Pastor's Blog: Counting What Counts
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Counting is something that has always come naturally to me. Part of that probably comes from having grown up in a retail family where tracking gains and losses and inventory was an ongoing affair. Part of it likely stems from a lifetime of athletic competition where the scoreboard had the last word. But part of it has no doubt come from doing ministry in an evangelical setting where nickels and noses were a quantitative commentary on the church’s vibrancy.
So, the pandemic has been hard for counters like me. While we’ve still kept track of the nickels, the sporadic attendance patterns caused by COVID have led us to suspend tracking the noses. What we’ve been left with are fuzzy metrics such as feel and vibe and online feedback. Add masks to the equation and you don’t even have the chance to read people’s faces. It’s almost enough to make a preacher cuss (to himself, of course), though I have managed to block it out of my mind most of the time. The only reason I’ve thought about it of late is because of the attention that’s been given in recent days to the result of the 2020 United States Census.
Talk about handwringing, I never realized how much consternation came about from such censuses, even though this exercise takes place in our country every ten years. But according to the experts, the trends that the numbers show from this most recent one are pretty much all foreboding. If you live in the Northeast, folk are fleeing in droves and you’re losing influence because of it. If you live in the Sunbelt, folk are flocking in your direction and life is about to get more complicated. If you’ve been in the majority, you’re now moving closer to being in the minority; and if you’re accustomed to America being the top player on the world stage, you may have to prepare yourself to sharing the spotlight with other emerging nations. All of these takeaways are attempts to get behind the raw numbers and identify trends that will drive everyday life in America for the next decade.
While there haven’t been any questions pertaining to religion in the U.S. Census since the 1950’s, we can nevertheless extrapolate implications for our church from these recent results. One implication is that while Alabama has remained stable in its population, because we are a Sunbelt state there is every reason for us to anticipate people coming our way, and we should be ready for them. But as we prepare, we should also understand that they may not look like us and may not share our cultural heritage and may bring experiences that differ from our own. None of that is inherently bad; it actually could make for a richer community of faith, if only we will be open to those possibilities. Another implication is that our country appears to be aging, with more older folk than younger. What this means for churches like ours is a new opportunity to provide ministry outlets for people who have time and money and experience to serve God’s mission through our church. Whereas churches in the past always sensed the need to be chasing young families, the wise church today will continue to offer ministry to that demographic but will at the same time gear up its outreach to older prospects as well. Lastly, the likelihood of finding ourselves in a minority position may turn out to be a blessing. After all, the church in the New Testament never was in the “driver’s seat,” a reality that enabled them to advance the cause of Christ in more transforming ways, which they never would have been able to do as an “established” institution.
All of this reflection reminds me of the famous quote attributed to Albert Einstein: “Not everything that can be counted, counts; and not everything that counts can be counted.” I’ve spent my entire life trying to get to the wisdom of that approach and I must confess that I still have a way to go to reach a place where I understand that faithfulness can’t always be equated to mere arithmetic.
For the record, there are, according to the recent census, 331 million Americans, each of whom is precious in God’s sight and each one for whom Christ died. Let us, therefore, live in such a way that we are ready to serve all the Spirit brings our way and show them Jesus. In the end, that’s what counts most and will be the final standard by which all of us will surely be judged.
“He has shown thee, O man, what is good; and what the LORD requires of thee, but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” (Micah 6:8)