I’ve been sharing some of the top viewed blogs of 2011, and today’s seems especially appropriate as we head into the Christmas season. At our church, we’re expecting thousands of people to make professions of faith in Christ this week in our worship experiences.
And I will unapologetically publicly celebrate each and every one. Here’s why:

We are all about the numbers

I get asked all the time if Elevation is all about the numbers.
Let me just clarify something:
Our church is all about the numbers.

The number of lives that Jesus can permeate and penetrate with the gospel.
The number of marriages that can be restored.
The number of teenagers following the Lord.
The number of depressed people that can find hope in Jesus.
The number of dads who don’t give their kids any attention who will learn to order their lives by the Word of God and start prioritizing their families.

What else matters? What else should we be about?

This might come as a shock to a lot of people, but measuring numbers and putting an emphasis on them isn’t a new phenomenon. 2000 years ago, Luke by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit wrote:
41 Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day…47 And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
Acts 2:41, 47

Apparently God is all about the numbers. So I want to be, too. And so should you.

It’s unacceptable to me as a pastor that we would stop growing when the Lord wants to add to our number daily those who are being saved. And in order for that to happen, we need to track every scrap of statistical data at our disposal. We’ve got to make sure we’re measuring ministry numbers to measure our effectiveness and enlarge the Kingdom of God. I don’t want to waste a single dollar or second on a program, piece of equipment, or ministry position that isn’t the best option for reaching the most people.

You might be averse to numbers for a number of reasons.

Maybe you don’t like the idea of big crowds. If that’s the case, you wouldn’t have liked the New Testament Church. And you really won’t like heaven.

Maybe you think it steals away from discipleship. It’s possible. But it’s just as possible for that to happen in a church of 10 people as it is in a church of 10,000.

Whatever your reason is, remember: every number is indicative of a story.
Personally, I don’t want to put a cap on the number of stories God wants to redeem. Especially when I read this:
9 I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count. 10 And they cried out in a loud voice: “Salvation belongs to our God.”
Revelation 7:9-10

Now that’s a number worth shooting for. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to wait until I die to see this. I want to see this partially fulfilled in my lifetime. More people worshipping Jesus than I can count.

I want to see a little heaven on earth through Elevation Church. Through every church. I think it’s what God wants too.

And that’s why we’re all about the numbers.

I’m learning to think a little more long term these days.
I’ll be honest, because I’m young and we have a high growth rate at our church, I can get into a mode that demands immediate results and eliminates anything that doesn’t produce right away.

Now God’s giving me an understanding that you can’t measure everything you started today, tomorrow.

Some of the best innovations are resource suckers until they hit. Then, they either lead to the next, closer thing, or they themselves become the game changer.

I’m praying for God to give me the long term lens through which to see a few issues I’m facing today.

When he was in the house, he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the road?” But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest. Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, “If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all.”
Luke 9:33-35

In my experience, a lot of people use these verses to say that we shouldn’t try to be great. That things like ambition, aspiring to be a leader, or wanting God to increase your platform are straight up unbiblical. Not good at all.

But when you read these verses, you can’t really find that idea at all. Jesus didn’t say, stop trying to be great. He just said, get there a different way. Flip the funnel and put yourself at the bottom, and that’s how you’ll become great.

You find this same idea when you study the life of John the Baptist. It’s interesting that Jesus had no problem calling John the greatest man ever. If it is bad to be great, you think Jesus would avoid that terminology. But once we understand why Jesus called John the Baptist the greatest man ever, it makes perfect sense. It wasn’t because he was greater than Jesus. It was because he had this attitude about Jesus:
He must become greater; I must become less. (John 3:30)

There is nothing wrong with wanting to be great. In terms of your performance. Or your influence.

But what you have to ask is:
Why do I want to be great? And how am I going to get there?

If you want to be great, be great for God’s sake.
If you want to be great, be great in a way that makes Jesus even greater.
If you want to be great, be a servant of all.
If you want to be great, flip the funnel. Put yourself at the bottom.

At its core, ministry is about connecting people to God.

For me, that automatically brings the idea of a bridge to mind. Now of course Jesus and his sacrifice on the cross is the only bridge between God and humanity. But in ministry, we’re connecting people to Jesus, who ultimately connects them to God. So the bridge metaphor is apt.

If ministry serves as a bridge for people to connect with God, it’s necessary and vital that we are constantly evaluating the structural integrity of what we’re working with. Even the smallest gap can derail people by the way we do our ministry.

If you think that’s an overstatement or you don’t believe me, let me ask you this:
If you were driving on a bridge, and there was a gap in the bridge, how big would the gap need to be before you wouldn’t want to drive on it?

The truth is it doesn’t take but one small gap in this whole enormous bridge called ‘ministry’ to prevent people from getting to where they’re supposed to go. One gap can cause the whole thing to come unbuckled.

For example, there may be somebody who has been coming to our church, and they love it. But then they try to get in a small group, and we don’t return their email.  Who knows, that may be the end of the line for them when it comes to active participation in a church community. And all because of poor communication.

A small gap. A big difference.

That’s just one example. The same is true when it comes to how we’re treating first-time guests. The quality of our kid’s ministry. And even something as small as the frequency of audio and visual glitches.

Small gaps. Big difference.

What are the gaps in your ministry? What are the holes that people might fall through as you try to connect them with God?

Take a minute today and write all of them down. And then strategize and commit to fixing them. After all, the weaknesses in our churches aren’t just minor deficiencies that need to be acknowledged. They’re gaps that need to be filled.