EDITOR’S NOTE: “Signs and Wonders” is a column that shares thoughts on news items that either do not rise to the level of a news story for MinistryWatch or are slightly (even significantly) outside of our normal charity and philanthropy “beat.” My goal is to be punchy, opinionated, and not to worry much about being slightly off brand. If that is not for you, no hard feelings. But if it is…read on.
Ministry Brands Expands. Ministry Brands, the leading provider of church management software and online giving solutions, has opened a new corporate headquarters in a suburb of Atlanta. A statement announcing the opening said the company has “upwards of 700 employees across the United States and Ireland, including 54 in the Atlanta area.” Ministry Brands says it has more than 90,000 churches and nonprofit organization customers and facilitates more than $6.45 billion in charitable giving annually.
MinistryWatch 2000? We’ll soon be looking for another name for the MinistryWatch 1000 database, because we just passed the 1,500 mark, representing $55 billion in annual revenue. We hope to have 2,000 ministries in the database by the end of the year. If you don’t use “The Database,” as we call it, check it out here.
ECAP and the SBC. If you cover religion, one of the big events of the year is coming up — the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting in Orlando. Stay tuned to MinistryWatch for our coverage of the event. The annual meeting is often an opportunity for other meetings to happen, and one that caught my attention was one hosted by the Evangelical Council for Abuse Prevention (ECAP). “Stand Up: Standing for Vulnerable Adults Against Abuse and Exploitation” is a ticketed luncheon on Tuesday, June 9, during the annual meeting. The event is sponsored by the SBC Executive Committee’s Abuse Prevention & Response Department, led by Jeff Dalrymple. The luncheon will convene ministry leaders, disability advocates, and abuse-prevention experts to address a crisis the Church can no longer afford to overlook. To learn more about this important topic, check out this article by Dalrymple, whose daughter has autism. It highlights important issues all churches — not just those in the SBC — need to face.
Measuring Ministry Effectiveness. MinistryWatch rates a ministry’s efficiency and transparency, but rating a ministry’s effectiveness has been an elusive measure for us and for others. We can measure how much a ministry spends on fundraising, but how can you really measure whether a discipleship ministry causes people to grow spiritually? Or whether an evangelism ministry that claims people made “decisions” for Christ is following up, and that those people are still following Christ a year or a decade later? Coming up with ways to measure ministry effectiveness is sort of the “Holy Grail” for people in my business. That’s why I was fascinated by news from World Vision that it was making the attempt to create such a measurement. The ministry is calling it the “Hope and Love Measure,” and claims it is the first “validated tool to quantify how children experience God’s love.” I must confess that I remain apprehensive — but fascinated. You can read more about that new tool here. And stay tuned: I’m interviewing World Vision President Edgar Sandoval later this week, and we’ll take a deeper dive into this tool in a future episode of the MinistryWatch podcast.
The Pope and Artificial Intelligence. Pope Leo presented his new encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, last week, surrounded by AI experts, including Anthropic co-founder Chris Olah. My friends at Axis, whom I often turn to for succinct translations of cultural events through a biblical lens, said: “The pope spoke of the need to ‘disarm’ artificial intelligence so it might become a tool to promote the common good. He insisted that, although the Church won’t always have ‘technical answers,’ it does bring the wisdom that ‘every person is unique and irreplaceable, a free and intelligent subject with a conscience, capable of seeking God, serving one another, caring for our common home.’ His call was for AI to be developed in such a way that these human realities are served, instead of being displaced. And yes, at one point, he did quote Gandalf.” For the full (42,000-word) text, click here.
Readers in Knoxville, Colorado Springs, and Denver. It was great to be in Knoxville last week, attending the Colson Center’s national conference with nearly 3,000 people. What an amazing event that has become over the past decade! My travels continue next week, when I’ll be in Colorado to speak at Summit Ministries. I’ll be hosting lunches in Colorado Springs and Denver. If you’d like to join me, please hit me up at wsmith@ministrywatch.com. I’ll send details of location and date.
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