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“What gets measured, gets managed.” This well-worn adage is true for businesses, investors, and non-profits that include spiritual transformation as an organizational priority. Because the stakes are eternal, at a minimum the pursuit of spiritual transformation deserves the same intentionality and diligence organizations apply to planning and tracking financial and operational metrics. The problem is that even for leaders committed to measuring spiritual impact, the roadmap for assessing it feels anything but clear.
When organizations commit to spiritual metrics, they often begin by tracking activities. In this case, staff count spiritual inputs with the assumption that a growing number of Bible studies, discipleship groups, or materials distributed will produce transformation. While activities are essential, we’ve all experienced the reality that they do not always produce spiritual growth.
A stronger commitment to spiritual impact measurement includes surveying or interviewing the people you serve. This process seems straightforward—identify a tool, administer it, analyze the data, and report the results. The underlying thinking assumes that if we can find the right survey or interview approach, we will understand the spiritual impact we’re having. While the simplicity is appealing, things can go awry when organizations start using a measurement tool too early. In these cases, leaders may struggle to interpret the data they receive or connect it in concrete ways to their work. The result? Confusion, frustration over lost time and money, and at the extreme, disillusionment with the whole notion of measuring spiritual growth.
At Sinapis, we have equipped thousands of entrepreneurs in emerging markets to integrate their faith into their work and grow businesses that create economic, social, and spiritual impact. We invest significant resources to pursue accurate impact measurement. Tracking activities and administering surveys are important components of understanding spiritual transformation, but they play a much more powerful role as components of a broader process.
Spiritual Transformation Is an Organic Process That Requires Intentionality
Almost every image and metaphor used in Scripture, especially in the teachings of Jesus, centers on the growth of living things. When Jesus taught about His kingdom, He shared agrarian examples from everyday life, like a mustard seed, sheep and goats, and wheat and tares. By focusing on living things, Jesus helped us understand that spiritual growth comes from God. We do not control how God moves, His timing, or the extent of His work. And even though we cannot manufacture spiritual change, in the mystery of God’s plan, we play an indispensable role in helping people find and follow Christ.
In 1 Corinthians 3:5-9, Paul also uses agricultural imagery to make this point clear. 5 What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. 6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 8 He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. 9 For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building.“
"Paul planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.” This tension between God’s power and our role provides the basis for defining and measuring spiritual impact in our work.
1. Cultivate the Soil: Create a Christ-honoring Culture
In the Parable of the Sower recorded in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus contrasts the growth potential of four soil types. The seed sown on the path, rocks, and among the thorns fails to produce a crop, but the seed sown among the good soil yields a 30-, 60-, and 100-fold return. For those leading an organization or investing in businesses desiring to reach people for Christ, we must be intentional about cultivating a culture where spiritual fruit can thrive.
In our framework, culture is central because it is the foundation on which the other elements of the framework are built. There are many ways to improve the spiritual culture of your organization. Here are four practical suggestions:
Ensure leadership is engaged. The board and senior management team must embrace the full mission. Dedicate significant time to seeking God together as a board. Integrate prayer into decision-making, not just as an obligatory way to begin meetings. Encourage discipleship in the board chair and CEO relationship. Include spiritual leadership in the CEO’s annual 360 review with feedback from the staff and board.
Hire carefully. Other than our connection to Christ, the most critical factor in achieving spiritual transformation in your work is who you hire. Evaluate potential staff members through your cultural commitments, not just their job qualifications. Determine whether job descriptions should align with your spiritual impact goals.
Create spiritual formation opportunities. Recognizing each organization is different, leadership should determine the role of spiritual formation in developing the staff. Chaplains offer personalized employee care that fits a wide variety of organizational environments. Other practices to consider include team prayer and Bible study, regular prayer emails sent from the CEO to the board, and spiritual retreats.
Establish your baseline. Tools like the Kingdom Business Plan or Holiness-Justice-Love Framework from Sinapis or the KIF-B from Eido Research make it possible to define and establish a baseline for the spiritual dimensions of your organizational culture.
2. Plan the Crop: Develop a Clear Theory of Change
After establishing a vision for your organizational culture and determining the inputs needed for greater spiritual health, leaders must create a clear spiritual integration plan. When leaders cannot translate their aspirations into well-understood models, spiritual integration efforts fail.
Planning does not imply that we control spiritual growth. Farmers do not control rain, temperature, or pests. But effective farmers use their hard-earned knowledge to make detailed plans of what to plant, how to rotate crops, and how best to fertilize the seed. Likewise, after cultivating your organizational culture, you must discern how God is calling you to impact lives for Christ in your unique circumstances.
Be honest with yourself. Are you or the organizations you are working with clear about what you feel called to pursue in spiritual transformation? Who are you serving? How are you engaging them? Could every member of your team explain the plan? Why would this set of activities lead to spiritual transformation?
At Sinapis, we utilize a theory of change to define our holistic plan to impact lives for Christ. Put simply, this is our best understanding of how life change happens through our interventions. A theory of change provides the overall architecture for strategic plans and detailed annual operating plans. Our theory of change at Sinapis includes five steps:
Each organization must discern how it's unique calling, opportunities, and resources come together in a clear spiritual integration plan. If you lack clarity, learn about the theory of change tool. Taking the time to define your approach provides the basis for the final two elements of the process.
3. Tend Your Fields: Embrace Accountability
At Sinapis, we are tracking the following spiritual transformation KPIs this year, drawn from the fifth element of our theory of change, “make disciples who multiply”:
God calls us to serve as faithful stewards of the resources and opportunities He has entrusted to us. We embrace our role in the process by assessing our faithfulness in planning, executing our work, and reporting on what we are learning and doing. Christian leaders often over-spiritualize this part. When we are clear about our theory of change and operating plans, these activities emerge and become key performance indicators (KPIs) that we can track and monitor.
These KPIs are not impact indicators. They are accountability metrics that help us assess our faithfulness in executing our plan and pursuing our theory of change.
Here are a few questions to consider:
4. Assess the Harvest: Measure Impact in Community
When we have cultivated a Christ-honoring culture, identified a clear plan, and defined our accountability metrics, it is time to assess the harvest. Your organization will need to determine the impact metrics that best align with your calling and opportunities. At Sinapis, we measure the following in our annual impact survey (with 2021 impact data included in parentheses):
A Long-term Process, Not a One-Time Diagnosis
Assessing the spiritual health and impact of your organization requires a long-term commitment. It will take time and is best discerned as a team with a strong emphasis on prayer. No tool or process (including this one) will provide conclusive results. As Paul noted in 1 Cor 13:12, “We see through a glass dimly.” However, this rhythm of working with God and taking spiritual impact as seriously as planning and measurement in any other area of your organization provides the best approach we have found for improving spiritual impact.
We close with a few final ideas. Integrate spiritual metrics into your annual planning rhythm. At Sinapis, we review our theory of change annually and develop corresponding operating plans. Senior managers track and report on our spiritual KPIs in monthly business reviews. We assess impact through an annual impact survey that flows directly from our complete theory of change. As we evaluate our annual impact data, we engage entrepreneurs in focus groups to help us understand the data and how it relates to our work. Insights from each year lead to an annual reevaluation of our theory of change and strategic and operating plans.
This framework offers entrepreneurs, investors, and other ministries a holistic, iterative approach to pursuing and measuring spiritual transformation. As this cycle repeats, we pray you experience deep joy and a steady increase in impact for Christ.
May we all remember Jesus’ encouragement and admonition to “lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are ripe for harvest (John 4:35).”
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"Sinapis has hugely contributed to our business's growth, sustainability, and success. They have helped link us to potential investors/funding opportunities, publicized our business to the market, and provided ongoing strategic advice."
"This is one program every business owner should consider enrolling in. The benefits are immeasurable. I'm a beneficiary. Thank you, Sinapis!"
"Sinapis gave me a full kit to use to start my business."
"At Sinapis I gained the skills I needed in order to manage my business. I also learned how to raise funds from investors."
"Sinapis was instrumental in improving my general business management, time allocation, and building strong networking connections."
"The Sinapis Entrepreneur Academy unit economics class helped me determine my unit and how much it costs for me to produce one."
"When we started our Sinapis classes, we were asked to pick one business. I chose a new venture I was getting into - speaking. I would never have imagined that just over a year later I would be speaking on the biggest stage - TED. May this be a testimony that Kingdom business has a benefit here and in Heaven."
"Sinapis gave me conviction to know that you can still do business the right way - The Kingdom Business Way. You do not have to bribe or pay your way into a contract. Hard work, faith, and prayer works wonders. I am truly grateful for this."
"I loved the Kingdom Business aspect and approach in the program. I am more enlightened than I was when I joined the program. It is very worthwhile."