Jesus said, “For wherever two or three come together in my name, there I am among them.” (Matthew 18:20) We know this is true, but it is really empty to fall into the temptation of counting numbers and pretending that somehow a bigger gathering is somehow better. We’ve even coined a phrase for the few really big congregations. According to the Hartford Institute for Religion, a megachurch is a congregation that has 2,000 or more in average weekly attendance. Megachurches have large buildings – sometimes campuses of buildings. And they have worship that resembles stadium events, with a huge stage, lots of video monitors, professional sound and lights and music provided by well-rehearsed ensembles.

But I can’t find anything in the Gospels that would lead one to believe that the goal of religion is quantity. There are some stories of large crowds gathering around Jesus. The miracle of the feeding of 5,000 clearly implies that there were that many people who had gathered to hear Jesus. Were it to happen today, people might be more impressed that Jesus taught such a crowd without a sound system. We might call it the miracle of communication.

We seem to be hung up with counting. At our church the ushers make a physical count of the number of people in worship. We also have pew pads that are tallied and entered into a computer each week. And we use printed bulletins for worship. There is a weekly discussion among the members of our staff about how many bulletins we should print each week. We like to be close enough so that there are only a few left over. We celebrate each week when we run out as a sign that somehow we are more successful if more people attend worship. We report our statistics to the yearbook office each year. There are members of our church who demand statistics about church school attendance, youth group participation, and other areas of the life of the church. There is practically nothing that we do that doesn’t involve counting.

We have more than one faithful member whose way of measuring success is completely focused on numbers. I spoke with a long-time member last night and was grilled about budget performance, net gain in members, and a host of other statistical items. I know from years of similar conversations that my success or failure in the eyes of that member is directly related to an expectation of continual growth. Percentage of increase is the most important statistic to that member. I’m grateful that my job doesn’t involve dealing with information about individual donors, but each time I get the list of questions from this particular member, I wonder if he increases his pledge to match the church budget each year. It is a good thing that I don’t know the answer to the question. It does make me sad that this particular member never asks about mission, about people served, or about volunteer hours.

I don’t believe that the church is about numbers. You can’t measure faithfulness with a mathematical formula.

Last night seven of us gathered for an Advent prayer service. I could easily come up with the number of people this morning because I know everyone by name. We took a half hour of our lives, read a simple liturgy, and offered our prayers. We sat in a circle around the communion table and shared heartfelt concerns and celebrations. It was pure joy.

In the midst of a very busy season the days in our office get long. I try to get to the office before 7 am in order to make sure that things are ready when the others arrive. We have been struggling with computer problems this week, so I have spent extra time making sure that other staff members can access the information that they need to do their jobs. There are the usual concerns of a church our size – contact with members who are housebound, visits to hospitals and nursing homes, keeping track of those who come and go from our life together. We have plenty of paper to prepare. We have a budget to follow and one to develop. We have annual reports to prepare, a newsletter to produce, worship resources to be in place, a web site to maintain, phone calls to make, classes to teach and meetings – always there are plenty of meetings. And everyone who works at our church knows that the most important part of our work is relationship with people. We live for working with volunteers, visiting our members, reaching out to our community. The computers and telephones and meetings and budgets are all work that we do to make the real life of the church possible. My days often go until 8 or 9 pm. Sometimes I get home for one meal, but I almost never have two meal breaks in a 12-hour shift. I’m not complaining. I love my work, but it does move at a rapid pace.

So we’re often tired at this time of the year.

Here is a statistic from last night: One prayer service. Total attendance was seven. Three of those attending were officiating ministers. That’s right we invested the staff time of three ordained ministers to lead four members of our congregation in worship. It was a great investment of time and energy.

Ministers need to pray, too. We need to sit quietly in the sanctuary. We need to listen to the words of scripture. We need a place where we can voice our own prayer concerns. We need to allow the quiet to enter into our lives. We need a break from counting and statistics.

We’ll be there all season on Wednesday evenings at 5:30. Praying. Lighting candles. Taking time to be quiet. Maybe there will be six other members of the congregation next week. Maybe there will be twenty. If there were none it would still be a wise investment of staff time.

There is no statistic that will measure the quality of our spiritual lives. And there are moments when we would do well to worship for the glory of God rather than the approval of the bean counters. Hope, peace, joy, love – the gifts of Advent do not require counting. Thanks be to God.

Copyright © 2012 by Ted Huffman. I wrote this. If you want to copy it, please ask for permission. There is a contact me button at the bottom of this page. If you want to share my blog a friend, please direct your friend to my web site.