Metrics Beyond the Building

A Christmas Tree Farm in Silverton, OR

I grew up believing my calling was to be a teacher. I was the kid who lined up her stuffed animals and gave spelling tests. (They were excellent students, by the way.) So when I switched course in college and said I was going into ministry instead, people who only nominally knew me were slightly puzzled.

“Why not teaching?” they’d ask.

I usually smile and say, “I am still teaching."

Because honestly, I never stopped teaching. Most Sundays, I approach my sermon like a lesson plan. If I can help someone discover something new about the character of God, deepen their relationship with the living Spirit, or bring a bit of healing to their relationships—then I’ve done my job. That’s teaching. That’s ministry.

And like teaching, ministry comes with metrics.

In the United Methodist Church, we track things like how many people joined, how many gave, or whether the congregation is “sustainable.” Recently, though, the UMC added a new measure: how many people are served by your church.

I love that. Because even the smallest congregations serve hundreds—sometimes thousands—through partnerships, outreach, and community care. A faithful church touches far more lives than those who sit in its pews on Sunday morning.

That’s where my heart lives: not in the numbers, but in the relationships.

Forming community partnerships? That’s my jam.

As John Wesley said, “The world is my parish.” And I take this call seriously. My parish includes the Starbucks baristsa who remembers my coffee order, the volunteers and participants at Mainstay, the teens at the community center, teachers and students in my kids schools, the parents I meet at swim meets, and the people I perform with at Brushcreek Playhouse. Ministry happens right there—in the messy, beautiful intersections of everyday life.

And that, to me, is the difference between attractional ministry and accompaniment ministry.

Attractional ministry says, “Come to us.”

It’s built around drawing people in—better programs, great music, dynamic preaching, a beautiful space. The church as destination. Come to our builiding and THEN we will offer hospitality. Honestly, there is nothing wrong with that—it can be wonderful and life-giving. But it can also quietly suggest that church is something that happens to people once they arrive, rather than something we do with one another wherever we are.

Accompaniment ministry, on the other hand, says, “We’ll come to you.”

It’s about walking alongside people where they already live, learn, and love. It’s relational, not transactional. It doesn’t wait for people to find their way to us—it joins them on their way. It's slower - more on other people's timeline.

And that’s often where the Spirit shows up:

• In a conversation over coffee that becomes holy ground.

• In a quiet act of compassion no one records.

• In the kind of partnership that makes a whole community stronger.

The challenge, of course, is that accompaniment doesn’t fit neatly into a spreadsheet.

• How do you count the healing that happens in a late-night conversation?

• How do you quantify the trust built with a community partner?

• How do you measure the Spirit’s movement in a shared sigh or an unexpected laugh?

You can’t.

But you can witness it.

You can feel it.

You can see it when someone who’s been hurt or excluded by the church begins to trust again—not because they were attracted to a program, but because someone accompanied them in love.

So when people ask why I went into ministry instead of teaching, maybe the truest answer is this: I’m still teaching—only now, the classroom is the world, and the lesson is relationships - with God and with each other.