If you're interested in church health, you know that the number of names in a database isn't a great indicator. Same goes for mailing lists and Sunday attendance numbers.
What you're really looking for is discipleship. You want to know if people in your church are growing in their love for Jesus, each other, and the world around them. Of course, this isn't a simple thing to measure, and it's impossible to force. But The City is built around encouraging the kind of community engagement that helps a church build a culture of discipleship.
What is engagement?
Engagement is about points of connection and the value of those connections. An unsolicited mass marketing email, for example, is low in terms of engagement because the connection point between the sender and recipient is tenuous, at best, and the value to the recipient is usually non-existent. A conversation between friends, on the other hand, represents a high level of engagement because the friends are eager participants and the conversation extends and expresses the value of the relationship.
The City has a huge impact on engagement by enabling a greater degree of interaction within your church all throughout the week. And this isn't your typical "social network" interaction about silly cats or lifestyle bragging. This is high-value interaction that's all about what Jesus is doing in, through, and all around the lives of people in your church.