Keeping score

This morning Pastor Doug concluded Hillcrest's three month Exodus series with a check on how we're doing as a church as we continue to pursue the idea of loving God and loving others. Reggie McNeal's The Present Future talks about how churches will need to rethink how they keep score, or how they know how well they are doing, instead of the traditional metrics of Sunday morning attendance and weekly monies given to the general offering. In recapping where we've been the last few months, Pastor Doug shared the following metrics:

• Hillcrest has given away over $139,000 outside its walls in 2008. That's about $450 per Hillcrester (one of the gifts was 60 laptops to Cleveland Elementary School, pictured above).
• Part of that amount includes over $15,000 for the Food Bank's backpack program, or enough food for 133 Sioux Falls children.
• Over 140 Hillcresters paricipate in a Wednesday Night Service in an average month.
• Hillcresters read with 33 Cleveland Elementary students on a weekly basis (covering 11 classrooms) and mentor 12 additional students.

We have a ways to go yet, and are far short on some of our goals, but we were reminded today that we are headed in a good direction.