23, 24, 25! 25 Regular Attenders, Ah, Ah, Ah!

Last night in our planning meeting, I said I had been having some revolutionary ideas about counting. But I timed my comment poorly, and only a few people heard me. Those few looked at me funny, but didn't get an explanation as to how counting could be so revolutionary.

I eventually got to explain myself to a few people after the meeting was over, but I'd still like to share my thoughts with the rest of the blogosphere.

When I say "counting" I am talking about counting people, and here is what I propose: DON'T.

Don't count people. I know this is a hard concept, so I'm going to provide a few sample dialogues.

"Wow, so you planted a church! How many members do you have?"
"We have just the right amount so far. They're incredible people... the fellowship is wonderful."

"I heard you guys had a concert last night. How many people came?"
"Well, there were some team members there, and some from the community. So we had lots of opportunities to get to know people."

"How many salvation decisions have occurred in The Core during the last year?"
"Well, we've witnessed some great testimonies, but since God gets the credit for each conversion, and our team members share their faith in all types of situations, we can't really say if any of them were because of The Core."

"We are the IRS. We need to know how many people are involved each week in The Core."
"150 (total guess)"

As you can see from that last one, sometimes numbers are necessary, in which case we can guesstimate. But I think that, once we start counting, it's just way too easy to measure our success by our numbers. Of course some people will think that this tactic is just a cop-out for the lack of impressive numbers. But we don't need to worry about them. (It reminds me of a line from the Jim Carrey movie "Liar, Liar." The kid says, "My teacher says that real beauty is on the inside." Then the (overly truthful) Jim Carrey says, "That's something only ugly people say.")

I know what some of you are thinking. "But how will you know if your methods are effective unless you count people?" I believe that if you've really got your head in the game... if you are really involved with the people you're ministering to, you will naturally know whether you are succeeding or failing. The question is, "Do you see God being glorified and hearts being transformed?" There are some very small churches where the answer is yes, and some very large churches where the answer is no. So why even bring in numbers to muddy the waters?

In case you were wondering, I still believe that money should be counted ;-)