The Missional Church: Driven By Program-Development or People-Development?

I have recently been re-reading Reggie McNeal's book Missional Renaissance. What a great book. What I like most about it is Reggie addresses the issue of the "scorecard."

Most churches have only 1 or 2 real scorecards. Those are typically attendance and giving. Some churches will add "baptisms." But the truth is that most church leaders are lulled into thinking everything is great if the attendance and giving is growing.

If we are truly going to plant and lead missional churches, then we have to honestly re-evaluate our scorecard. What do we call success? What causes us concern or heavy hearts? What gives us joy as church leaders?

One of the key shifts that the Western church has to make to be missional is the shift in focus from "program-development" to "people-development."

There is not a problem with having programs, but for many churches success is defined by how many programs you have and how many people attend these programs. You can be very successful in a "program-development" environment and make very little progress toward making disciples.

Could it be that the rise of the program-driven church is directly correlated with the rise of the service economy in post-World War II America? Is that where the Western church really began to take on the role of being a "vendor of religious services and goods?" What would it look like for our churches to be more focused on people-development than program-development? Church planters, let me know what you think!