Thursday, May 8, 2008

Assessment Tool

a Biblical thought...
We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him. (Romans 5:8)

a Book thought...
The challenge for organisations is that values are more complex than money. Values cannot be simplistically condensed into a mission statement or neatly printed onto an embossed card. And values cannot be invented. Either we have them or we don't. (p194 FBF)

a Dave thought...
At Super Cluster on Tuesday Tim Brown introduced an assessment tool they use at their church...
The Christian Life Profile Assessment Tool (CLPAT) Training Kit is a four-session course designed to help churches implement a spiritual growth plan for everyone in their congregations by means of a small group structure. This comprehensive discipleship tool kit enables churches to assess the Christian beliefs, practices, and virtues of each member to help everyone grow. The training kit is based on the “Thirty Core Competencies” as outlined in the book The Connecting Church, also by Pastor Randy Frazee. These thirty core competencies help churches know when they are making progress in guiding their members toward Christ-likeness. Each of the four sessions contains components such as video, lecture, leader-led discussion, large group discussion, and small group discussion. Individuals answer 120 questions about their Christian beliefs, practices, and virtues. Three friends also assess them in the virtues area. Using the results, individuals identify areas in which they would like to grow during the upcoming year. The resource guide provides plans to help realize the growth such as reading books, memorizing Scripture, attending a seminar, being mentored by a spiritual director, or engaging in a new spiritual discipline.

I am interested if anyone has used this tool before and what the fruits of such a thorough exercise were. It does seem very analytical and certainly has dangers of turning discipleship into a science but if it helps us all grow a little more maybe it is worth checking out.

Just a thought.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I personally think that there are far too many seminars and not enough discipling. You can get seminared out but unless the work goes into some positive discipling where you are then it is time and money wasted. Let's just get on with the job and trust God to guide us. Be prayerful and active not just sitting around listening.

Anonymous said...

Another tool - WOW (sorry) it is so easy to think that a simple tool is the answer to all our problems (yes I have tried and tested many) I often think that much of this takes us away from our focus on mission. I am not saying that it is unimportant to ensure your people are on track spiritually. However, it really doesnt take rocket science to work this out either you can usually tell by people's actions, the fruit of their lives etc if they are on track spiritually.

I really do think that our people must think OH no here we go again they have been at another seminar we are going to be guinea pigs for yet another survey/program/etc etc

It really gets back to the saying of "saved to save" and if we are doing this effectively then our lives are in tune because bad fruit doesnt bear anything.

Anonymous said...

I heard about this at the conference the other day too. I am going to guinea pig it on myself! Let you know how it goes.