Yesterday I left you with this question: 

If you and I go fishing together and you are catching fish but every once in a while I snag a fish from your holding tank and put them into mine am I an effective fisherman?

The answer is an emphatic ‘no’.  

Counting the fish in my tank after someone else did the work to catch them may make me seem successful at catching fish but it does not mean that I am a good fisherman.

Unfortunately, this is the present state of the American Church.  Pastors are celebrating ‘growth’ of their congregations that are actually filled with Christians who came to Christ in other years and other ministries.  A growing attendance is great but it doesn’t tell the tale of effectiveness.  Church hoppers and shoppers are giving a false sense of growth, effectiveness and overall leadership strength.  As one church looses membership, another gains.  One Pastor looks like a heel and the other the hero.  The question remains… are we being effective? 

If the goal is simply collecting Christians we need not look deeper than Sunday morning attendance.  If the goal however is building and sustaining healthy churches there is a far greater indicator available.

So how should we measure our church health?  Baptisms.  

Baptism in to the Evangelical Christian is a public profession of an inward change.  Peter preached “Repent and be Baptized” (Acts 2:38).  Jesus said “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20)

What is the point of the local church?  To make disciples.  

What is the biblical method to discern who is coming to faith?  Baptism.

What do we disciples do?  Obey Jesus… who told us to… make disciples.  So at the end of the day disciple-making is a huge indicator as to the health of our churches.

Let me illustrate this in Christian terms:  Chic-Fil-A

What is the point of Chic-Fil-A?  To sell chicken.

What would you think of a Chic-Fil-A owner/operator who kept celebrating how many ice-cream cones he/she sold while ignoring the fact that he/she wasn’t selling much chicken?  You’d shake this person silly wouldn’t you?  You’d say:

“Hey, you’re supposed to be selling great tasting chicken.  Your mission statement is all about chicken.  You promote chicken.  For goodness sake you have a huge cow painting billboards on the highway telling people to “eat more chikin”.  Who cares if you sold more waffle fries?… you’re not selling chicken!”

The Church is supposed to be making disciples.  

If we’re not making disciples we’re not making an eternal difference.

In the Christian church we tend to ‘celebrate’ wins that aren’t really wins.  Like the Chic-Fil-A operator who celebrates waffle fries, we invent new ways to be happy even though we are not actually fulfilling the mission of Jesus.  We have invented entire divisions of denominational organizations designed to cater to “Christians” who are not making disciples.  Visit your local Christian bookstore.  Ask yourself how much of what is on the shelves is designed for the brand new believer in Christ.  Next to nothing.  I have a hard time with that.

What are our churches producing if the people we label ‘disciples’ are not themselves actually making new disciples?

How can a church with a dry-rotted baptistry claim to be healthy?

I know, some people would say “We are healthy because our people are in small groups and/or ministry teams.” or “Have you seen the stats of our 101, 201,301, 401 classes?”   Boo.

Everything your church does should ultimately lead to making disciples.

If your small groups are teaching people to follow the Jesus who commanded his disciples to go and make disciples… the result of your small groups will be…?  You got it… new disciples.

How do you quantify effectiveness in making new disciples vs. swapping sheep?  Baptisms.

At the end of the day we need to be focused on counting what counts. If the goal of the church is to advance the Kingdom of Jesus then we need to make new disciples.

The fully developed disciple reproduces himself/herself in the life of a third-spiritual generation.  Baptisms.  

The successful small group leads people toward becoming a fully developed reproducing disciple.  Baptisms.

The successful ministry team is one that is helpful in advancing the churches mission to make disciples. Baptisms.

The useful counseling session, bible study, sermon series… all add up to fully-devoted disciples who reproduce themselves in a third spiritual generation which will ultimately reveal itself in …?  You got it… Baptisms.  

Count what counts.  If our church gets bogged down or clogged up it will show in the fact that we’re not making new disciples.  I don’t know about you but I believe the local church has a far greater mission than that of any social club or civic group.  Our great commission is to point people to Jesus.

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age. – Jesus – Matthew 28:19-20

 

Today I read a post by Shawn Lovejoy which is actually an excerpt from his book ‘The Measure of Our Success: An Impassioned Plea To Pastors”.  I purchased his book on Kindle this morning and got about 20% through before my first meeting of the day.  Shawn’s post ‘Who Are We Reaching’ hits on a theme from a conversation I brought up to a ministry friend just yesterday.

My friend is in a denominational role which requires him to interface with many churches.  During the course of our conversation we got into a discussion about how resources are allocated, the role of overhead and determining effectiveness of ministries:  established as well as church plants.

Like Shawn, I believe we measure the wrong things.  

Attendance:

Attendance is an indicator but not a valid measurement of health.  Healthy things grow but I am most concerned with HOW things grow before I determine whether or not they are ‘healthy’.

So what do I look for?  Baptisms.

Status Quo:

It’s weird but I’ve noticed that people like to keep their jobs even if it means justifying a lack of productivity.  Most people do not want to admit when they are failing.

What DO you do if you’re failing?  

a.  Lie about your metrics.

b.  Change the metrics.

c.  Pretend metrics aren’t important.

d.  Measure metrics that do not matter.

e.  Admit it & fix it.

Instead of admitting that churches aren’t doing what they’re supposed to be doing, we’ve developed entire systems around justifying everything and everyone but I honestly believe most of us are drastically missing the mark.  Jesus told us to make disciples.  To me it becomes a simple question:  Are we?

In our denomination as in yours, we talk a lot about church ‘growth’.  When we plant churches we’re looking to see quick success so we can feel good about the investment made.  It is reasonable to quantify resources to effectiveness… I just believe we have our eyes focused on the wrong ball.

A Sunday morning attendance measurement doesn’t make sense to me.

If you and I go fishing together and you are catching fish but every once in a while I snag a fish from your holding tank and put them into mine am I an effective fisherman?  

To be continued…  check out Part 2

 

 

 

Last week I came across a video in which a homosexual activist named Dan Savage, creator of the “It Gets Better Project”, was invited to speak as a keynote speaker at NSPA/ JEA’s annual High School Journalism convention, “Journalism on the Edge”.  Many published reports indicate that Mr. Savage took time in his speech to inform these teenagers of his sexual desire of (and exploits with) his current partner.

During the middle of his speech he stops and says “The Bible”. 

What followed was a tirade of insults and cursing hurled at Christians who maintain a biblical worldview.  A worldview is quite simply shorthand for ‘how you see the world’.  Everyone has a worldview that serves as a filter by which they process what is going on around them.  For Christians who take their bible seriously, much of their worldview is formed by scripture.  Watch this video and ask if this anti-bullying talk is ‘tolerant’, ‘accepting’, ‘loving’ or ‘none of the above’.

This bullying attack – in a room of minors under the care of their respective educators- was done under the guise of Mr. Savage’s anti-bullying campaign.  Ironically in the video (link below) he notes that he is just “defending himself”.  I suppose he was defending himself from the phantom Christian who had a microphone reading scripture and telling him he was going to hell.  Mr. Savage was not defending himself he was acting in a manner completely contradictory to his ‘anti-bullying’ campaign.  At that moment he WAS the bully.  The vast majority of Christians in this country do not protest with signs against homosexuality but they also should not be forced to ‘tolerate’ this behavior into acceptance.

VIDEO:  Dan Savage attacks Christians as a Christian student walks out in protest.  Many Christian High School students walked out as Mr. Savage insulted these minors.  

This speech by Dan Savage is a great reminder of the fact that ‘tolerance’ tends to shift in meaning depending on the person using it at the moment.

As a Christian I actually find ‘tolerance’ to be a pathetic and low-level virtue when compared to the Christian virtue of love.

I also submit that the actual connotation of the word ‘tolerance’ has gradually been shifted to the point where ‘tolerance’ is now interchangeable with ‘acceptance’.  If you are in favor of elevating discourse without compromising your Christian faith, please continue to read:

Below are definitions according to merriam-webster.com.  I took the liberty of selecting the definition that most relates to public discourse.

Tolerance-

2a : sympathy or indulgence for beliefs or practices differing from or conflicting with one’s own

b : the act of allowing something : toleration

Acceptance-

3 : the act of accepting : the fact of being accepted : approval

Love-

4a : unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another: as (1) : the fatherly concern of God for humankind (2) : brotherly concern for others

What the world says:  “Tolerance”

What the world means: “Acceptance”

The word “tolerance” is most often used as an atomic bomb to silence anyone promoting boundaries in sexual behavior.

What is being demanded  is not tolerance but rather acceptance.  

As a Christian I don’t want people to be simply tolerated or even accepted, I want people to be loved.  

Tolerance:

To ‘tolerate’ a behavior does not require an acceptance or approval of that behavior. I can ‘tolerate’ loud music blaring from a car in my neighborhood but it does not mean that I am to accept it.  At some point I will reach a ‘tolerance’ threshold where I can no longer stand the noise and I desire to remove myself from the vicinity of the sound or act in such a way as to request that the noise level come down to a level that is deemed ‘socially acceptable’.  What if, however, there was a way to convince the rest of my neighborhood that loud noise wasn’t the problem but actually my ‘intolerance’ of noise was the problem.  Then we would be having a different conversation.

Acceptance:

If you take away my recourse and tell me to ‘tolerate’ an indefinite amount of loud noise outside of my home without ever acting to stop the noise, you have moved beyond asking me to ‘tolerate’ a particular behavior and into an area where you are asking me to ‘accept’ a ‘new normal’ level of noise.  To ‘tolerate’ a behavior and to ‘accept’ a behavior are two totally different propositions.  I can tolerate you by ignoring you to the best of my ability but when you move into my life with your actions then what you really want is for me to accept and approve of your behavior.  These are vastly differing requests.  Today in our society we are not being asked to ‘tolerate’ but rather ‘accept’ all forms of sexual expression not only in private homes of others but in every public arena, on television, our children’s text books and in our governing laws.  Society is being beaten over the head with the use of the word ‘tolerance’ to the point where we have blurred ‘tolerance’ and ‘acceptance’.

Love:

The biblical picture of love does not require me to tolerate or accept behavior that is unhealthy for the individual and demeaning to God.  In fact, a biblical account of love is that I seek the best interest for others around me… even better than myself.  I am to love with gentleness and respect.  Jesus loved the world enough to die for the world and provide the avenue for eternal life but he did not ‘accept’ or ‘tolerate’ sin.

It is the very fact that sin is so vile  and so offensive to God that God’s holiness demanded a brutal and unrelenting punishment.  That punishment is owed to all of us who sin but Jesus took on that punishment so that we may have life.  Jesus’ very existence demonstrated God’s wrath over sin, not his acceptance or tolerance.

If you look at the woman at the well for example, she was caught in sexual sin.  Like many people she got caught up in sexual sin while looking for love.  Love came along and said “Go and sin no more.”  Love told  her to drop the substitute and come to God.  Loving the individual does not mean accepting or even tolerating behavior harmful to that individual.

I propose to you that genuine biblical love is far greater than tolerance or even acceptance.

Think drug addiction.

Tolerance would encourage me to allow the addict and the addiction to continue.  As the great theologian Axel Rose once said ‘Live and let die.’

Acceptance would call me to more than tolerance I suppose.  Acceptance would say that my duty is to ‘support’ the addict and potentially keep them from the worst of the pain by providing clean needles or even a continual supply of drugs.

To love an addict would be to assist in any way possible to help that person become clean, sober and healthy.  That process may take years or even decades but love compels me to not tolerate or accept the things that cause harm to the one I love.

Love Raises The Bar.

The Christian view of love demands that we speak up boldly with gentleness and respect but we do not tolerate or accept behavior that is not loving, that is behavior that ultimately harms the individual and society.  Love raises the bar.

Look around our world today and ask yourself what the world would look like if a generation of children were taught a biblical worldview with regard to sexual morality and marriage. 

Obviously, a person wouldn’t identify themselves first and foremost by how they achieved an orgasm.

Young ladies would no longer give themselves over to the lusts of adolescent boys.

Teen pregnancy would decrease along with abortion on demand, cohabitation and the perpetual cycle of divorce.

Emotional stability and home stability would lead to higher productivity in educational and vocational pursuits which ultimately benefits all of us.  These desires are the goal of love.

To tolerate or accept less than God’s best is not loving but to speak truth with gentleness and respect is very much the essence of Christian love.   

If you are a Christian I urge you to study and understand how even God’s commands and restrictions are evidence of His love.  As you understand why a loving God provides boundaries please do not feel pressured to embrace a position less than loving.  Tolerance and acceptance are not loving, they are harmful.  Pointing people to Jesus as The Way is the greatest act of love.