I think Willard has a great handle on some of the core issues we face if we are to be effective as the church. If we can get our eyes on the ball (discipleship) and help people become genuine followers of Christ rather than church attenders then despite the pain it may bring, we may actually make a difference in the world…

This article caught my eye because I have been reflecting on how we could possibly measure spiritual growth over a period of time. Willard doesn’t give easy answers (and at times his books are painfully difficult to read), but he does point the ship in the right direction.

An interview with Dallas Willard | posted 5/03/2010

How can churches know if they are being effective at making disciples?

Many churches are measuring the wrong things. We measure things like attendance and giving, but we should be looking at more fundamental things like anger, contempt, honesty, and the degree to which people are under the thumb of their lusts. Those things can be counted, but not as easily as offerings.

Why don’t more churches gauge these qualities among their people?

First of all, many leaders don’t want to measure these qualities because what they usually discover is not worth bragging about. We’d rather focus on institutional measures of success. Secondly, we must have people who are willing to be assessed in these ways. And finally, we need the right tools to measure spiritual formation. There are some good tools available like Randy Frazee’s Christian Life Profile and Monvee.com, which John Ortberg likes.

In the past people grew through relationships with spiritual mentors and by engaging the church community. Is there a danger that these individual assessment tools will remove the role of community in formation?

Any of these devices must be used in a community setting. Assessment tools that work best are a combination of self-assessment and the assessment of a significant other who knows you well. They don’t work with people who don’t want to be assessed, and they should not be administered like individual personality tests that some employers use.

If you have a group of people come together around a vision for real discipleship, people who are committed to grow, committed to change, committed to learn, then a spiritual assessment tool can work. But there must be a deep fellowship of trust to support that work. I don’t think any group should go into an assessment without that. I wouldn’t advise a pastor to use one of these tools on his or her congregation without first establishing a clear commitment to discipleship. You can’t take your average congregation and just lay one of these assessments on them.

Are you ever discouraged by how few churches have that kind of clear commitment to discipleship?

I am not discouraged because I believe that Christ is in charge of his church, with all of its warts, and moles, and hairs. He knows what he is doing and he is marching on.

But I do grieve for the people within the church who are suffering—especially the pastors and their families. They are suffering because much of North America and Europe has bought into a version of Christianity that does not include life in the kingdom of God as a disciple of Jesus Christ. They are trying to work a system that doesn’t work. Without transformation within the church, pastors are the ones who get beat up. That is why there is a constant flood of them out of the pastorate. But they are not the only ones. New people are entering the church, but a lot are also leaving. Disappointed Christians fill the landscape because we’ve not taken discipleship seriously.