The Numbers Game

The only value of numbers is in comparison; that’s why you find statistics in columns.
—Wayne Jacobsen

Lucy finally met him face to face among the trees in the soft moonlight. She had seen the great lion earlier but had been dissuaded from following him because of the taunts of her friends. Now the lion Aslan, after a gentle rebuke, tells her what she must do: “Go and wake the others and tell them to follow. If they will not, then you at least must follow me alone.”

In my office hangs a large sketch of a lion that depicts this scene from C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia. The eyes of the lion, who symbolizes Christ, seem to plead, “Why won’t you simply follow me and not worry about what others think?”

I needed that encouragement and correction as I pioneered a new church. I remember the time five people showed up for a Sunday morning service for which I had prepared a keynote sermon on that body’s development—and two of those were visitors. Back home I went into my study and wept. Not for ministry lost, not for the needs of people, but in anguish that others would find out about it. I wept wondering if my call had been a mistake.

Though confident about God’s work most of the time, I fought feelings of failure whenever I looked at statistics. And believe me, people gave me the opportunity often. Even though we grew from twenty-five to one hundred during this two-year stretch, I came to see how preoccupation with numbers does more to stifle real growth than to nurture it.

Statistic hounds

Our Christian subculture usually focuses on statistics as the measure of pastoral success. I feel it whenever someone asks me how the fellowship is doing. Invariably the next question is “How many people are coming now?” After fighting that question for years, I have found relief now in realizing that it tells more about the questioner than my answer will ever tell about me.

Young pastors, especially, are hounded in their self-image by statistics, their success determined by numbers. Figures can make you feel impressive—or impotent. The pressure is devastating, and though it may lead pastors to do things that will help the church grow, it may not lead them to righteousness. Though they have more people, they may have less of the Lord.

“Do not fret—it leads only to evil” (Ps. 37:8) is as true of ministers and numbers as it is of the psalmist and the wealth of the wicked. Who can resist the temptation to manipulate the responses of people under the guise of developing their spirituality when the monthly denominational report looms ahead? When numbers are our goal, it is easy to prostitute ministry on the altar of results by making pragmatism our lord.

The danger, however, is not peculiar to small congregations. Our focus on statistics can have harmful effects even when the numbers are large. I’ve heard some incredible things taught by pastors whose only validation rested in the size of their congregation. I’ve known the spiritual lethargy that subtle pride and self-security can cause when statistics inflate self-importance. And what of the large-church pastor harassed by the pressure “to keep the whole thing going,” plagued by tension and stress, wrestling the temptation to be a people-pleaser?

Numerical failures

You would think our preoccupation with numbers would end when we realize the only value is in comparison. That’s why you find statistics in columns. How can we indulge ourselves in the same thing for which Jesus rebuked Peter (comparing his calling with John’s; see John 21:20-23)? Paul said it leads only to senselessness: “When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are not wise” (2 Cor. 10:12).

Though counting heads can sometimes be helpful in sharing what the Lord is doing, Scripture gives us four other reasons why numerical success can never be a valid measure of successful ministry.

First, the nature of the gospel message tends away from large-scale acclaim. The road is still a narrow one. Jesus warned his disciples that in some cities no one would accept their message (Matt. 10:14-18), even though he had given them the power to work wonders.

Do you know how many of the five thousand who feasted on the loaves and fishes were still following Jesus twenty-four hours later? Twelve. John records the challenging sermon Jesus preached the next day that drove people away in anger. He told them to eat his flesh and drink his blood—that he would have to become the very fiber of their existence. His popularity waned when the bread stopped and truth began. Jesus didn’t design the gospel to be attractive.

We’re often told there is a large harvest waiting in every city if we’ll just meet the needs of people. God doesn’t call us to meet needs; he calls us to confront our world with the reality of his kingdom. Though his compassion meets needs, it doesn’t always do it in the way people desire. Much of the gospel presented today befits less the God of the ages than a fairy godmother offering people by God’s hand what they’ve been unable to achieve for themselves: wealth, fame, comfort, and security.

Second, shaping our ministry to suit the masses neglects the nature of this evil age. Paul clearly warns that multitudes love to have their ears tickled by teachers who say what they want to hear (2 Tim. 4:3).

It is a simple fact: good teachers know how to drive away a crowd when they hang around for the wrong reasons. Where I previously pastored, one of the staff members who most reflected the character of the Lord rarely had large classes. Crowds look for clever language, humor, high interest, but not always for life-changing truth, especially when it confronts uncomfortable areas.

Third, reaching large numbers of people may not always be God’s priority and is certainly not synonymous with successful pastoral ministry. One source of encouragement I’ve had over the past two years was from an offhand comment I heard at a pastor’s conference. A speaker used an illustration of an encounter he had with a parishioner seven years before while painting the rail on the front steps of his small Indiana church. I couldn’t imagine this pastor ever painting rails, much less only seven years ago. He was now pastoring a church numbering close to 5,000.

You may think he was wasting time, but God was forging a vessel. Paul spent at least seventeen years of life-preparing growth before God launched him to Asia.

Fourth, though we can say with confidence that righteousness leads to fruitfulness, can we say with equal certainty that fruit will always be immediate or external? A success-oriented society defines success only by desired results. In church work it has come down to numbers and budgets.

Paul had to reemphasize to the Corinthians that you cannot rate the quality of anyone’s ministry on a tally sheet because we are called to different tasks. Some plant, some reap. The day of judgment will reveal the quality of work each has invested in God’s kingdom. But Paul does make clear that the planters are rarely reapers.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s obedience led him back to Germany to serve his compatriots as World War II was beginning. “I shall have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people,” he wrote to a friend. He didn’t go back to a large church pulpit, but eventually to a prison camp and execution only days before it was liberated by the Allies. Any regrets? “You must never doubt that I am thankful and glad to go the way which I am being led,” he wrote from his prison cell.

True success

If not by statistics, how can we measure success? After all, we must know who to invite to our conventions, whose formula to follow, and whose book to read. Bonhoeffer demonstrates clearly the true measure of success. It is simple obedience to the will of the Master, not for results, but regardless of them. If he was playing the numbers game, would Martin Luther have posted his ninety-five theses? Would Saint Francis have abandoned his family’s wealth? (After all, he could have used it for Jesus.) Would Corrie ten Boom have hidden Jews from Adolf Hitler?

I know that doesn’t help us judge people. If only that ministry could be evaluated by quotas, sales contests, promotions, raises, or finished products. But it can’t. That’s why ministry can be a frustrating profession for those who seek accomplishments. Obedience is our only motivation, and nothing as trivial as size (or lack of it) can ever measure it.

How freeing this should be to ministry people when their calling is challenged. You sit alone in your study trying to pray and read the Word, but instead you’re churning inside, wondering if you’re successful. You feel left out by those who think your labor insignificant. You don’t feel like a celebrity, and maybe you don’t need to, but the pressure to produce flashy statistics eats at you daily. Another family leaves the church, and you doubt your calling or the quality of your service. Pats on the back come few and far between, or they don’t come at all.

Be encouraged to trust obedience above numbers and the corresponding human affirmation. Seek only the Lord’s approval. Without it, no one else’s will really matter. With it, you’ll need no other.

This is Paul’s example in 2 Timothy. At the end of his ministry, Paul writes confidently, “I have finished the race.” Success! What’s incredible about this statement is that it was written in a prison cell after “everyone in the province of Asia” had deserted him. These were his banner churches in Ephesus, Troas, and Colossae. And in Rome at his trial, “no one came to my support, but everyone deserted me.”

Though his ministry had been extensive, now he could count his supporters on two hands. Yet still he writes, “Now there is in store for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award me on that day.” Paul lived every moment in this life for his first moment in the next. The accolades of people would never be its substitute.

Often in my present pastorate, what we perceived to be pleasing to God and what would have quickly increased our numbers have been two different things. Deciding not to invest large sums into our facility, or not to manipulate people to do busy “church work,” or not to make our services less controversial have cost us more people than we’ve gained. The choices have not been easy. The pressure to grow is ever present. The desire to have colleagues believe in what I’m doing is strong. But faithfulness to Jesus must be stronger.

Pastors must be free to follow their calling, whether it leads them to serve among repenting multitudes as Jonah did, or to preach as Isaiah until all who hear reject the God you preach. We can’t predetermine our lot. What matters is that our calling is deeply rooted in our relationship with the Father and our actions in obedience to his Word. Sure, Jonah had a larger following, but do you think he was the better preacher? His obedience was characterized by malice and mistrust, Isaiah’s by loving submission.

“The full flood of life is … not in seeing God’s work succeed, but in the perfect understanding of God, and the communion with him that Jesus himself had,” Oswald Chambers said in My Utmost for His Highest. This is where success is measured—not in externals, but in a quiet heart before the Lord. Though others can’t know that, we can be free to live for the first moment he embraces us and says, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”