Numbers in Ministry

Yesterday I shared this on my Facebook page. I was in the mood to share and I will do that from time to time. Pastor's are not perfect people no matter how much you "pay" them to be. One of my struggles in ministry was the "numbers" game. You had to have good "numbers" in order for your church to be succesful. Garbage. So below is the post from yesterday, if you're struggling with "numbers" in ministry, I pray this will be a help to you:

"I used to struggle with "numbers" in ministry. As an associate pastor, I would be hauled in front of the personnel committee and some grumpy guss church member would point a finger and say "You've got to get your numbers up! You've got to get your numbers up!" And it would rip through me that numbers are so important and that the more numbers we had the happier these people would be, the church would be growing, all the problems would disappear, puppies wouldn't poop on the floor, well you see where that's headed. In other words, "numbers" are the most important thing in ministry. I believed that lie for 15 years in ministry. When I became the Pastor of Lynch Station I still believed that lie and I would be so broken and hurt when our numbers were down on a Sunday morning. I took it personally, I was a "numbers" guy, I tracked attendance, looked for trends, compared holidays. I looked for answers in numbers because I was taught that numbers were the answer. I finally broke free from that lie two years ago. The Lord freed me from it, numbers are not the most important part of ministry, the people who show up are. The broken, hurting, people desperately seeking the truth of Scripture. I was so focused on who didn't show up that I was missing who did. I had people blaming me behind closed doors that it was my fault that our church wasn't growing. (Read your Bible, it's not the pastor's job to grow the church because it's not his church to grow.) I am sharing this because we are tempted to gauge success in the church based on numbers. Give me twenty spirit filled people any day over 100 who don't care about God or His Word. Numbers are a smokescreen, being involved in your church family is not. I just felt the need to share this because I know that other's get caught up in numbers, let me encourage you to focus on the people who show up and love on them."