What are your ministry discipling metrics?

By Jim Boesch

My career military father used a saying in his parenting efforts with me and my two brothers: “Expect what you inspect.”

I quickly understood he was indeed going to measure how well we performed our household or yard maintenance tasks.

While I may not have agreed with them, he had his own set of metrics.

What are the metrics you use to measure the discipling growth of:

• A man?
• A men’s ministry? 
• A local church?

Make sure your metrics are God’s metrics. How you evaluate and measure the spiritual growth of another man should be the same as our creator God.

“I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. Now he who plants and he who waters are one, and each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor”

––I Corinthians. 3:6-8

The impact of a disciple-making men’s ministry organization should not be measured by how many events are held or by how many men show up. 

While headcounts and the number of activities are factors, God only measures the impact of our ministries by the change in a man’s heart and his actions. Those changes require nurturing and pruning time.

Real heart and behavior change is transformational and only come through the working of the Holy Spirit in God’s time.

While we may not immediately witness the fruit of our ministry labors, Paul spoke of a day when “each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor”:

“But on the judgment day, fire will reveal what kind of work each builder has done. The fire will show if a person’s work has any value.  If the work survives, that builder will receive a reward.”

––I Corinthians 3: 13-14

I hope you will be a good steward of the planting and watering of the good news of Jesus Christ in the lives of men.

Jim Boesch is a certified men’s ministry specialist and a deployed staff member of the

General Commission on UM Men

jimboesch68@gmail.com