Barnabas File

14  Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: “Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say.  15  These people are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning!  16  No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: 17  “‘In the last days, God says,     I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy,     your young men will see visions,     your old men will dream dreams. 18  Even on my servants, both men and women,     I will pour out my Spirit in those days,     and they will prophesy.  (Acts 2:14-18, NIV)   When I worked for a large religious organization several years ago, we were introduced to Total Quality Management.  Staff was involved in intensive training with a local university and some of us were trained as facilitators in the pro...

Although I am not certain, I believe it was W. Edwards Deming said, “What gets measured gets done.”     The grammar seems a bit tortured, but the idea is clear—unless you have some measurement for an activity, you probably won’t do it.    This applies not only to jotting down on a calendar or logging in an app how much you exercise, but we what do in ministry as well.   If we are going to take the time to plan and execute a ministry, shouldn’t we take the time to measure its effectiveness?  The problem is that the church is behind on identifying, keeping, and celebrating metrics for effective ministry in the twenty-first century.   The default for most churches is usually “nickels and noses”—what are our offerings and how many are in the pews?  I won’t argue that stewardship and participation are not important, but how do we measure Christian growth and missional engagement among other things?   Let’s acknowledge that this is an iss...

  “A bad system will beat a good person every time.”—W. Edwards Deming W. Edwards Deming, American engineer and mathematician, is often credited with transforming the postwar Japanese manufacturing industry from a struggling endeavor that produced shoddy goods to a booming enterprise providing quality goods that were desired around the world.   Certainly he did not do this alone, but he introduced a system that allowed the gifts and potential of the Japanese people—especially skilled laborers—to be unleashed. The Continuous Improvement Cycle (or Deming Cycle) that he introduced involved four steps:   Plan—study the current process, identify a potential improvement, and set goals and plans to implement the improvement. Do—implement the plan on a trial basis and measure the results. Study—assess the change to determine if it works and achieves desired goals. Act—institutionalize the improvement (at least until a better way is found). In many ways, the D...

Although he cannot be credited as the sole creator of continuous improvement or Total Quality Management, W. Edwards Deming certainly popularized the concept.   Deming is best known for his work in Japan with the leaders of Japanese industry after World War Two.   In an address at the Hakone Convention Center in Tokyo in 1950, Deming introduced the concept of Statistical Product Quality Administration (SPQA). Many credit Deming’s ideas as the driving force that brought Japanese industry out of postwar devastation to world economic power. Deming taught that small incremental changes, many suggested by those on the factory floor, could help an industry develop quality products that would be preferred by consumers.   Although I would prefer that we not think of ministry as developing products, many of Deming’s ideas can be applied to transitioning a church to becoming more missional, embracing its role in the missio Dei (mission of God). The cycle of instituti...

Management guru W. Edwards Deming is reported to have said, “Yesterday’s solutions are today’s problems.”   Solutions or responses to needs are formulated for a particular time, place, and context.   Often they deal with the immediate problem but their shelf life is usually limited.    Markets, constituencies, and technologies change.   What seemed so good ten, fifteen, or twenty years ago is no longer practical and might even be counter productive. I was talking recently with a friend who was asking me questions about a solution that I helped develop for an organization over 15 years ago.  When we put this particular “solution” into place, the intention was to answer a need in a particular place.  As I remember the approach was seen as an experiment that could be tweaked and modified over time but we were not ready to “bet the farm” that it would even work in that situation much less be applicable elsewhere. As you might expect, this experi...