On Evaluation: Faithfulness and Fruitfulness

Pastors and ministry leaders of all types have to balance two competing missional forces — the pressure to be faithful, and the pressure to be effective (fruitful).

Faithfulness is the role of prophetic critique — understanding what God has said, and speaking courageously and truthfully in line with the Biblical imagination and narrative.

Fruitfulness is the role of iterative innovation — assessing the new opportunities for proclamation, service, and discipleship in a given environment as the world changes, or diagnosing what isn’t working in their current efforts and creatively closing the gap.

Both the prophet and the innovator require an incarnated, proximate relationship to the community to be effective.

A prophet that is too far away from his audience isn’t a prophet anymore, he’s a foreigner speaking in a strange language.

An innovator that is too far away from his customers is a mad scientist or an aloof executive — he won’t innovate well, because his office or his schedule or his passion projects or his management team create layers that obscure true insight on how to improve.

The true prophet and the innovator also summon the courage to evaluate and measure.

The prophet has to evaluate fidelity — is this truly what the Lord has said?

The innovator has to evaluate fruit — is there really spiritual growth happening here?

The missional step comes after the evaluation step, on both fronts.

All good ministry is designed in the space between these two roles, and the role of the pastor, the missionary, or the lay leader is irreducibly complex — one without the other is no longer missional.