Attendances vs Discipleship

Dear Pastors

Attendance vs Discipleship

Scot McKnight’s Jesus Creed Blog Forum is a good read. Two weeks ago Mike Glenn revisited a challenging issue in an article titled, Showing Up Isn't Enough

The main point he makes is that measuring attendance is wholly inadequate if not harmful. He proposes that instead we should ‘measure’ discipleship. Glenn says it this way:- “Attendance became the goal, the standard of success. Are you a good pastor? Well, you are if attendance is increasing. Are you a good church? Are you adding numbers? Pastors were introduced by the number of attendees in their church. Pastors gained celebrity status by celebrating the thousands of people who came to their churches”.

Having had a few days to think about it I find myself agreeing on the one hand and not quite so sure on the other. I agree that attendances have become to much front and centre. If attendance alone defines a church and the performance of a pastor then clearly that is inadequate even dangerous as we have seen this year here in NZ. So I would say attendance matters but only as one of many measures. The alternative also worries me (and sadly we see quite a lot of it these days) and that is to be completely unconcerned about attendances. Push that too far and it won’t take long before we have created a new rationale that even excuses poor performance by the pastor. It might go like this:- Attendance is declining but, hey who cares the remnant are the true disciples. Those other folks were just religious consumers and not disciples at all. Or something like that.

So that doesn’t work for me.

Glenn goes on to state quite clearly that you can’t measure discipleship, certainly not like you can attendances (or offerings for that matter). I quote:- That’s the first problem. How do you determine if someone is a true disciple of Christ? This question has dogged the church for generations. How do we confirm that someone is a follower of Christ? Paul lists the fruit of the Spirit, but how do you measure faithfulness? Do you carry kindness in a basket or a bucket? Do you weigh gentleness in pounds or gallons?

This is where I beg to differ. I believe you can in fact measure discipleship and further I believe we should. That said, I do agree that measuring discipleship is not as easily quantifiable but just as the orchardist in Mike Glenn’s article knows when to harvest the ripe peaches so we can measure (is discern a better word?) the activity of the Spirit in the life of individual Christians and therefore the church corporately. Here are some measures:-

1. A Christian who stops drinking, smoking and swearing.
2. A formerly angry person who becomes more peaceful and loving.
3. A Christian who spends more time in spiritual practises and less time in front of the TV or social media.
4. An increase in the number of people who want to serve Jesus in uncomfortable even hard places at home and overseas.
5. The strength of family life in the church.
6. The number of people choosing to follow Jesus (otherwise known as conversions).
7. The number of people wanting to get baptised.
8. The church prayer meeting.
9. The ‘ease’ by which Christian people volunteer in the life of the church.
10. The commitment of the church toward the last, the least and the lost.

The Apostle Paul seemed to understand this. In 1 Thessalonians 1:2-3 he commends the church for its fine discipleship. “We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers, remembering without ceasing your work of faith, labour of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the sight of our God and Father”.

I think some of the most important and powerful conversations for a church leadership team is to answer these questions. What are the evidences of the Spirit’s work amongst us? Are people loving God more? Are people loving each other more? Are people loving their unchurched friends, work colleagues and neighbours more? Are people loving the Bible more? Etc.

Perhaps the attendance vs discipleship issue is best when it is left as a point of tension. What do you think?

Blessings
Alan