Leading Congregational Indicators

"To the angel of the church in Sardis write:
These are the words of him who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead." Jesus, The Revelation to John (3.1)

I was listening to the news the other day and they mentioned the leading economic indicators. I had heard the term before, but didn't have the foggiest notion what they might be. Because we strive to be a full-service church, here is a definition and list of the leading economic indicators. The Leading Economic Indicators report is a monthly composite index of ten economic indicators designed to predict economic activity six to nine months in the future. These indicators include: The average manufacturing-worker workweek; initial jobless claims; manufacturers' new orders for consumer goods and materials, manufacturers' new orders for nondefense capital goods, vendor performance, building permits, the level of the S&P 500, the inflation-adjusted measure of the M2 money supply, the interest-rate spread between the 10-year Treasury note and the fed funds rate, and the expectations portion of the University of Michigan's Consumer Sentiment Index (thank you, Conference Board).

So then I thought, "What would a church's Leading Congregational Indicators be?" We have to be careful here; we probably would have looked at the church at Sardis and thought they had it going on. We don't always look at things the way God does. However, if you read the rest of the passage, you can get some idea of what Jesus thought were important congregational indicators. There's 'awakeness', 'strength of deeds', 'remembrance of what we have received and heard', 'obedience', and 'repentance.'

Awakeness could be how alert we are spiritually. Do we easily fall into temptation? Are we easily led astray by our lusts as a congregation? In other words, do the majority of us fall into temptation way too often?
Strength of deeds could refer to what we do in faith. We are trying to hire a children's minister in faith, but is that all there is to it? Are there not other congregational projects/missions we could undertake that would indicate great faith? Just being busy doesn't mean we're doing things in faith.

Remembrance of what we have received and heard most likely refers to The Faith. The Faith is the Whats and Whys of Christianity. Can the majority of us explain why we have hope to non-believers? Can the majority of us explain why we do and don't do certain things and what those things are?

Obedience is a four-letter word to a lot of people, but it matters a lot when you're talking about salvation. It is one thing to know what God says. It is another thing entirely to do what God says (especially when you don't want to).
And what about repentance? Repentance is to be sorry enough about our sin that we take steps to change our behavior. It eventually does no good to tell God you're sorry but don't do anything to change your behavior. An abused wife would start to wonder if her husband really was sorry if he kept beating her time after time. I think an abused God would also start wondering.

At any rate, this ought to be enough to get us started thinking about the future of our congregation as God might look at it. How are you helping make your church family's future better?
~Shawn