It was not uncommon during my years in ministry to be asked how many students were at the college worship service during the week. I’m okay with that question per se, but why is that always the first question, and why are numbers the measuring stick for successful ministry?
We are always looking for some standard or metric to determine ministry success, but why numbers?
It would have been nice to be asked, “Hey, how were the students last night?” Or, “Tell me a story about a student?” Etc.
Eventually (but hopefully not for you) if you are in ministry long enough there will be the push for numbers in ministry, and that will be how your success is often determined. Then begins the vicious cycle. Do whatever you can to maintain and raise numbers, often forgetting what ministry is about, or who we are supposed to be following…Jesus.
And that’s just really sad I think. As my good friend RO Smith has said to me, “If we measure our success in ministry based on Jesus’ ministry, then we have 12 people following us, and one of them is trying to kill us.”
How’s that for success?
That’s why I love the following post.
Anne Jackson is so right on in her post The Competition-Driven Church.
Society today is competitive. We feel that our voices must be the loudest and carry the furthest in order to be heard and validated. It breaks my heart when I hear pastors of small churches say, “we only had seventy-five people today” or “only two hundred people showed up.”
Only? I’m sorry. Are those seventy-five or two hundred people not enough for you?
I am not going go into length discussing the perceived importance of numbers. Keeping track of “how many” is a valid metric to measure some kinds of effectiveness in what we are doing. Numbers do represent people. Christ did say that he would grow his Church.
However, our view is so limited as far as what that actually looks like in our church today.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
numbers is an easy way to gage success. it is same way in blogging. im not condoning it, but I find it hard to find some other way to gage success easily.
Tyler:
Man, you respond fast to my posts
I hear what you are saying and I agree about an easy way to gage success.
The problem as you would agree is that numbers are also not indicative of success always, or of what goes on.
For example: Some of our best college worship nights was when they were small…sometimes the size of a small group…but from the outside, that is often gauged as failure in contrast to a night with more people.
We all buy into it….and I see why. But I think we have to learn to not be dependent upon it and use that to determine our success in things. Number s can be indicative of success in many ways…but that’s just not always good…
Know what I’m saying?
rhett
i have attended an extremely large church my entire life and have seen the ills of measuring success solely on numbers. it can be disheartening to hear people, especially staff, discount the effectiveness of an event just because it didn’t meet their desired attendance level. at the same time, however, a church that is not seeking to grow is not fulfilling the great commission. i’ve certainly heard enough people from small churches who were far too content with the comfort of smallness at the cost of reaching others. i guess i wrote all of that to say that i don’t think there can be a universal measurement of success; as long as the goal is Christ things will work out alright.
Kyle:
Thanks for posting. I agree that churches sometimes are very insulated, and never seek to evangelize and grow their Church to fulfill the great commission.
But I think there are many churches that will never grow too much that you will find in certain communities….and we can’t look at them as not being successful…whatever that word means.
I have been frustrated with some churches in the PCUSA that I do know who have been losing scores and scores of people….and they feel like they are the only ones following God…but when you look at what they are doing, it’s pretty disappointing.
I’ve always been impressed with the stories I have read about and heard about Eugene Peterson. He pastored his church for over 30 years….I think it was about 300. Never got huge, etc. And he had many opportunities to leave, but was committed to that community.
There is a story about him being asked to come speak and the speaker said there would only be like a 1,000 people there…as if almost to apologize. Peterson said he couldn’t do it…and the guy was like…oh, sorry, do you want more people there. And Peterson said no…I want less. If there is like 40 or less I will do it.
I appreciate people whose egos don’t require them to only speak in large crowds, and who don’t care what size the audience is.
So I think we all agree…that numbers is a certain measure if we are doings something right. But I’m just saying…this should not be the first question, or the only one we care about.
rhett
Next time I’ll wait longer to comment