02/23/2015
Welcome to the first entry of PK’s Church Planting Chronicles… I’m currently setting up a blog where I’ll post in the future and provide the link here on Facebook. In the meantime, these lengthy statuses will be my platform.
2/23/15
Let’s Talk Numbers…
So really, how important is church attendance? Do numbers matter? Should the number of people that attend our weekly services be considered when gauging how successful we are in ministry? I’ll answer those question to the best of my ability and using my experience.
Truth is, it’s kind of hard to get away from the numbers conversation. I mean, it’s the first (maybe second) question asked when you bump into a fellow pastor. “Hey Doc, How’s the ministry?” and "What you running now doc?” It’s a qualifying question of sorts. Your answer may or may not give validity to your ministry so far as your peers are concerned. This conversation creates this pressure to perform. And, quite honestly, that pressure to perform has been so great that some have taken creative liberties when answering those questions. I know I have. That’s right, I created people where there were none… I exaggerated… I LIED… “Packed house Doc!"… "Man, we gonna have to add a second service soon”… "Looking for a bigger building". When all along there just a handful to begin with and some of them were inconsistent. Now, before you start shaking your head at me, just know, I’m not alone in my creativity (LBVS). I have been invited to minister at churches that boasted BIG numbers, only to arrive and see a handful of people there. Inevitably the pastor would say, “I don’t know where everybody is.” In that moment, I could identify with him, I was embarrassed for him, because I’d been there and done that and I know what that feels like. Success in the eyes of a pastor has a numerical value. It varies from pastor to pastor depending on your circles, maybe depending on your vision, but it does exist. Is it ALL about numbers? No, not for me anyway, but that doesn’t mean numbers don’t matter. In fact, that’s my answer, Yes, NUMBERS MATTER!!!
Don’t get me wrong, I know some GREAT Pastors with small congregations. I know great preachers who haven’t been heard by the masses. So numbers don’t define success, numbers shouldn’t be the aim, but a LACK of numbers shouldn’t be excused so easily either. In our broad approach to evangelism - Highways and Hedges... "Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth"… the intention was and is that the church be added to numerically. We should want our churches to grow and if they aren’t we should be asking, “why?” No, not everyone will pastor mega ministries. Not all will have large congregations, but make no mistake about it, I BELIEVE I WILL, based on what God revealed to me when he called me into the pastoral ministry. I will see it with my own eyes.
Having said, I’m in a different place now. I’m well beyond playing the numbers game with other pastors. I don’t exaggerate attendance. I don’t pad the numbers, My value isn’t in the numbers or their perception of them, but I do still count them and I am still dreaming up effective ways to compel the masses to be saved. It’s going to happen.
In the meantime, I’m prepping myself. I’m working on me. I said I don’t play the numbers game with other pastors. That doesn’t mean that I don’t struggle with numbers internally. I’ve had services where no one has showed or where there were just a handful of us and I have noticed the difference in my demeanor and in my delivery when there is a fluctuation in the size of the congregation. I’m working on that and my prayer of late is, “Lord let me regard the few that I stand before presently as I would the thousands I see in my spirit”. I’m realizing that my faithfulness with the few will play a big part in my role with many.
Hope that some pastor today is liberated from the pressure to perform. I pray as well that you don’t save your best ministry or your best message for the the best crowd, but that you give 100% daily.
