One of my mentors, Dr. Viggo Sogaard, shared this verse with me, "any enterprise is built by wise planning, becomes strong through common sense, and profits wonderfully by keeping abreast of the facts" (Prov 24:3-4, Living Bible). Dr. Sogaard was an early pioneer of media in church planting ministry and often used data to inform his media strategy. I have known many statisticians who could make data prove most any point, but Dr. Sogaard used data practically to inform his goal of helping people know and grow in their relationship with Christ.
In this passage, wise planning is the first step but planning flows from having clear objectives. Jesus emphasized this in Luke 14:28, where he discussed the importance of having plans and gathering adequate resources. Planning starts with what you want to accomplish and then identifies resources to meet the objective. I have seen many media projects that aimed to reach an unreached people group and used media products toward that goal but then lacked developed field follow-up strategy. They had inadequate resources. These projects did broadcast a message but did not see spiritual change in the population because seekers were not followed up. Sogaard taught that most of a project budget should prioritize follow-up, not the media production.
The second idea in the passage is common sense execution, and, in our case, identifying those God has prepared rather than trying to persuade masses. Research on media effects consistently demonstrates that media is powerless to persuade masses to change ideas (or religions) but is effective at identifying people who are open to change. MTM teams effectively use platforms like Facebook and other social media to find seekers and then support their spiritual journey through follow up.
A third part of the Proverbs passage is “keeping abreast with the facts.” In Acts 11:19-25, the church in Jerusalem heard of a great movement of God happening in Antioch. To get accurate information they sent Barnabas to ascertain the “facts.” When Barnabas arrived and confirmed that the movement was real, he knew he needed someone who could address the discipleship needs of this emerging Christian Greek community. He went to Tarsus, about a week traveling time, to recruit the uniquely gifted Paul to help in the discipleship phase of the new believers. In Acts 13 we can observe that Antioch church was well established and had strong leadership.
Measuring the right things is critical. In the Southeast Asia's MTM ministry, we saw many seekers being identified and assigned to the field for follow up, but we questioned if we were accomplishing our mission of making disciples. While many media ministries measured converts and baptisms, they often could not track discipleship growth. We developed the "stick rate" metric to measure if seekers remain in their discipleship process. We observed that those who stayed in Discovery Bible Study groups eventually professed faith, received baptism, and grew as disciples. We realigned our systems to identify and measure "stick rate." Currently about 50% of identified POPS “stick to the discipleship process.” Keeping abreast of the right facts though data informs us what of we need to do to promote discipleship.
Leaders know that data can lead to information, but leaders can also lose sight of their goals by being lured by vanity metrics. The information may seem helpful, but that data may not inform the leader as to whether they are reaching their goals. Behind every number is a person, and one can measure some activity like baptisms, but a leader’s personal concern should be for the person growing as disciple of Christ. This was what motivated Barnabas to find Paul. He needed to make sure converts were growing as disciples. Even in Acts 2 where the conversion of 3000 people was impressive, what was even more impressive was the leaders creating the house fellowship movement that helped young converts grow in discipleship.
If you need help making sense of your data, even if it is simple, we can help you. We can pass on lessons learned and help you find a system that helps you to keep abreast of your facts so that you can meet your vision.
