Today 2026 September25 (Fri) 22:12 Etc/GMT-9

2026/10/21 00:00~2026/10/21 01:00

Metrics that Matter: Measuring Ministry or Just Counting?

Parishes have been doing this for centuries. Sacramental registers. Offertory across a fiscal year. Enrollment against last September. The October count. The discipline is already there — baseline, attention over time, a prudent response. This final conversation asks where that same instinct might be pointed next. Fr. Anthony Stoeppel, Associate Professor of Church Management at The Catholic University of America, joins eCatholic's Matthew Kurtz to walk through the signals his course proposes as indications of a parish's mission bearing fruit — family engagement, the lay apostolate, formation, finances, and what he calls the apostolate of data. Some can be observed plainly. Some can only be inferred. And one of them, we suspect, defeats measurement entirely. The premise: nobody can measure grace. But a pastor who notices a family has stopped coming isn't measuring their faith — he's reading a sign. That instinct is the whole discipline. The right tools simply extend how far it can see.

📍 https://vimeo.com/event/6110810/join/eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJ0eXAiOiJsY19qb2luIiwibGlkIjoxNDg5NTM1NiwiZWlkIjo2MTEwODEwLCJpYXQiOjE3OTAwOTI4NDcsImV4cCI6MTgyNDY1Mjg0N30.hnt_YHtpDMEibxZcmSAS3zW-mTy_oRf3oVw7mrZCR1A