Pride In Numbers

This post is actually the first post in a two part series. I was originally writing a post entitled “Looking beyond the tent” when this thought process came through my mind and burdened me. There seems to be a lot on my heart in regards to the “Pride in Numbers” and “Looking Beyond the Tent” right now so please bare with me.

The first thing I want to talk to you about is something that I have talked about before and is something that is slowly becoming a pet peeve of mine in ministry. Over the last month or so I have seen a lot of people talking about “The 10 largest churches in America” or “The 10 fastest growing churches in America”. Don’t get me wrong, this is great information however why are we basing it on numbers.

I have attended many mega churches in the past and churches that aren’t mega churches now but have a dream and a desire to be mega churches. What discourages me and actually kind of angers me is when I see the church press to get people to the service and get people to give their lives to Christ and then they set them on the side line.

This bothers me because they then become just a number. “Oh, we had 326 people accept Christ into their lives in March”. YAY for you but how many of those people are still sitting in your church? How many of those people are growing in the Word? Out of those that gave their lives to Christ, how many of them have a changed lifestyle?

We have to understand that people who give their lives to Christ need support. They need to learn how to develop a prayer life, they need to develop a life in the Word of God, and they need Christian friends and influence.

Many of the people in our churches today struggle with things today (smoking, drinking, etc) because they don’t have any “godly” people to chill with and help them grow. It’s about relationships people!!

I know hundreds of people that get “saved” and sign up as a member of a church as a religious duty but never change. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not all the churches fault. The person that has decided to give their life to Christ has to make effort to but right now I am talking about churches (or ministers) that get people to accept Christ into their lives and then bench them. Forget about them. Stop talking to them. Remove themselves from the relationship.

I am not telling anyone how to pastor their church or how to be a minister. That’s not what I am trying to do here. I am simply sharing something that I seen in churches across the country that is really starting to bother me. No wonder there is so much “church hurt” in our country. It’s because people aren’t seeing the true love of Christ. The true love of Christ is never-ending. It’s not temporal. We show the love of Christ in our actions.

Are you showing the love of Christ? It’s not about the number of souls … it’s about the impact in souls.