How's your church's KPI in saving souls?

A short while ago, at an IT conference, there was a presentation on key performance indicators (KPIs) of a church. One of the KPIs was Saving Souls. There was a discussion about how effective a church is in saving souls compared to other church programmes or other churches in general.

I, for one, found it amusing that a church can be measured for effectiveness in saving souls. Who saves souls in the first place? Is it the church or is it our Lord Jesus? If it's the latter, are we measuring His performance? Since when has God delegated the role of appraising His own performance to us?

The Bible mentioned clearly in 1 Corinthians 3 that everyone has a part to play. Paul planted, Apollos watered, if I may add, perhaps Timothy or someone else brought in the harvest. No one is greater than the other. If we measured Apollos' or Paul's performance, and compared that with Timothy or whoever who ultimately saw a soul saved, we would have rated Apollos or Paul poor, and Timothy excellent. Is that the reality? Isn't it the Lord who touches and opens the hearts of unsaved souls? Look at the Lord Jesus Himself. He threw huge picnics for 5000 persons and 7000 persons respectively on 2 occasions, serving them a buffet of barley loaves and fishes. How many believed on Him? No one knows for sure, but in John 6, we read that the day after the 5000 ate from the hands of Jesus, they asked Him to give them a miraculous sign so that they might believed on Him? Looks like the picnic for the 5000 fared poorly in terms of KPI on saving souls, huh?

Some of the things that were recorded in the Bible did not immediately lead to salvation of souls, but I dare say that many, including us, were saved because of them. Remember the woman who broke the alabaster jar of expensive perfume to the tune of a year's salary, and pour it on the Lord Jesus' feet? It earned the criticism of those in the Lord's circle, who saw it as a blatant waste of money. But Jesus said that what this woman did for Him is a beautiful thing, and will be mentioned whenever the Gospel is preached. What does that say about the performance rating of such seemingly low or negative returns deeds?

I fear that as men borrow the practices of the business world and apply it to the church without much thought, it will miss the forest for the trees. God has His reasons for allowing some things to happen in some ways which to men, may seem like foolishness. Do not be too quick to dismiss certain churches or pastors as ineffective in saving souls, for saving souls is a responsibility that belongs exclusively to the Lord Jesus. He has been entrusted with this responsibility from the Father as recorded in the Bible, and that hasn't changed. We may facilitate the Gospel to be shared, we may organize rallies, we may even preach, but we can never, never save souls, and don't we even think of measuring the Lord's performance as such.

Thomas