In a new blog post, Jerry Rankin talks about the “activity trap”: “We need more budget, but don’t ask us to be accountable for what we do with it. After all, we are engaged in a spiritual task and the results are up to God. We cannot be held accountable for results… as long as they were busy doing good things and fulfilling their assignment, it didn’t matter if anything was accomplished.”
Rankin’s thought: “If Southern Baptists have assigned us the task of winning the lost, discipling believers and planting churches around the world, and they invest $300 million in supporting more than 5,000 missionaries, then they have the right to expect results of the IMB in terms of baptisms, new churches and people groups engaged with the gospel.”
The rest of the article is spent looking at second-order measurements of success. For example, it’s great that seminaries enroll increasing numbers of students–but how many are graduating to serve churches and go on the mission field, and five years later how many are still serving?
Worthwhile read on the ideas of assessment and evaluation.
UPDATE: Also see What Metrics Do You Use? What Do You Measure? with a clip from LifeChurch.tv’s Bobbie Gruenewald speaking at the SXSW conference.
UPDATE 2: Include Yourself When Holding Others Accountable at LeadingSmart has a quick review of “How did that happen?” by Roger Connors and Tom Smith (subtitled, “Holding people accountable for results: the positive, principled way”).
UPDATE 3: Food aid for Africa: When feeding the hungry is political looks at the many problems in the World Food Program, the critiques leveled at it. But rather than large numbers of press officers, wouldn’t better leader development, stronger ethics, and more accountability/auditors help the situation?
UPDATE 4: The Catholic church and paedophilia: Crimes and sins (Economist) looks at the desperate need for accountability in this mess.
