Numbers or Souls?

[Bravus]

Read this article in the Review today: http://adventistreview.org/article.php?id=430

In some ways I can empathise with the perspective presented, but I do have a couple of comments in response:

1. Numbers are souls. When you say 'numbers are not important' or 'we shouldn't focus on numbers', what you're saying is 'we don't care if some people are damned'.

2. I agree that we don't 'water down the gospel', but the subtext of what the author is saying is 'we really only want people like us, with similar tastes and modes of discussion - peope not like us need not apply (for salvation)'.

I love the fact that Stan has this 'go into the fields and roads and *compel* them to come in' and 'become all things to all people so that we might by all means reach some' vision, and I think we need more of it.

Now don't get me wrong - switching from majestic hymns to lame middle-of-the-road soft rock, and from a meaty, challenging gospel that compels us to serve a hurting world to a milky easy-to-digest gruel is not the best strategy... all that really does is make the boomers already within our congregations feel more comfortable.

What people are looking for when they come to church is something life-changing... but something that challenges them to grow and believe and serve, not to perfect themselves by completely conforming.

We've kind of gone into a dead end road (IMO) with some of the 'contemporary' approaches we've tried, but moving backward is not the solution - moving forward is. Caring more about lost souls and hurting people is the way to increase *both* the quality and quantity of our flocks. If people knew SDAs, as they know the Salvation Army, as people who serve, and people who show compassion to those who are hurting (including those whose own sin is hurting them), we'd be so much more attractive to those who the Spirit is prompting to feel a spiritual absence in their lives.

[Dr. Shane]

When you go to places where the Adventist church is growing you find it is an active church and a young church. Unlike many Sunday-denominations, the Adventist church does not hesitate to dive into deep theology. Many practice holy living such as diet, Sabbath keeping and tithing. The churches that fail to be active in their outreach (ACS, prison ministries, small study groups, etc.) are the ones that often have the most internal problems and fail to grow.

[Jeannieb43]

Interesting article, Bravus. And doubly interesting that the Adventist Review chose to publish it [since its author is someone from another religious "persuasion"].

This issue has long been one of my pet peeves. "Score-keeping" is used in some Adventist conferences as a way of marking the progress of young [or older] ministers. If they're "successful" it's shown by the numbers of baptisms, or new members they've brought in. Nowhere is there a provision in the "score-keeping" conferences for the nurturing and deep Bible study with those who are already church members. I believe pastors need to do more nurturing than evangelizing. I believe they should be given credit in the conference office for the nurturing they do. If this is done properly, then the members themselves will provide the evangelizing--they'll become "on fire for God" and they'll do one-on-one, layman's evangelism.

I'm afraid "numbers" are the only criteria some conference leaders understand. It makes things extremely difficult for the deep-Bible-studying/nurturing type of pastor to become recognized for his true value.

[Bravus]

Agreed - in just about all walks of life (includng education), putting a number on something and then trying to make that number as big as possible is a shallow substitute for the deep work of really understanding what's going on. I agree with you, too, that the numbers *will* happen when we focus on developing all believers as priests and missionaries: ironically, focusing the pastor's effort on evangelism, as you say, may actually lead to *less* souls being reached.

I guess the other point I was thinking of was from the opposite direction: watered down church doesn't satisfy, but neither does a watered down version of popular culture. "Oh, we have pop too, but it's totally lame and juiceless... and we have Dr Phil-style 'wisdom' too, except that it's all weak and watery...' and so on. Catering to people by giving them a pathetic version of what they already have is wrong-headed.

[Dr. Shane]

The Adventist church has a strong and powerful message that there is no need to water it up or down. We are called to preach the Three Angels' message to a dying world. Some churches do a better job that others. Those that have the greatest struggles are the ones that try to be like Sunday denominations in their presentation and application of the gospel.

We are the Noah of our day. We are the Elijah of our day. We are the Isaiah of our day. We are the John the Baptist of our day. We have been given the keys to unlock the end-time prophecies and prepare the world for the day of our Lord.

Now I need to

[Bravus]

Amen

[Neil D]

Thought I would walk in and look around abit...

I haven't read the article, so I am prolly speaking out of turn....[at least, THAT's nothing new! ]

I gather that the article was from another non-denominational pastor, whose thoughts included that we were possibly focusing on numbers rather than quality....

My thought are simliar to a recent thread on another fourm...that of, how do you evaluate churches and since the churches sucess is usually tied to pastors, pastors themselves? Baptisms were a measurable and unbiased in the sense that the evaluator can not dispute he got results...although the numbers could be disputed in other ways...Like as Jeannie has pointed out and alluded to, you can not measure 'nuture and quality' in an unbiased way, me thinks...

Shanes thoughts on churches that are growing are young and have an evangelistic componet in the church...What Shane failed to point out was that evangelism can take many forms.... From the gobal evangelistic out reach [members giving money and going to other countries to preach the gospel and come back and share thier efforts with the mother church] to home based bible studies to local evengelistic efforts [magazine subscriptions and cooking schools, stop smoking plans ect.]

What is not alluded to is how to evaluate the Holy Spirit's sucess rate among members of a church community? Let's face it...How do you evaluate a Person who you can not see, and communitcate directly with? We are not even sure that He is communicating with us...and many times, when He is, we are not sure what He is saying.....

Sometimes, I wonder if our focus, while on ...man's reponse, ...should be more on God's response....? Maybe we could hear better if we listen a bit harder and pool our collective understanding/experiences...?

Or am I dwelling on intangables ...again?

[Dr. Shane]

Community outreach is to unite the local church. Everyone is to have a part. A role should even be given to the handicapped.

The local ACS (Adventist Community Services) can look at their community and see what it needs. Maybe it needs a food bank or maybe to just help a food bank that already exists. Maybe it needs a thirft store. Maybe it needs a hotmeal served once a day for the homeless. Maybe it needs to offer stop smoking programs or healthful living programs. Maybe it needs offer free health screening classes. Maybe it is helping social services with foster children. Maybe it is ministering the elderly in nursing homes.

Then we have prison ministries. These also includes local jails and juvenial detention centers.

We also have lay ministries. These can included door to door ministries OR an in-house, correspondence Bible school where leads of interested people are sent and members of the church grade the lessons and return them. Home Bible study groups also fall into lay ministries and can be an awesome means of outreach and church edification.

Pathfinders and the social committee have more of an edifying the church than outreach but they are important and helpful in uniting a church in action.

Rather than watering down the gospel so that it becomes more acceptable by the world, many Adventist churches simply use programs that are already established to reach out.