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.

The South Carolina Gamecocks defeated the Clemson Tigers convincingly on Saturday, November 26, 2011. That makes 3 years in a row that the Tigers have fallen to the Cocks.

In the Furtick family, we pull for Clemson. My mom graduated from Clemson, so it’s all I’ve ever known. My boys did their best to cheer the Tigers to victory Saturday night. We were all pretty disappointed with the outcome.

Why am I telling you this?
For sympathy, a little bit.

But mainly to share an anecdote with you. Stay with me.

See, where I grew up, in the Lowcountry of South Carolina, there was almost nothing bigger than the Clemson/South Carolina in-state rivalry game. Not Christmas, not your kid’s graduation, not a personal appointment with Jesus for the rapture. I’m exaggerating only slightly.

And throughout my childhood, I just assumed that the football game that was the center of my universe must be the center of everyone else’s too. If I had met another little boy from China, I would have asked him whether he was a Clemson fan or a Carolina fan. Those two categories seemed as universal to me as dead or alive.

It probably wasn’t until my first year of college that I fully realized how little most of the world cared about Clemson or Carolina. Football fans in other parts of the country were consumed with their own rivalries. Worse yet, most of the world’s population didn’t care about American football at all. In fact, they didn’t even consider it real football. They reserved that name, understandably, for another sport.

It was a revelation for me:
All my life, I’ve been obsessed with something that most people couldn’t care less about.

As far as football goes, this is all pretty harmless. Team loyalties give us bragging rights, and something to talk about, at least in our own little corner of the world.

But, I think there’s a deeper analogy here about some of the dumb stuff that divides so many churches, ministries, and believers in Jesus.

I wonder how many “rivalries” we’ve set up within Christian culture that make us look completely aloof and disconnected to a watching world?

We’re busy drawing battle lines within our bubble:
“Are you Calvinist or Arminian?”
“Are you missional or attractional?”
“Are you a Cessationist or a Continuationist?”
“Are you seeker sensitive or (insert opposite of seeker sensitive)”
“Are you blah blah blah or yada yada yada?”

Meanwhile, most hurting people in the world have no idea what we’re talking about. (A lot of the time, neither do we, if you press us.)
What’s worse, they don’t care.
If the average non-Christian heard some of the debates that dominate many of our “Christian” conversations, they’d be sickly amused, completely confused, totally disgusted, or all of the above.

Bad things happen when we become obsessed with things that most people couldn’t care less about—and become distracted by passions that aren’t the highest priority in the heart of God.

We look like idiots when we launch full-scale wars over battles that Jesus didn’t die to fight. Most tragically, it keeps us from coming together, and really putting the devil on the run in our generation.

Of course, we’ve got to draw lines sometimes. Otherwise we fall off the “all paths lead to God” cliff, placing the terrorists on United Flight 175 on the same grounds of “sincerity” as Saint Peter.

And there’s certainly a place for theological distinction. For crying out loud, I’m part of a Protestant church.

But don’t you think that, too often, our in-church rivalries with other believers and ministries make us look like people with really small worlds?

God help us when we can’t respect one another’s different positions enough to realize:
Hey, we’re wearing the same jersey…

In Luke 5:1-5, the disciples had a problem.
They had been fishing all night, but their nets were empty.

In Luke 5:6-11, after they followed Jesus’ instruction to put out their nets again, the disciples faced a different problem.
Their nets were so full, they started to break.

Recently, I was facing some challenges that seemed overwhelming to me.
I found myself getting a bad attitude, feeling sorry for myself a little, and wishing I didn’t have to carry quite so much stress.

And then it was like the Lord spoke to me:
“At least your nets are full.”

That put it in perspective.

See, a lot of our problems are full net problems.
The kinds of problems that many others would love to have.
Breaking nets are the result of God’s blessings in our lives, if we choose to see it that way.

A messy house full of healthy kids.
A growing church with expansion needs.
A busy schedule because of abundant responsibilities and relationships.

Sure, it’s a strain to pull in the nets when they’re tearing apart from the heavy load.
But it beats sitting in the boat staring at nothing.

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.