I confess to sporadic bouts of doubt and cynicism. These intrusions of carnality into my pastor-heart spring from the temptation to play the church numbers game, creating my pastoral self-image based on attendance figures.
I thought when I finally led a large congregation I’d be able to shed the demeaning sense of inadequacy the game provokes in me. Not so. I still wrestle at times with a hideous smallness in my soul, just as I did years ago when Anna and I planted a church that zoomed from zero to forty-five in four years.
I began to doubt my motives when I found comfort in reports that another pastor had a setback. I grew irritated over the practice of those who glibly rounded off numbers. (Apparently nobody ever had 484 in attendance, only 500).
I lived in the shadow of three-digit attendance figures. I thought the day I broke one hundred, a peace would fill my soul. When it happened, solace was temporary, and soon I was haunted again. Only the numbers had changed.
Which is worse: the pain of being asked, “How many did you have yesterday?” after attendance has slumped, or the pain of not being asked when attendance is up?
While speaking recently, I needed to refer to our church’s size. Suddenly I heard myself rounding off to the next highest number. I even felt myself beginning to preen! Nauseated at my readiness to lock my identity to a number, I confessed my concession to this puniness of soul. While exhorting others to integrity, I was compromising it.
Let me say that I do believe in counting sheep. There are examples in the Bible of good record keeping and numerical reports. However, the Word also warns against becoming more concerned with numerical strength than with God’s ways. David reaped judgment when he displeased the Lord with a census (2 Sam. 24).
Although the use of numbers is not unscriptural, I doubt the wisdom of publishing big-growth numbers. I think I’m free from professional jealousy, but the “zero to __ thousand in __ years” reports that barrage pastors can be soul-wearying. It’s hard to rejoice in such numbers when your own congregation sagged from 74 to 61 last Sunday.
Learning from the unusual
Yet some churches grow to be quite large. How are we to respond to such reports?
I believe God wants us to learn from super churches, but I doubt the lesson is what we tend to think.
I believe congregations of thousands are abnormal. But human nature being what it is, it takes big to get our attention. If I listen to the Spirit’s voice and witness his work in a growth situation, there’s usually a prophetic word there, a key statement, or an emphasis sounding forth.
One church may be characterized by its evangelism program, another by its teaching ministry, others by their emphases on miracles, missions, small groups, prayer, etc. God is not indicating their superiority or his preference by granting growth. He’s simply directing our attention to things that are important to him. No congregation has a monopoly on the latest word from God, but a composite of truths can be heard and balanced by listening to God where unusual growth is occurring.
The challenge for me is to listen to the Holy Spirit and to quit measuring my pastoral success by playing the numbers game.
—Jack Hayford Church on the Way Van Nuys, California
1998 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. For reprint information call 630-260-6200 or contact us.
