The greatest resource for self-evaluation is openness, the quality of being open with elders, staff, and spouse.
Gene Getz

Self-evaluation in ministry has a built-in dilemma: Effective ministry demands a certain absence of self-consciousness, yet evaluating ministry demands self-awareness.

It takes an unusual person to do this. Gene Getz is just such an unusual person; he's both an activist and an analyst. After teaching Christian education and directing the evening school at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, he moved to Dallas Theological Seminary in Texas.

"This was during the anti-institutional era of the late sixties, and I had students asking tough questions like 'Who needs the church?'" says Getz. His defense of the church and what it should be eventually became a book — Sharpening the Focus of the Church. But then he was challenged to put his theories into practice.

In 1972, with approximately eight couples, he started Fellowship Bible Church. Within a year, the church was holding double ...