The Oates Journal (ISSN: 1098-1446) is a publication of the Wayne E. Oates Institute addressing issues related to spirituality, ethics, and healing from the perspective of pastoral care and counseling.

Evaluating ministries  brings together two major components. Both require that we keep a close eye on what has happened: observing change; and discerning transformation.

First let’s look at observing change. As narrative observers we pose the question, “What is the narrative of a ministry situation before a ministry intervention?” We follow it with another question: “What is the narrative after the ministry has been executed and how do we understand what happened and learn from these ‘before and after’ stories?” In answering these questions  we first observe changes that have occurred in a faith community, the ministry teams, and leaders. We pick up on obvious and subtle alterations in the attitudes of leaders, the effectiveness and thoroughness of leaders, and the tangible and recognized movement of participants and beneficiaries toward improvement in health, faith stance, habitat, or relationships, etc. We arrive at this assessment by listening to the ministry stories participants tell us. The conclusions we draw from this observation are then fed back into the ministry planning and visioning process.

A second component in the evaluation of ministries is discerning transformation. Here, of course, we are on holy ground!  It is no time for boasting or bluster. At bottom, we are trying to get at the mystery of how the living God may have actually entered into the frail vessels of ministry we have to offer and suffused them with life, promise, and even transfiguration!

For this second round of observing change and discerning transformation (ministry evaluation) we press into service what I like to call the “perspectival mode” for the assessment and comprehension of ministries. The perspectival metaphor is not new with us (see Hiltner, 1958) but below we take it on yet another tour through the complicated but rewarding business of story analysis. It is especially effective when we are detecting changes and discerning possible transformations that have occurred in ministries that we have planned and executed. For example we may wish to evaluate an educational seminar on the care of creation, a feeding program, or a community dialogue on ethnic and racial reconciliation. Shifting into the perspectival mode can help with this. The perspectival mode draws on the metaphor of the appreciation and evaluation of a diamond. The beauty, hue, and complex structure of the diamond can only be grasped by encircling it visually to see its many facets and features. Similarly, we can only discern and appreciate the value, complexity, and implications of ministries when we look at them from multiple positions. The perspectival mode takes us on a circling walk around the intersection of multiple narratives (diamond) issuing from the conception of, planning, and execution of a given ministry.  As we circle and observe we take one and then another of five distinct analytical positions from which to evaluate a given ministry. Each perspective is a perch above the fray from which to view and evaluate the ministry. These perspectives enable the researcher to discern and articulate the “thickened” story that is emerging from the post-ministry’s context. Here we draw upon the work of Rober J. Schreiter.  Schreiter (1985),  as a part of his work on defining a local theology, developed a set of analytical perspectives as an approach to listening to culture. The perspectives include the functionalist, ecological, materialist, structuralist, and semiotic perspectives. These perspectives enable one to examine any transition in identity or social interaction and to assess the “realness” or “rightness” of the conclusion of the ministry.

For those who may wish to take the perspectival walk around the ministries they wish to evaluate, a first stop might be the Functional station. Say you are in an urban church and have planned, executed, and now wish to evaluate a health care screening ministry for immigrant members and constituents. From the functionalist stance you would be asking, hopefully with a team of evaluators, how the conversations (story fragments) about and realities of the ministry situation fit together before the ministry, and after. It also builds on the sense that if one component system is changed, that change affects the whole. Through the functionalist perspective you might realize that, before the ministry, people often spoke of the dissonance between the ideals of the church ministry covenant and the attitudes some church members had toward their immigrant constituents. Some may also have decried the lack of medical screening available to immigrants in the community as well as the fears immigrant families had of immigration laws and deportation. Or, a group of ten medical providers including doctors and nurses has felt a need to do something as a part of its discipleship, but has been fearful of violating professional ethics or immigration laws. Another narrative fragment may characterize the surrounding community as indifferent to the medical needs of immigrant families.

After the completion of the ministry these story fragments might come together in quite a different way. The pastor and medical team may have reached out to the community for legal help and supportive guidance for setting up a church medical screening ministry. Concerned but hesitant members may have been helped by this new knowledge to overcome their fears and take part. The medical professionals may have been forged by their compassion and professional ethics into a powerful and effective medical screening unit, housed periodically in the church. Immigrant families, educated about the real and imagined prohibitions of the law, and encouraged by the welcome of the church, are more comfortable with attending and benefitting from the screening. Perhaps the  whole congregation is energized and excited by the success of their first and second screening days, and are convinced that God has been a transforming Presence in their work. By observing such changes, those who evaluate ministries see the whole ministry picture with more depth and insight.

Looking more closely at other  perspectives that may be employed in evaluation of ministries, we turn to the ecological perspective. Traditionally, the ecological approach is employed when determining how a society relates to its physical environment. However, in our approach to understanding a specific context in its larger context, we may extend the ecological view beyond its simple physical base. Take, for example, a local church that is located in an urban area. The urban physical landscape is the physical environment that the ministerial context relates to. Starting there, the evaluation of a ministry in that context can move toward the global environment. But thinking about the ministry may also involve how local church and the larger contexts of a denomination interplay in the unfolding of the narrative. In the case above, judicatory approval or disapproval may have played an important part in the re-storying that happened because of the health care screening ministry to immigrant families.

The materialist perspective closely resembles the previous perspective except in one important dimension. While the ecological perspective looks at how the context relates to the larger environment, the materialist perspective looks at how the context is affected by changes in the surrounding environment. In the case of the urban ministry mentioned above, a local hospital community relations director may have been at first supportive of the church clinic, only to have been forced to withdraw because the hospital was suddenly closed. The larger environment can affect the context, the team, the leaders, or the worldview of any of the participants of a ministry. If one chose this perspective for analysis one would look at factors “beyond control” that impinged during the project implementation phase and would assess their discerned influence on the emergent story.

The structuralist perspective unearths any discernable unconscious attitudes, beliefs, or thought patterns that may have shaped the ministry context. This may have remained unobserved during the development phases of the ministry, when narratives were being listened to and a responsive ministry project was being proposed. However, it may have come to the fore later as subtle resistance or even outright opposition to or sabotage of the ministry. In any case such unpredictable outcomes can bring understanding of how a changing context brings out alternative views and actions, and also provides a venue wherein old patterns emerge and can be better understood. By examining these learnings, one can gain a renewed sense of the identity of a faith community as it exists and perhaps gain insight toward unforeseen barriers to the emergence of a preferred story.

Finally, the semiotic perspective is a platform from which the evaluator of ministries may identify and examine the images, messages, codes and metaphors that express meaning for the faith community. (ministry context). For instance, the urban community cited above may, in its invitation to the medical screening ministry at the church, state that “No one will be turned away.” This is an important coded word to immigrant families that those who are initiating this ministry are people of faith who have the courage to be inclusive for God’s sake, even if it is risky to be so. Those who come for screening will see that this is a central and defining truth that motivates this church’s community outreach.

It is likely that the evaluator will be one of the participants within the ministry context (member, volunteer, leader) and be able to discern from inside the narratives or story fragments that affirm who they are as a people of God. It may also be possible to examine the narratives that have come together in a given ministry somewhat more objectively, by standing outside and looking into the stories, fixing sharp eyes on the story fragments that are bearing along the meanings of that community. One might compare the context’s intended message of concern to that of the message that is related meaningfully to the larger cultural setting by the ministry and its process and artifacts:  the spoken story to the heard story.

Taking the Leap

We have now circled around the stations of perspective, each of which has given us a unique vantage point from which to view a ministry. When we have traversed the perspectival field and are finished with our discernment, we step back and ask of the completed ministry, “What has been transformed here?” “Who has been transformed by the ministry?” “How is the situation now different from when our ministry addressed it?”  “What have we gleaned from the stories we have heard about the influences that have brought about the transformation?”  “How will this learning stimulate our imagination of future ministries like this?” “How will we re-imagine our future as a faith community after this?”

Thus it is that with the perspectival approach we interrogate the thickened story of the completed ministry at a given time and a specific place and social/cultural context. With this bounty of storied information in hand, we seek to describe the transformations we observe and ponder their “realness or rightness” as befits divine truth for us. In turn, we place our reflections side by side with relevant biblical/ theological stories and the theology and faith stance of our own traditions. Their catalytic engagement can be astounding. If we are sensible we remain curiously and humbly open to the in-breaking of divine truth and guiding wisdom that may, or may not, come to us.

We conclude here with thanks for your attentiveness to our explorations above. And I add a word of encouragement as well: you do not have to be an expert to try and to grow with the tools of narrative analysis. With a consciousness of the importance of story to ministry, a grand tour of narrative thinking under your belt, and a few tools to take back to your ministry, I believe you are already equipped to dive into this energizing and creative work of story analysis; or, if you are already familiar with narrative thinking,  to use whatever ideas are here that might help you advance in this important work.

References:

Hiltner, Seward. (1958). Preface to pastoral theology. New York, Abingdon Press.

Schreiter, Robert J. (1985). Constructing local theologies. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books.

Editor's Note:

This article is Part Three of three

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