The Gift of Data (Part 2)

This is the second post in a series. Click here to read the first. 

Have you ever heard a church leader (lay or ordained) say, “I don’t care about numbers,” or “Numbers aren’t important to me”?

I have. Usually, the person speaking these words is making the point that faith is not a popularity contest. Numbers are no way to tell whether a church is “succeeding” in its mission. This is a good point, and I agree with it. We can’t idolize data.

But we have to care about data; we can’t afford to ignore it. Because in the church, numbers aren’t numbers. Numbers are people.

The church doesn’t manufacture widgets. When we are at our best, God uses us to shape human lives. The church exists to make disciples of Jesus Christ who live God’s mission of reconciliation in the world.

So when we develop data, mostly we count human beings. How many human beings worship with us regularly? How many were new this year? How many are with us on an “average” Sunday?

When we describe these numbers as “membership” or “attendance” it’s easy to forget that what we’re counting is people: people choosing to be part of the body of Christ.

Sometimes we count the gifts human beings give to God through the church. We might call this “plate” or “pledge” or “offerings.” But what we’re talking about is the generosity of a human soul.

In all my years in the church, I’ve never heard someone say, “I don’t care about people.” It’s culturally unacceptable, because it runs completely counter to the gospel. We don’t realize that when we say, “I don’t care about numbers” we’re really saying, “I don’t care about people.”

Would you ever hear these sentences in the church?

I don’t care if people discovered God’s love for the first time.

I don’t care if people feel so spiritually nourished they want to be here every week.

I don’t care if people are so committed to Christ’s mission here that they give abundantly.

No, you wouldn’t. But that’s what we’re saying if we don’t care about the number of newcomers, or we don’t care about the Sunday attendance, or we don’t care what people give.

Shh… come closer. I’m going to tell you a secret: I think we do care. Even when we say we don’t care, I think we actually care passionately.

We just think that caring is somewhat uncool, because we’re supposed to be “above” all that. We’re the church. Numbers shouldn’t matter to us.

Numbers matter for only one reason: because people matter.

And it’s okay to say so.

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Have you ever heard a church leader (lay or ordained) say “Numbers don’t matter”?

What do you think they meant by it?