Numbers and the church

Yesterday in church our pastor gave a rundown of the previous 2 years and a glimpse at what the next 2 could hold. In his message he hammered home numbers as it correlated to the church growth. I would say it safe to say that most people are often turned off by numbers. Most church leaders state they don’t care about numbers. Our church Pastor openly admits to being all about the numbers and claiming the Jesus and God are all about the numbers. His citation of this is to look at the many miracles of Jesus and the numbers provided in the gospels as they correlate to the miracle. Jesus fed 5,000 with 5 loaves of bread and a few fish, He fed 4,000 people another time, he had 12 disciples. The argument against numbers, as my pastor points out, usually comes from churches or leaders whose numbers are on the decline or never were ascending to begin with. This got me thinking about numbers and the churches and where do I fall in this debate and more importantly where does God actually come down on this.

As I listened to our pastor and his claims on numbers I will be honest it can come off as arrogant, if I was a first time attendee yesterday I would certainly be thinking this guy sure does think he is amazing and likes to honk his own horn. My background in ministry, as brief as it was, I was always trained that numbers don’t matter and when we make too much of the numbers we fool ourselves into believing we are healthier than we may be. We had a long running joke in our youth group staff meetings that if the elders wanted larger numbers to give us a bigger budget and allow us to throw keggers. If you want numbers I can give you numbers, but numbers don’t equate to health. Doug Fields, someone who by all means could point to numbers as all important, once said, “If someone asks you how you are doing, and you respond 57, something is wrong with you.” His point being that numbers do not equate to health and well being, however they can certainly provide context to the health of your church.

To me the reality of the conflict falls in the middle of both groups. I believe numbers are important, I believe that the amount of church goers you bring in every week does indeed matter, I also believe accurately assessing the health of your church is more important than the numbers themselves, and the numbers themselves do not by any means equate to the health of the church. Numbers ought to provide context to the situation they are found in. For instance what seems more miraculous; Jesus feeding 5,000 people with 5 loaves of bread and a couple fish or saying Jesus fed a lot of people with very little resources? Numbers have the ability to express the great magnitude and direness of a situation. Numbers allow us to wrap our minds around a situation and assess just how miraculous the situation is or was. However  I would never say Jesus was all about numbers, not because I don’t necessarily agree with the people who are willing to say that, but because I believe Jesus was all about the lost, I don’t ever want to lose perspective of that fact. Jesus came to make the lost found not to blow your mind with awe inspiring miracles. The miracles and numbers were a byproduct of His ministry to make those who were dead, alive.

Pastors who say they don’t care about the numbers are only telling a half truth, obviously they care about the numbers every other Friday when it comes time to cash their pay check or at the end of the month when the lease payment or mortgage is due. I think it’s about time we stop pretending like numbers don’t matter, it also time we stop hammering numbers home as if those equate to a healthy church.

Matthew 18:12-14 tells the parable of the lost sheep and in my mind closes the book on the numbers argument better than anything I could come up with on my own. The parable tells of a Sheppard who leaves his flock of 99 sheep to go and find the 1 who was lost. The 1 lost sheep was a greater responsibility than the 99 that were found to the Sheppard. If your church wants to focus on numbers I pray that its focus on numbers would lay here in Matthew 18, the fact that 1 is greater than 99. The church who believes that 99 is greater than 1 has missed the entire purpose of Jesus’ life and the miracles that these great numbers provide context too.

1>99

Aparently this is my first meditation in almost a year

Jen and I on Ester Sunday attended a new church to us with our friends. The church service was good, I enjoyed it. I cant really determine if that will be our new home church, because you can never really judge a church on Easter.

With that said, the pastor said something I found to be interesting.

He said, "we need to be treating people as if they are Christ."

The congregation nodded in agreeance, but it started a thought process in my mind. And after days of contemplation I disagree with the statement.

I pictured myself treating someone as if they were Jesus, and all I found myself doing was trying to live up to him, presenting myself as if I am someone I am not. Think about it, how would you treat Christ if he were in front of you? Get outside of your first thought to fall at his feet crying and think about what a conversation with him is like, or what words you would say to him, or how hospitable you would all of a sudden become.

The statement fell apart in my mind, yet it brought clarity to me as I continued to chew on the words, the solution is simple and it is nothing more than a simple rewording and a shift of your state of mind. I believe the truth is that we ought to treat each other as christ would treat that person.

Yes this is a no brainer statement that I am sure all would agree with. But it is fundamentaly different that treating someone as if they were actually Christ. Under the second mindset we turn our fraud into reality, our posturing become genuine, and our obligations become love.

I pray that we would treat each other like Christ would treat the people before him, and that we would see that in each other and know that we are different and know that we are loved, and know that we have been saved.

Me

I am going to be screwing around with this blog today so if you have an rss feed it may hit you many times......

Choices

Thanks to a friends post on destiny I have been in a philosophical mindset all day. That post has caused me to think about the concept of choice.

We choose things for the sake of something higher than the immediate choice. An example of this is the choice to eat. We eat to satisfy our hunger not to eat for the sake of eating. So we choose things for something other than the immediate choice.

Choices assume value. And our values assume the good.

Everything you do, you have a choice. Everything. You can either do or do not. It’s that simple. When you choose, you place value over the opposite of your choice and thus showing what you perceive to be good.

So the next time you plan something with a friend and you fail to meet your commitment, remember what you are communicating to them in your choice.

Ten things I hate about ............ Me

1. I want more but do nothing to get it.
2. I see the darkness of people before I see light.
3. I might not ever see peoples light, because I don’t want to.
4. I will give advice freely, but take it poorly.
5. I am sarcastic….. too sarcastic.
6. I love the F-Bomb (I don’t use it much anymore, but I do love it.)
7. I am insecure and to cover it up I act overly secure.
8. I don’t let many people inside to see who I truly am.
9. I am afraid. But rarely admit it.
10. I am selfish

Reasons why I love God:

1. He doesn’t care about what I think of me, He cares about what I think of Him. For all the deficiencies and shortcomings of my life He is able to complete and use for His good.

The Fuhrer

I just finished reading a small book called; The Lamb and the Fuhrer by Ravi Zacharias. It was interesting, the book is a conversation between Jesus and Hitler. After reading it I have come to this conclusion. If evolution is true and real than Hitler was not wrong in his actions but was actually quite justified.

This is what happens when I just start writing

I have recently been challenged intellectually as to some aspects of the Christian faith.
Weather it be inerrancy of scripture, Jesus’ commands and life, evangelism, today’s church or the “emergent” movement all have been extremely thought provoking. I have mainly stayed out of much discussion, outside of comments here and there, but I do have a thought on the subjects that are so widely debated, and I think now is as good of time as any to write my heart on the subject.

I fear that we have forgotten what this is all about, what our purpose in life is. Tom Landry would stand before his football team, after he felt they had lost their direction, and hold up a football and say, “this is a football.” If our lives are not about Christ and searching for and the showing of the glory of God, what is it about? Maybe I read too much Piper but I agree with him when he says;

“God is glorified most when we are most satisfied in him.”

This is the chief end of man, to glorify God!

Our lives should be that of Christ, who followed and obeyed the will of the Father. Did Jesus call us to love our neighbors? Yes! But he first called us to love God the Father! This command of loving people does not wash out the rest of Christ commands to us; Go and make disciples, give to Caesar what is Caesar’s but give to God what is God’s, Zeal for thy house will consume me. The command to love is powerful but it does not wash away the rest of Christ’s life. Loving people goes hand in hand with all the other commands Jesus gave us, for it is impossible to any of them without fist loving the person you are pursuing. That is why loving people is so important, you cant do anything God has asked of us without love.

But we are, and make no mistake, we are called to more than love. We are called to do more than hand someone a rose or give someone a hug, yes these things can communicate love and affection, but that is just a piece of what we are called to. Can a rose speak of the grace of God? Can a hug communicate the suffering of Christ on a cross? Can a different label for a church explain the resurrection?

I am beaten down by all these labels we throw on church today, post-modern, emergent, modern. Why cant we be followers of Christ. Where our aim is to live life as He has called us to live!

The inerrancy of scripture

Scripture is either inerrant or not, it can not be both. So be prepared to accept the consequences.