the measure of a ministry...

Growing up Roman Catholic, we didn’t measured the success of a priest by how many parishioners he could successfully get to attend church in his Parish, on what would be considered a regular basis (that’s a loose basis.) Any given priest would have 2-3, maybe 4 churches that were under his leadership. So the overall size of the Parish trumped any given size of a single church. For example, the Bartibogue congregation was much larger than the Barryville congregation (Barryville was mine). It was at least 4 times bigger. But never did Barryville feel inadequate in light of Bartibogue. You see in the Roman Catholic church, at least in my day, it wasn’t about numbers. It wasn’t even about offering. It was about community difference. Every year each church would hold a “picnic” where they would have games for the kids, bake sales, bingo and later that night a dance with lots and lots of liquor (I know,…I know). The Barryville community always had a far better picnic. We would get all our heads together and think up the best possible way to reach out to our community. It was a small community, only about 500-600, and we knew everyone, but it was still a chance for us to serve people who didn’t come to church. Bartibogue, although having a much larger congregation and much more money, had a lackluster picnic that even the kids didn’t want to go to.

Now I realize that the Roman Catholic Church has not been the model for holiness and deep spiritual growth, but there is something to be said about the attitude of these two country churches. My must we make “numbers” our primary standard of growth. To be frank, it makes me sick to my stomach when church leaders make it the center point of discussion and the gage of success.

It’s really sad/disturbing when a leader/pastor does not get excited about a child/student/adult coming to a new understanding of faith in Jesus, or rediscovering Christ and experiencing an awakening, but is praising the Lord when we hit a new benchmark of attendance, even if it’s only for one week. Now, every church wants to grow, and we are all part of the crew that is growing the Kingdom of God, but when did we forget that being the church and making disciples was our “calling”, and not “get them to come to church, and count them so that we can feel adequate and good about ourselves”.

Sick to my stomach. A person isn’t a Christian if he/she comes to our church. We have not grown the Kingdom every time we get someone to fill out our “new attendee” cards. We fulfill the great commission when we show someone the love of Christ. When we do everything in our power and influence to help them stop fighting the flow of God’s story, but to let go and join him. Helping people freely accept God’s love and freely give it away.

In the new movie the Departed, Jack Nicholson’s character says this: “I don’t want to be a product of my environment, I want my environment to be a product of me.” If we need a measure or standard for our ministry/churches, isn’t that a more reasonable gage? Churches that aren’t products of their environment, but environments that are products of their churches.

Let’s change our world, and let’s start with ourselves: the leaders God has raised up to lead people.