Aftermath!

In my previous post, Simple Math, I demonstrated that it was easy and possible for 1 person to reach 8,000 people in 50 years. The point being that they didn’t do it by themselves. They also wouldn't need the glory of keeping track of the number of people who came to Lord.

So what does this mean in the context of local institutional churches? It would seem that there is a lot of emphasis on numbers and how many people are in the sheepfold every week. In fact the message of loving God and loving others has been translated to mean that our mission is to corral all the sheep into little sheep pens so that a man (a pastor) can show everyone how much they need him.

Lots and lots and lots of money is spent for the sheep pens. It’s interesting that pastors dream of building the best sheep pens so that they will seem relevant to our society. Let me state this as clearly as I know how: there is nothing relevant to an unbeliever about taking the best part of their week and going to an expensive building that is dedicated for the express purpose of listening to some guy espouse his personal views about God. Has no one heard of podcasts or blogs?

Onlookers must truly scratch their heads when they see people devoting 10% of their income for that strange pleasure. I wonder what would happen if you used 10% of your income to bless those same onlookers?

The bottom line is that pastors think people are too simple minded or sheep like that they couldn’t influence one person over the span of 10 years to become a Christian. That would be too simple and would get the job done without them being needed. They like the idea that building buildings and having a name is what gives the sheep a sense of well being. This is supposedly done to the glory of God but I think the glory is really about how good or how bad of a job some guy is doing.

If a pastor manages a church of 1,000 people, some people would say he is an incredibly gifted leader. But the reality is that if every believer were to reach out to those within their sphere of influence and win one to the Lord every 10 years, the whole wide world would be Christians within 50 years.
Question: But where would you look after all these people?
Answer: Houses and Tim Horton's. Duhhhhh!

It’s true the New Testament writers never said we shouldn’t build buildings to corral the sheep. (Maybe it is just a coincidence that they never built one building!) They probably just thought that nobody would be narcissistic enough to waste that much money on such a limiting idea. They may have taken Peter's words seriously and understood that they were like living stones being built into a house for their God. 1Peter 2:5

They also knew that people were carnal but I don’t think they considered that a mature saint would be so vain as to need followers looking to him weak after weak after weak. I did this stuff, on both the receiving and giving ends, and I’m appalled that I called this giving God the glory.

Why is it so difficult to do the math?