Danger of Numbers in Ministry
By reading the title of this post, I hope no one thought it was about the danger of boring people in ministries by reading the book of Numbers. Instead, I am responding to a series over at Lifechurch.tv that Craig Groeschel started about measuring success in ministry. Craig pointed out that it is wrong to measure success in a church by using numbers. Craig points out some failins of church leaders in depending on numbers to measure success:
- Too many pastors have led large ministries while tragically failing personally and morally.
- Too many have sacrificed their families all in the name of “church growth.”
- Too many have lost their personal passion for Jesus while leading His church.
I would add so much more to that, but specifically how leading from this kind of mentality invites danger into the church.
The biggest danger I see in this attitude is the inherent confusion in what we can do and what only God can do. To be clear, people can draw a big crowd, they can make an environment that feels good and comfortable, they can be very good communicators, the can be cool, slick, polished, charismatic leaders and they can build empires based on those skills. All of that is not necessary to the mission of the Kingdom in God’s church and really only focuses on what people can do apart from God.
Only God can save a soul
Only Jesus can draw people to himself
Only the Holy Spirit can convict people of sin
These are a few of things I would say that get confused. People confuse a big crowd with evangelism, which is especially convoluted when most of the new people in churches are not new converts but people who have left their previous church. People think that, because there is a big membership at a church, then they must being doing something right in God’s eyes rather than just gathering people. I actually had a former church member tell me about a church they always wanted to attend because it is one of the biggest in the nation (leave you to guess which one). Her remark on it was, “That many people gathered together… God must be doing something big.” If that were true, then concerts across the nations that have nothing to do with God or faith would be the biggest churches out there. A large crowd does not make a work of God.
All of this is to say that when we measure ourselves apart from the value inherent in us – the value God gives us by calling us His – then we are always going to get into trouble. I hope Craig blogs about some of that.
