Rethink - Numbers vs. Obedience

As someone involved in ministry I find numbers are far more a part of my life than I'd like them to be. And I find my self in search of a better tool for evaluating success and failure. Within minutes of every conversation about my work as a youth leader, I'll get the question, "How many teens come to your youth group?" People also want to know how many kids come through our children's ministry. How many hours I work, etc. Numbers are the first tool people use to evaluate success or failure.  They are an easy way to put you in a box.

I'll be honest, I chafe under that type of evaluation.  I could have 200 teens coming to my youth group, but I wouldn't know their names or stories, I wouldn't be able to tell you each piece of spiritual fruit that grows, or which branches need to be pruned.  I wish someone would ask me how my teens were growing rather than how many are attending.  Because no matter how much time and energy I pour into youth ministry there will be more teens at the movies on any given Saturday night than at my youth group.  There will be more people at a Waterfront Concert, than in my church on Sunday, and there will be more kids at the Maine Jump than in Sunday School.  If we evaluate by numbers, then the world wins...  every time.

By this point you probably think the point of this blog post is to complain about the way people evaluate by numbers, you may even feel like I am right, but that I'm being a bit of a whiner about it.  Maybe you disagree and think that my desire to be judged on something other than numbers is motivated by an attempt to have people overlook poor performance.  In either case you'd be wrong.  The reason for this blog post is that I still evaluate by numbers.  If you ask me how many teens come to youth group, I'll be quick to brag about the number that have come to know Jesus in the last few months.  If you ask me about the children's ministry, I'll tell you how it has doubled since I took over, and if you ask me how many kids came to VBS last night, I'll be too embarrassed to tell you.  As  much as I don't like be judged by numbers, I still use them to evaluate success and failure.  You know what that makes me... A hypocrite!

Here's one thing I know.  If we evaluate by numbers then we would all have to agree that Peter's ministry was much more effective than Jesus' ministry.  Think about it.  After 3 years Jesus had 120 people convinced that He was the Son of God.  Peter preached his first sermon and 3,000 were added to that number.  We know that Peter couldn't have done what he did without the events of Jesus life, and without the Holy Spirit, but if we were evaluate their ministries like we evaluate the ministries in your church or my church we'd find ourselves more impressed with Peter...

He's another thing I know, most of Jesus miracles were done for individuals.  One life changed at a time, was enough for the Son of God, and should be enough for me.  That VBS I told you about was just what one single mother needed.  Our new approach, of having parents and kids learn together, may have done a number on our numbers, but it was just what one life needed.  Another mom got some great perspective on the changes that have taken  place in the few months since Jesus became part of her family's life, and a lie the devil had been whispering in her ear was refuted.  Another life positively impacted.  And while I would have liked to see more kids, the ones we had were having a great time and learning some great lessons.

Speaking of those lessons, we learned about Peter, called to leave a life of fishing and become a fisher of men.  We learned that even though he had no idea what that meant he left everything and followed Jesus, confident that if he was obedient, Jesus would take care of the rest.  What if we stopped measuring success in terms of numbers and started measuring it in terms of obedience?

Lord, forgive me for being a hypocrite.  Help me to see the world through your eyes, and to measure success and failure in terms of obedience and not in terms of numbers.