The Power of Numbers
This past Sunday was a great time for the church. We had a great worship service, I felt good about the sermon, we had several visitors from the community, things were just really good anyway I looked at it. After service though several members were in a buzz about something. I wasn't really sure what it was until one of them pointed it out to me. "Did you know that we had 122 people here today?" (This might not seem like a lot of people to some of you but when we first started here the numbers were around 60 or so.) In fact I did not know how many had been there that Sunday. I could tell we had a pretty good crowd. We have someone that counts the number in the service and then posts it on a bulletin board in the back of the church building along with the giving for that Sunday. It was good news for me and yet I was shocked about how excited people got over it. It made me happy to see some of them so excited about the way things are going at church but it surprised me that a number could spur on such excitement! Then it hit me numbers drive so much of our lives. We have SAT scores, GPA's , credit scores, bank accounts, and so many other things where numbers determine how the things are rated. We have numbers that tell us how popular a president is , what movies you should see, what music you should listen to, and what products to by. It is funny how something as small as a number can have such an effect on your life. I am glad that our church members are excited about the growing number of people in our church services but I don't want us to become too focused on numbers. We are looking to save souls and not just fill our building with warm bodies. Does anyone know how to put a number to spiritual maturity ? If you do let me know I want to look at the numbers! :)
