Zeitschrift für Evaluation: Issue 2/2026, 25. Volume

In recent years, regional church innovation programs have attracted considerable academic interest. However, reflections on the appropriateness of existing evaluation approaches are still pending. In response to this need, this article shares both conceptual considerations and insights into the academic monitoring of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Saxony’s innovation program ‘Initiative Missionarischer Aufbrüche’. In dialogue with reconstructive program theory evaluation approaches, it first identifies challenging characteristics of church innovation programs. To address them, it draws on ideas from theory-based cluster evaluation and groups the program’s 16 projects according to their impact logics. The three resulting clusters (community logic, service logic and network logic) are presented alongside exemplary impacts and challenges. The discussion culminates in a plea for evaluations in the church context to be understood as an accompanied negotiation process.

Keywords
theory-based evaluation, cluster evaluation, innovation, church