To Be Honest

I am going to go out on a limb and be transparent. You have heard it said that honesty is the best policy so here goes.

Summers are frustrating to me as a pastor. We see numbers on Sunday mornings drop. We see attendance at the mid-week service jump off the cliff. We try to spend so much time trying to create momentum and excitement only to see it wane in the summers. Every fall we pull out all the stops to get people back attending church once again. It can be very discouraging. I see so many of my fellow pastors take a month off in the summer to refuel their own lives. Sometimes I wonder if it is because they don't want to have to look out into all those empty seats staring at them that just a few months before were full of people excited about what God was doing in their lives.

But then last night I came across this in a book I am reading called "Mad Church Disease."

".... It breaks my heart when I hear pastors of churches say, 'We only had seventy-five people today' or 'Only two hundred people showed up.' Only? I'm sorry. Are those seventy-five or two hundred people not enough for you?.... Numbers have become an addiction. We flaunt our numbers, despise our numbers, fret about our numbers. Our numbers validate us. But they shouldn't. We often don't know how God is using us. We only need to know that He is- and respond with grateful hearts. After hearing it over and over, leaders who aren't as 'successful' start believing the lies that maybe God just hasn't blessed them like He blesses other churches or leaders. And at that point, those leaders either shut down or begin to be driven for their need for affirmation. We have completely lost sight of the most important fact..... we are called."

I can get so caught up in numbers that I lose sight of lives. Yes, lives are numbers. But how many lives need to be affected through me in order for me to be "successful"? One, 10, 100, 200, how many until I am content and satisfied? I know this for myself. If I allow what I see to influence my life, I can easily become bitter and discontent. My job is to do the best with what God has given me and He will take care of the rest. Yes, I have goals and it is important to have something to shoot for. But I cannot let empty seats and people who don't follow through on their commitments to influence how I lead my life.

I am called by God to live for Him not to live for numbers.