Some things can't be measured. Or can they?

I was talking to the headmaster of a large Christian school, and the conversation quickly turned to metrics and church health. He told me that he recently spoke to the pastor of the church (a mega church in the Dallas Metroplex) his school is associated with about that very topic.

The pastor shared some of his thoughts, then asked this headmaster for his. And my friend was ready with an answer. "Lots of churches measure attendance and offering," he began, "but how do you measure the spiritual formation and health of your attenders? Isn't that the real measure of a church's health?"

As he told me the story, he looked at me intently, clearly concerned, then went on. "Talking about that same thing, a student pastor said to me, 'That kid right there is on fire for the Lord!' I pushed back and asked, 'How do you know?' He said, 'Because he's here every single week, helping with setup, bringing his friends, in a small group. He's even one of our student worship leaders.' I wondered as he told me that, 'But how do you know his spiritual health if you're only looking at the outward signs?'"

Then he asked a challenging question. "Spiritual formation is, at its core, an internal matter. So how do we measure it?"

"I don't really know," I admitted. He went on to share with me that "there is always a risk in attempting to assess spiritual growth in students, or the spiritual climate of a school, because of our human limitations in truly seeing into the hearts of students. Although only God looks into the human heart perfectly, since spiritual maturity is our deepest desire for our students, it makes sense to stop and look at character and climate in our schools."

He then told me about several up and coming tools available to schools:

1. Spiritual Transformation Inventory. This instrument was developed by Dr. Todd Hall, professor of psychology at Biola University. There is a version for college students that has been used by several Christian colleges.

2. Christian Character Index. This suite of assessments were developed by Dr. Michael Zigarelli, formerly of Regent University and now a professor at Messiah College. This is a measurement of Christian character qualities that has been taken by thousands of individuals; comparisons to the norms can be included.

3. Engaged Schools is led by Chris Brown, Bible Department Head at Wheaton Academy and an adjunct professor at Moody. Their site introduces the Global Student Assessment which is designed to lead to “engaged” discussions with students. Wheaton Academy uses this each year – it is a combination of a survey and some teaching tools.

I poked around the internet a little on my own and found a couple of others that are perhaps more church-centric than school centric, like the Spiritual Growth Assessment by LifeWay and Randy Frazee's Christian Life Profile.

Whatever the tool used to measure it, I'm haunted by his question, "How do churches measure spiritual formation?" Or one may ask, "Do churches measure spiritual formation?" Many churches (most churches?) don't even try. Why? Probably because it's hard.

What about you? Do you measure spiritual formation? What tools do you use to do so? Are there outward indicators you look for that indicate the inward?

Spiritual formation is definitely important. So let's talk about it.