made between funds given to the “annual operation and benevolence budget” and those funds given for “Capital and building improvements.”  In order to express this in terms which transcend size, an extravagant generosity metric could be the total amount given to the budget and capital concerns per person in our average weekly worship attendance.  Is this dollar amount trending up or down over recent years?