I have been encouraged not to measure the success of the ministry by the numbers.
I actually have the opposite problem. I tend to be a bit confused and concerned when our numbers go up, because we have such limited time and resources.
This Sunday, while Ruthie was out of town, I drove from Lawrenceville (the mold situation is still pending) down to our apartment complex to pick up some kids and bring them to a local church. After taking one carful of kids, I called a second family who sometimes comes along. I was running late, but I figured I'd give them a ring.
"Hey, Lesly, anyone coming from your house this morning?"
"Yeah. There's six."
"Six? Total? Who?"
"We're coming, and there's six more."
Meaning that Lesly's whole family of four wanted to come, and they had six others who wanted to join them.
I called my friend Jonathan from Communicycle and asked if he could swing by and squeeze in a few kids. True to form, he came to the rescue.
Even with Jonathan's help, I ended up taking a total of three trips between the apartment complex and the church, and when the service was over, I did it again to get them all home. By the end, I felt exhausted from the stress and disappointed at the rushed interactions that the volume of lives necessitated.
So the additional numbers give us a chance to touch more lives, and they look good on our blogs (the fact that 13 unchurched kids got to go to church this Sunday is an impressive stat. More impressive is that all of those kids were shown love in a small way, which is astounding. So please take what I'm about to say with care, because I don't mean to downgrade the blessing of a numerically growing ministry).
Here's the thing about numbers: I believe in a God who works on the micro- and macro- levels. But when it comes to frienships and time spent together, I'm a micro- kind of guy. I want to make every relationship in my life count, but it gets harder the more relationships I have.
Sometimes it feels like the opportunities multiply in direct proportion to how quickly our resources dwindle.
So to all those praying for our ministry to grow, please pray that we will have the resources, partners, time, and energy to meet the demands that those rising numbers bring. And that we will do a good job with every single life we touch.
I actually have the opposite problem. I tend to be a bit confused and concerned when our numbers go up, because we have such limited time and resources.
This Sunday, while Ruthie was out of town, I drove from Lawrenceville (the mold situation is still pending) down to our apartment complex to pick up some kids and bring them to a local church. After taking one carful of kids, I called a second family who sometimes comes along. I was running late, but I figured I'd give them a ring.
"Hey, Lesly, anyone coming from your house this morning?"
"Yeah. There's six."
"Six? Total? Who?"
"We're coming, and there's six more."
Meaning that Lesly's whole family of four wanted to come, and they had six others who wanted to join them.
I called my friend Jonathan from Communicycle and asked if he could swing by and squeeze in a few kids. True to form, he came to the rescue.
Even with Jonathan's help, I ended up taking a total of three trips between the apartment complex and the church, and when the service was over, I did it again to get them all home. By the end, I felt exhausted from the stress and disappointed at the rushed interactions that the volume of lives necessitated.
So the additional numbers give us a chance to touch more lives, and they look good on our blogs (the fact that 13 unchurched kids got to go to church this Sunday is an impressive stat. More impressive is that all of those kids were shown love in a small way, which is astounding. So please take what I'm about to say with care, because I don't mean to downgrade the blessing of a numerically growing ministry).
Here's the thing about numbers: I believe in a God who works on the micro- and macro- levels. But when it comes to frienships and time spent together, I'm a micro- kind of guy. I want to make every relationship in my life count, but it gets harder the more relationships I have.
Sometimes it feels like the opportunities multiply in direct proportion to how quickly our resources dwindle.
So to all those praying for our ministry to grow, please pray that we will have the resources, partners, time, and energy to meet the demands that those rising numbers bring. And that we will do a good job with every single life we touch.
Yeah, there's a lady here that was a teacher in the public school that had a bunch of refugees in her class, so she started to get to know them and then their families. She tutored them and started taking them to awanas at her church. It grew. And grew. She eventually quit her job, the church began supporting her, she and her husband moved into the complex as the refugees and gave her a big 16 passenger van to start taking the kids around... and they grew beyond that pretty quickly.
ReplyDeleteNow it's a full church project with outside volunteers too... last time I helped out as a volunteer during an awanas fall festival they had probably 100 kids... and that was two years ago.
They moved awanas to the apartment complex itself, and they're working on starting an indigenous church... but that's the biggest challenge so far because there are very few adult Christian leaders.
Kacie, I love that story, and it reflects several dreams we have for the ministry here.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I would say the one major difference is that we want these families to go to a church where they are welcomed and included by the host culture. Especially since the kids speak english, they need to feel connected with a world outside of their hood.