Measuring Ministry Success: What Rethinking Mountains Can Teach the Church

For generations, Mount Everest has held the undisputed title of the world’s greatest mountain—because it’s the tallest. But what if height alone isn’t the best way to measure greatness?

A recent National Geographic article posed that very question. Journalist Gordy Megroz profiled Kai Xu, a young computer scientist who created a new way to think about what makes a mountain truly impressive. Instead of ranking peaks by their elevation above sea level, Xu asked a different question: from where we stand, how awe-inspiring does a mountain appear?

To answer, he developed a new metric called “jut.” Rather than measuring altitude, jut calculates how dramatically a mountain rises above its immediate surroundings and how steeply it towers into the sky. The results were surprising. Everest, long considered unmatched, dropped to 46th place. The new “most magnificent” mountain? Annapurna Fang in Nepal, which, while shorter than Everest, dominates the landscape with a sheer and stunning rise of more than 11,000 feet.

Suddenly, other peaks once overlooked—Yosemite’s Half Dome, Wyoming’s Grand Teton—stood out as world-class mountains when measured differently. Xu’s insight is simple but profound: when you change what you measure, you change what you see.

That truth reaches far beyond geology. It has deep implications for how the Church measures ministry success.

What Mountains and Ministry Have in Common

The church world has its own “Everests.” For decades, many leaders have measured ministry success primarily by visible, numeric metrics:

• How many people attend services?
  
• How large is the budget?
  
• How many buildings or campuses are there?

Like Everest’s elevation, these measures are clear and easy to track. They do tell us something, but do they capture what truly makes a church spiritually impressive? Do they reflect whether lives are being transformed, disciples are being made and communities are being renewed?

Some churches with tall “numbers” may actually resemble Antarctica’s Dome Argus: technically high, but flat and unremarkable. Meanwhile, smaller churches—like Yosemite’s Half Dome—may have breathtaking “jut,” shaping lives with resilience, faith and beauty, even if their numbers seem modest.

At Barna, we believe this is the crucial shift facing today’s church. Just as Xu’s metric re-ordered the hierarchy of mountains, we need new ways of evaluating ministry that prioritize depth and transformation, not just size.

Measuring What Matters

That’s why Barna, in partnership with Gloo, launched the State of the Church initiative and tools like the ChurchPulse Assessment. These resources help leaders look beyond surface numbers to ask deeper questions:

• Are people resilient in their faith when life gets hard?
  
• Are families and relationships flourishing in Christ?
  
• Are disciples growing to live out their faith in everyday life, not just on Sunday?
  
• Are leaders creating cultures of belonging, authenticity and mission?

These are the “jut” metrics of ministry—indicators that help us see where God is at work in ways that inspire awe and reveal transformation.

What Leaders Can Do

So, what does this mean for pastors and church leaders on the ground? Here are four practical ways to begin measuring what really matters:

1. Broaden Your Scorecard
Attendance and giving aren’t wrong, but they are incomplete. Develop a “balanced scorecard” for your church that includes both quantitative and qualitative measures. For example, track:

• Participation in discipleship pathways, not just worship services.
  
• Stories of life change and spiritual resilience, not just numbers of programs.
  
• Engagement in prayer, serving or evangelism, not just dollars given.

When you broaden your measures, you see health in places that might otherwise go unnoticed.

2. Listen Before You Count
Numbers can tell you what is happening, but they rarely explain why. Build rhythms of listening into your leadership. Use surveys, focus groups or the ChurchPulse Assessment to hear directly from your congregation. Ask about spiritual practices, relational health and sense of belonging. Listening first helps ensure you’re measuring what your people truly need—not just what is easiest to track.

3. Celebrate Depth, Not Just Scale
In staff meetings, board reports and Sunday announcements, make space to celebrate discipleship stories alongside attendance tallies. Share testimonies of families learning to pray together, young adults discovering their calling or members showing Christ’s love in their workplace. This reshapes your culture: people learn that transformation is valued as much as turnout.

4. Reframe Success for Your Context
Not every church will look like an “Everest.” That’s good news. Every congregation can have “jut”—a unique way it rises up in its community with spiritual grandeur. Define success by your God-given mission, not by comparison with others. Ask: What would it look like for us to be faithful and fruitful here, in this place, with these people?

A Vision for the Future

Kai Xu didn’t set out to demote Everest; he set out to find a better way to describe awe. In the same way, this conversation isn’t about rejecting traditional metrics. It’s about enriching them—recognizing that height alone doesn’t make a mountain majestic, and numbers alone don’t mean a church is thriving.

In Barna’s new resource, How to Grow a Thriving Church, we share a more holistic approach to measuring and improving a church’s level of thriving. This guide explores 15 essential practices for nurturing, sending and leading congregations and lays out ways to help measure current success while also identifying potential areas for improvement.

When we measure what truly matters, we see the Church differently. We see beauty and impact in places we may have overlooked. We see the grandeur of smaller churches faithfully discipling their people. We see resilience being formed in families. We see the Spirit’s work in communities that may not make headlines but are making disciples.

Barna’s prayer, alongside Gloo, is that pastors and leaders across the country will embrace this new perspective. Because just as “jut” reframed the mountains, new ministry metrics can reframe the Church—helping us see not just where we are tall, but where we are truly alive.