Toward Building Evidence of Kingdom Impact

Abstract

The mission of all Christ-Centered Organizations (CCOs) is to extend God’s kingdom on earth. CCOs, therefore, are in the business of inspiring, motivating, and engaging in mission to take the gospel to the whole world, a gospel that is holistic in nature. One of the main issues that arises in this kind of work is what kind of actual difference the CCO is making, a difference that can be labeled as “kingdom impact.” This article argues that seeking evidence of kingdom impact, in other words seeking to monitor, evaluate, and measure the impact of programs and projects from what can be called a “Kingdom Impact Measurement Framework” (KIMF), can be of great help in the work that CCOs do as part of submitting themselves completely to the Lordship of Christ. It starts out by reviewing the potential benefits of seeking to measure kingdom impact, suggests the possible theological underpinnings for how to put that into practice, presents the “Kingdom Impact Measurement Framework” and its elements, and concludes with the prayer that this might help CCOs differentiate their approaches from those used by secular counterparts. The hope and prayer is that what is shared here will be helpful for the range of CCOs that are in their incipient processes of prayerfully discerning whether and how to engage in this endeavor, as well as those that are far along their way on that journey.