The Question of Missiometrics as a Science

Although much has been written on data collection and statistics for other fields such as business, economics and education, very little has been written on the integration of this science with missiology. Yet dialogue among missiologists has led some to question the role of statistical analysis in missions. Missiometrics, the applied science of statistical data collection within the field of missiology, has many cross-cultural practitioners. However, diminutive time has been devoted to studying potential applications of statistics for decision making within missions agencies. This might be in part to this underlying question as to the validity of this science when applied to what might be considered a spiritual discipline. It is not my intention to argue the ethics of missiology’s interdisciplinary junctures with the social sciences. However, taking a more narrow focus, using statistical analysis helps to give scientific validity to missiology.

Edward R. Dayton and David A. Frazer pose the question, “How might we apply management to the global task of introducing our generation to the power and person of Jesus Christ?”[1] The underlying thought behind this question is the very heart of the relational study of statistics and missions. There is a macro-relationship between theology and the social sciences, but statistical analysis’s micro-interaction with missiology provides clarity and scientific quantification that is helpful in evaluation for mission effectiveness. Biblical, scientific and historical examples justify this thesis, and a robust theology of statistics allows for this approach. While Peruvian evangelical theologian Samuel Escobar accuses modern missions practitioners of “succumbing to ‘managerial missiology,’ the belief that missions can be approached like a business problem,”[2] there are yet many practical uses for statistical analysis that provide validity to missiological applications and therefore should be maximized.
What do you think? Can you mix missions with management and/or statistics?

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[1] Edward R. Dayton and David A. Frazer Planning Strategies for World Evangelization (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 25.

[2] Stan Guthrie, Missions in the Third Millennium (Waynesboro, Georgia: Paternoster, 2002), 192. Samuel Escobar makes claim to the term “managerial missiology” in his The New Global Mission: The Gospel from Everywhere to Everyone (Christian Doctrine in Global Perspective) (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 2003), 167.