Saturday, July 02, 2005
One of my pet peeves as a mission-minded, micro-church (as opposed to mega-church) pastor is the question I often hear from fellow Christians: "How big is your church?" The question irks me because it reveals a worldly mindset that evaluates Kingdom matters by worldly standards.
Rather than, "How many of your members are involved in mission work?" or "How many of your church members are giving themselves away in service to Jesus and others?" we pastors too often hear ridiculous questions such as "How big is your church?" or "How many are you running?" The idea behind these questions is that bigger is better (a viewpoint that is scripturally suspect).
In this regard, I heard a preacher on television yesterday take to task the church in America for its preoccupation with numbers and "Madison Avenue" marketing techniques. He correctly pointed out that when Jesus evaluated seven churches in Asia Minor (see Revelation 2-3), He said nothing about numbers! Instead, the Lord was concerned about false teaching, lack of love, sexual immorality and spiritual lukewarmness.
Sadly, much of the American church shares none of the concern of Jesus, but is focused instead on glitz and glamour, personalities and numbers, gimmicks and fads. Surely the saying is true: the church in our time is a mile wide but only an inch deep.
