Statistics and Divination

Now I am all for vital congregations.  One of my highest goals in ministry, next to faithfully discerning God’s call on my life, is to help the congregations I serve thrive in God’s mission and vision for the congregations.  Vitality and thriving are linked in my mind.  You cannot thrive without being vital and vitality requires the church to be thriving.

What I struggle with is how will making goals help the church thrive or be vital?  Saying that average worship attendance will increase by 5 in the next year will not bring in the requisite amounts of people necessary for the average attendance to increase.  Stating a goal does nothing to realize a goal.  Apple does not sell iPhones because it has a goal to sell iPhones.  It sells iPhones by creating and marketing a product people want to buy.

As a pastor, I cannot predict the future.  My seminary did not offer a course on practical divination.  Just as it did not offer a course on mind reading.  Generally speaking, I want the statistics to improve.  I see statistics as a gauge to measure the health of the congregation.  Improved statistics offers evidence that the situation is changing.  Hopefully for the better.

My desire though for improved statistics is not because I care all that much about numbers by themselves.  I hope they come in the context of a larger story of how the congregation is living out God’s mission and vision.   Ideally they would reflect: more people are turning over their lives to God, more people are growing in love with God and their neighbor.  As a result, each day the community reflects God’s kingdom a little more because of our ministry and witness.

Predicting the future by making goals will not accomplish anything.  People will not come to the church because the church has the goal of improving its worship attendance.  Congregants will not change their behavior based on a goal.  I doubt anyone is going to say “Oh we agreed that our worship attendance will improve by a 100, well now I will start inviting my friends to church.  All I needed was a goal.  Thank you Vital Congregations for showing me the way!”  People do not invite people to church because of goals.  They invite people to church for many reasons, but goals are not a strong reason.  Who wants to come to church to fill a quota?