State of the Church
About
The State of the Church is a Church-wide initiative equipping leaders with fresh research and practical tools to measure the health of their church. Church leaders can access the State of Your Church Kit and network leaders can access the State of Your Network Kit below.
stateofthechurch.comThe State of the Church 2025
A year-long campaign to help equip church leaders to thrive in a changing culture
A new way to measure church health
It's time for churches to unite under a common framework to measure how their people are flourishing and how their organization is thriving.
Church leaders are asking
What keeps church leaders up at night?
How?
How are my people actually doing?
What?
What should I do next?
Where?
Where do I see our church in five years?
The 7 dimensions of human flourishing
Human flourishing looks at seven dimensions of whole-life discipleship: faith, relationships, finances, purpose, health, character, and contentment. As people tell you how they are doing, you can get back to the heart of pastoral ministry, partnering with them in new ways.
Tailor your church’s vision, strategic planning, programming, and next steps to help your people “flourish like a palm tree…”-Psalm 92:12
The 15 dimensions of organizational thriving
Common lag measures like attendance and budgets don’t give you a clear picture of your church’s health. Based on decades of research from Barna Group, the 15 dimensions of church thriving help leaders assess the drivers of church health and answer these questions:
Nurturing: How are we cultivating life within our congregation?
Sending: How are we equipping people for ministry outside of our church?
Leading: How are we strengthening our leadership culture and organizational operations?
When churches thrive, people flourish
Barna and Harvard have identified the common metrics that result in churches thriving that help people flourish.