Welcome back to our discussion on what it might look like to measure spiritual impact of Seed Company translation projects. Last week we got the conversation started with How Would You Measure Spiritual Impact? Today I’m interviewing Gilles Gravelle, our Director of Innovation and Research. I hope you’ll stick around, because this is an issue affecting so many others beyond The Seed Company. So be ready to share your thoughts in the comments section.
Johanna Fenton: I said that measuring spiritual impact means answering the question: “So what?” Is that an accurate way of putting it? Also, who are the people asking this question?
Gilles Gravelle: The So what? question of late has less do to with measuring activities, attitudes, and product delivery, and more to do with measuring deep change. It is no surprise to most that the people asking this question are financial donors. Today’s emerging givers are more focused on results than perhaps they were in the past. However, agency leaders are also beginning to ask this question, and not just in the religious sector. Social sector leaders are asking about how to measure deep change in human behavior, stemming from their social work. Traditional church scientific metrics (surveys, focus groups, Likert scale, etc.) don’t necessarily help us discover what deep spiritual change would be in a culture much different from our own. We usually look for things that confirm our own assumptions and inherited biases.
JF: What might deep spiritual change look like in another culture?
GG: Deep spiritual change in non-Western settings may not necessarily be things we in the West think about. In New Guinea, a community of believers began revising their culture’s marriage system, at least between believers. I mean, literally and intentionally redesigning a thousand-year-old system because of how God had transformed their understanding of His design for marriage. Even though they had been under missionary teaching for decades, a new translation in their own language began to work on the deeper areas of the heart, and this was one result. In Asia, some people were no longer obsessed with the way they had to arrange their household furniture (Feng shui). A simple outward act, but it reveals a deeper inward assurance of Christ as protector. We could get into crop harvesting and spiritual change, but space doesn’t allow.
JF: So why the need to crowdsource ideas on measuring this sort of deep spiritual impact? Can’t we look to others who have hashed this out already?
GG: Mission measurement efforts have typically been the work of small groups of experts. Their tools were effective for measuring certain things, and scientific validation was critical. Now, figuring out how to measure spiritual impact of mission and Bible translation work requires at least a couple of things. First, small, closed groups have a hard time thinking about new things in new ways. Crowdsourcing widens the scope of our thinking by bringing in more people from more backgrounds with diverse experience to help the group brainstorm. Second, I don’t think the measurement tools of the past were designed to measure spiritual results, anyway. It’s a mismatch. So crowdsourcing this question of So what? should help us all to think in fresh ways how this could be achieved. It’s really a pioneering effort, in many ways. The crowd has the ability to sift through a lot of diverse information and individual bias and, according to theory, determine the best solution.
JF: So crowdsourcing could certainly help us. As “Foibled” commented in the last post, we need to come up with ways to measure spiritual impact that aren’t simply reflections of Western values. Now can you tell me, what is at stake? In other words, what would happen if we didn’t move forward in crowdsourcing these ideas?
GG: Yes, that’s a good insight, and Brad’s comment on the “fruits of the Spirit” got me thinking, too. In non-Western contexts, both of these could look very different, so spiritual impact measurement, at least as carried out by a Western agency, seems like it would be more about discovering what that deep change is, rather than confirming our own assumptions. I think there is a lot at stake right now because of mission shift, meaning the Globalized Church working together to plan, execute, and monitor results. The goals for any sort of ministry may need to be articulated in different ways than they were in the past. That is one significant reason that crowdsourcing (i.e. group creativity) should be applied to most any mission effort going forward, especially Bible translation.
The interview only gets better! Click here to view part 2.
Question for readers: Gilles said, “Spiritual impact measurement, at least as carried out by a Western agency, seems like it would be more about discovering what that deep change is, rather than confirming our own assumptions.” How might we discover deep change in another culture?
About the interviewee: Gilles Gravelle has logged over 30 years in global mission work. He enjoys research, writing, and speaking on 21st Century church, mission, and philanthropy. You can follow @gillgravelle on Twitter.
How might we discover deep change in another culture? That’s an intriguing question, and I hadn’t thought about it much as a potential crowdsourcing excercise for detecting deep change. So …
How about an overall approach of a “human MRI” scan to get a composited snapshot of the culture?
Gather a group of “culture scanners” from different categories of other cultures to come in and observe what they see in different layers of the host culture, and interpret what they perceive as the contours of that culture, along with gaps and excesses in relation to their understanding of “biblical culture.” Include disciples whose backgrounds come from guilt-based, shame-based, and fear-based cultures – - and perhaps different individual learning style profiles. That will help cover varying cultural and epistemological bias and blind spots.
Do the same, using a diverse group of people from inside the host culture – men, women; different generations; different statuses or classes or whatever demographics are relevant in that culture. How do they see their own culture at this time, in relation to biblical culture?
Composite the results and you may have both a better/bigger picture of comprehensive biblical values, and a more comprehensive view of the host culture itself at that point in time.
This process provides just one point; you need multiple snapshots over time to establish what the culture’s change trajectory seems to be. But comparing the snapshots over time will also help indicate the areas that ARE changing, and the use of culture-crowdsourced observers who are discerning disciples should help identify areas that NEED changing, in relation to biblical mandates. Then it seems to me that the cultural insiders are the ones to best discern and decide what areas of culture to address, according to how the Spirit is leading them as the church in that locale.
For a movie illustration that shows what one kind of digital compositing looks like, check out *S1m0ne* where Al Pacino creates a virtual actress composited out of facial features, voice elements, etc., of various real actresses. That’s the general idea …
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0258153/
Hey Brad! Welcome back. I like how you started off with introducing a metaphor – a human MRI scan. To think in new ways, it’s helpful to use new metaphors.
I also like what you said here: “Composite the results and you may have both a better/bigger picture of comprehensive biblical values, and a more comprehensive view of the host culture itself at that point in time.” So, if I hear you right, you’re saying that this new process could teach us a thing or two about biblical values. And possibly, we ourselves could be impacted, eh? Does that get at what you’re saying?
Hello Johanna, and thanks for the open invitation to come back. I posted your blog series on Facebook, so perhaps others I know will join …
I find metaphors reeeeally helpful because they fuse abstract concepts and processes with concrete objects and products, usually in ways that are memorable. We all need things like that with potential layers of meaning … they’re imperfect, but they help bridge our distinctives in how God designed us differently in our learning styles.
As to learning from others, it’s been my observation that having representatives of multiple cultures sharing the same space doesn’t mean we’re multicultural any more than a mere collection of individuals means we’re a team. [Thinking early days among Christ's 12 disciples. I'd say they were a motley crew, but really, just motley. They weren't even a crew yet!] We integrate by embracing activities together and learning to listen in stereo (one ear to who others are, one ear open to what God is saying and how the Spirit is leading).
Think what could happen if a group of shareholders got out in the field with a group of stakeholders who are benefiting from the donors’ benevolence, and they worked together on this kind of compositing experience to assess spiritual impact. Perhaps donors could better see how complex the situation is, and also how qualitatively important the work being done is … plus the relational connections turns faceless recipients or potentially “just needy numbers” into peer human beings among whom God is at work. Is that a benefit whose value can be quantitatively measured? Those are more generic benefits, but certainly important to the overall stewardship process.
But more specific biblical values – - well, here’s an example. What I’ve found in working with men and women who are 20-/30-somethings and with different learning styles is that the contribution each person can make toward a team effort requires us to embrace the differences. The intuitive catalyst kind of person can easily bulldoze right over the intentional project manager kind of person. But without the former, new stuff never gets started. Without the latter, new stuff never stays around long enough to get sustainable. As I see people interacting well by listening and responding to questions, both a qualitatively better process takes place and a qualitatively better product is created. And the sustainability feature is quantitative and qualitative. So, some often unseen or unaffirmed/unconfirmed biblical values:
* God’s unique design of individuals truly is worthy of applause! Each part of the Body truly is needed.
* Intergenerational mentoring works in both directions for those with open hearts to learn and serve.
* Catalyzers and Sustainers working together really can create something that has a longer shelf life and yet doesn’t stay on the shelf, because it is worthy and useful.
So … there are some thoughts. Looking forward to the next section of your interview! Thank you again for doing this series. Metrics and the means by which we apply them do make a difference in the Kingdom …
Brad, I like this idea a lot: “Think what could happen if a group of shareholders got out in the field with a group of stakeholders who are benefiting from the donors’ benevolence, and they worked together on this kind of compositing experience to assess spiritual impact.” It reminds me of Foibled’s comment on missions becoming more of a two-way street.
Johanna, I really like the desire to measure spiritual impact, answering the “so what” question. And the “MRI” approach suggested by Brad is excellent. When I was with Bell Labs (decades ago) we often used multiple snapshots from various perspectives to assess network faults. Though I’m sure I don’t fully appreciate the crowdsourcing that is mentioned, the concept seems to ring true. This fits with Gilles’ suggestions about looking at deep behavior change with trained eyes, knowing prior behaviors and the deep change that must have been present so as to result in an observed new behavior. How can we capture these multiple snapshots from places all over the world AND verify that those snapshots have validity?
I plan to share this blog with a number of my team since we are quite interested in such measurements. Thank you for engaging well in this area.
Bob, thank you. It’s a pleasure to have you comment here. Thanks for affirming Brad’s idea about an MRI approach. It helps us know what the “crowd” is thinking. Cool, too, how your background with Bell Labs is coming into play. I’d be curious to know what Gilles thinks about the MRI metaphor.
Thank you, too, for sharing this blog series with your team.