Happy Resurrection Day! He is Risen! And nothing else really matters. I have been pressured in the past to make other things of greater importance, but nothing compares. It seems ministry is gauged on numbers to determine success, and numbers can become a dipstick of whether my Master is blessing a ministry or not, whether the ministry is working or not, whether the ministry is in the will of my Master or not, and all sorts of other things. There is a problem with that view.
Narrow is the road and few find it that leads to life. Can popularity really function as a reliable guide when the good news being preached has the aroma of death to so many? Paul saw many respond to the good news, and then proceeded to write letters to those churches about their problems. I distrust numbers as a reliable measure of success for ministry. In fact, I have a different focus for ministry. As Chambers says in today’s entry, the job of the church is discipleship, not converts and baptisms. Conversions and baptisms naturally follow from discipleship of believers. But discipleship has been lost to a large degree in “larger” churches.
Not all large churches have lost this view, and ironically, it has been the central focus of two of the largest, Willowcreek and Saddleback. Then these churches formed a new “model” for growing churches. The churches grown from these models were judged and measured by their numbers, and the focus was lost. It is a sad irony. Sure there are things about larger churches that are wonderful, but large or small, a church focused on numbers to the detriment of disciple-ing their members, misses the point.
When I pastored in Idaho back at the end of the 90’s, facing the impending disaster of Y2K and the ensuing failure and demise of civilization (pause for dramatic and comedic effect), the church was always small. In this case, the size of the church might have been an indicator of problems, as the lack of significant change might also have indicated. But the problem was the lack of spiritual growth in the members as opposed to the lack of in-gathering. Anyone I was able to influence for the Kingdom I sent to another church. I didn’t want them to gain the bad habits and attitudes of the people I pastored. The problems of that church, the spiritual failure of the members, and lack of power from the Spirit of my Master were the indicators of problems and what those problems were. It was not the numbers but the lack of spiritual sensitivity that demonstrated a void of discipleship. So, I know about this from a standpoint of being on the wrong side of it.
Jesus rose from the grave, the First Born from the dead, and Precursor of all of us who have been called to eternal life. I celebrate that fact today. What would have been different in my ministry had I celebrated that every day? Not to “what if” myself to death, but really, what if I had focused on the resurrection then to the exclusion of death? What if I had returned every complaint, every back-biting comment, the cynicism, sarcasm, and pessimism (including all my own examples of these) back to the empty tomb? What would have been different? The answer is easy. I would have been different. I can present discipleship, but I can’t make my fellow believers accept it or change. The difference in me would have been enough. Had I been different, the influence I would have had would have been different. I have no idea what the outcome would have been, whether it would have been different or whether it would have materialized faster. I just know that I would have been different.
So, today, will I be different? Will I permit myself to dwell in the cool of the garden? The ground has shaken, the angels arrived, the guards collapsed and then fled, women came, were astonished and left, and some disciples came and left puzzled. I sit among the dew covered garden plants staring at the empty hole that once held my Master’s lifeless body. It does so no more. Contemplation time is over and I must rise from my place of comfort and walk to the hole before me. It is now the home for my old self, the self that focused on the numbers, being accepted by my church, by my family, by my friends and coworkers. I enter the tomb and see the empty shroud. I take off my own, shedding the burden of oppressive standards of acceptability. As it drops to the earth, new life enters, breath surges into my nostrils and the lump of clay becomes a living being.
Now it is I who walk from the hole that now holds the body of a dead perspective. It seems though, that even as I leave, I have this string attached to that empty skin. Dang it. Do you despise me for that? I wish I could confidently say I don’t care. The scissors cut slowly and difficultly, like cutting an umbilical cord. I hope soon to have the string severed, but until then, the grace of my Master will have to suffice for my acceptability. I need to focus on His acceptance of me. I live to walk in a newness of life.
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