What's Your Metric?
Get a group of ministers together and before long, they start comparing the size of their steeples. What's your church's membership? How many attend on Sunday? What's your budget?
Membership, attendance, and budget are the cheapest ways to measure church success. They're cheap because they take no investment of emotional or spiritual energy. You don't have to know the people; you just have to count them. It's simple addition, a little honest subtraction, and comparison. Metrics.
The Book of Numbers begins as an exercise in metrics. The first chapter is about a census of the tribes of Israel. Fascinating reading? Not exactly. Until you get to verse 48, when something changes:
The Lord had said to Moses: Only the tribe of Levi you shall not enroll, and you shall not take a census of them with the other Israelites. Rather you shall appoint the Levites over the tabernacle of the covenant, and over all its equipment, and over all that belongs to it; they are to carry the tabernacle and all its equipment, and they shall tend it, and shall camp around the tabernacle.
The Levites were the priestly tribe. They cared for the faith and its centerpiece, the ark of the covenant. How many were there? As many as it took to get the job done.
At Lake Hills, we affirm the belief that we're a "priesthood of all believers." So while the metrics of membership, attendance, and budget might be worth watching, they aren't what really counts. What counts is getting our priestly job done: caring for each other, forgiving each other's sins, proclaiming God to the community in words and actions. How many people do we need? How much budget does it take? As many and as much as it takes to get the job done.
Emotional, spiritual, priestly work defies measurement. The grace you give returns to you, renewed. Compassion extended continues extending in ways you will never know.
Of course, you can keep metrics. You can count every act of goodness you perform. You can tally every slight, every careless hurt you receive. Or, you can practice your own sense of priesthood - caring, forgiving, serving. You can specialize in things that count, but can never be fully counted.
What's your metric?
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