Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire (cont.)

Have you noticed that whenever you ask a fellow Christian these days about his or her church, the subject invariably goes to attendance?
Question: "Tell me about your church. How is the Lord's work coming along there?"
Answer: "Well, we have about three hundred on Sunday, I'd say."
When I ask fellow pastors the same question, I get the same answer - plus two others: "Membership is at five-fifty, we've just finished a new education wing, and our gross income this year will top out at about for hundred thousand."

Attendance, buildings, and cash. A-B-C: The new holy trinity.

No church, including the one I pastor, should be measured by its attendance.

The apostles weren't trying to finesse people. They had not the faintest intention of asking, "What do people want to hear? How can we draw more people to church on Sunday?"

God nowhere asks anyone to have a large church. He only calls us to do his work, proclaiming his Word to people he loves under the anointing and power of the Holy Spirit to produce results that only he can bring about.

I've got to say that I've been guilty of answering questions about my church with the A. It seems pretty natural to describe to someone who isn't familiar with your church, the attendance, so they get a feel for the size. I haven't talked about the income, but maybe sometimes I've mentioned building upgrades. It's quite a paradigm shift to talk about changed individuals instead of talking about church in a corporate sense. Paul talked about the number of people added to their numbers, but that's an incremental number of saved souls, not actual attendance of the church.

Food for thought.

How do you describe your church? By the size, ministry events, buildings or something else? Do you ever witness about a transformed life? Isn't that where the proof of the pudding is? Isn't that the thing that will grab a hold of someones heart and make them want to come to your church? Wouldn't that give them hope that God could do the same thing for them? Help them overcome?

Blessings on this lovely Saturday.