Over the past few weeks I have been listening to a lot of podcasts from William Willimon, who is currently the Bishop of the North Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church. I didn’t know much about Willimon much before this recent spate of listening, except that he was dean of the Chapel and professor at Duke University. And that he’s written books with Stanley Hauerwas (a good thing in my opinion).
He comes across as a down-to-earth guy who has a deep understanding of theology and church history. He’s just the kind of guy that I think we need leading churches today.
There is something in his leadership that just doesn’t sit right with me, though. It makes me quite uncomfortable, actually. Willimon puts quite an emphasis on growth in congregations. No, not metaphysical, intrinsic, personal, spiritual growth. I’m talking about numbers, attendance, giving, things-you-can-count growth. He recently published a blog post entitled, “Anything worth doing for God is worth counting.” In that post he explains that since becoming bishop he has instituted the use of the Conference Dashboard, which is a way for congregations to log in every week and report their numbers. He describes it this way:
Every church logs in on Monday morning and reports their numbers for that Sunday’s attendance, baptisms, professions of faith, offering, and participation in mission. Anyone can see the numbers for any church in our Conference over the past three years.
As you might expect, he has received a lot of push-back from congregations about his use of these metrics. People are skeptical about making Christian faith “all about the numbers” and “just putting butts in the pews” (I think I would probably be among them). He responds out of his own theological heritage:
There may be something to be said for some of these slogans. Except not in the United Methodist Church. We’re Wesleyans. That means we believe in the growth of the Kingdom of God. John Wesley had friction with the established church of his day, not only because of his vibrant Trinitarian theology, but also because of his refusal to limit his ministry to the moribund English parochial system. From the beginning, Methodists were inveterate counters and numbers keepers.
I have personally been averse to counting, mainly because I have seen it abused so many times. There are ways to grow a congregation or a youth group that have nothing to do with the gospel. You can bribe people into doing anything. (i.e. Come to youth group and get a free iPod!)
My stance has always been that growth is tangential: it is a result of healthy congregations, but you can never hit it if you aim for it. Growth happens as a result of proclaiming and living the gospel, not as a result of targeted marketing and growth strategies. We see that in Acts: in quite a few places the Bible tells us how many people were added to their number.
Have we swung the pendulum too far away from counting? Should we start counting again? Is there a better way to count? Should growth be the thing we are aiming for or is it only a second-order sign of health and maturity?
Or is “grow” a four letter word in ministry?
Thanks. I too have become a fan of Willimon. Thanks for wrestling with the counting issue. I think your question about have we swung too far as a reactionary response to counting is critical. Personally I have a love hate relationship with counting. I love counting when my numbers are good and hate it when they are bad! It’s no wonder declining mainline churches don’t like to count. That being said the danger of course as your post reflects is using this metric as the only factor that validates our ministry and compells us to use whatever consumer tool at our disposal to get folks to show up. That view short changes discipleship and is not the model of the early church in Acts. Somehow we have to learn to avail ourselves to the tension of both/and. The confrontation (or celebration) of numbers is helpful and good, so long as remember it was aligning ourselves with the moving of the Spirit that made the difference and not the other way around. My vote? GROW is NOT a four letter word if remember where the Growth comes from. Thanks Matt, great thought provoking post!
Thank for the thoughts Jerry. Might we be able to say that a church that numerically is stagnant or in decline for a number of years is likely to be unhealthy, but a church that is growing numerically might be healthy depending upon where that growth is coming from?
It just seems to me that a healthy church can’t be in constant decline. Eventually it has to pick up.
it must be youthministrymeetswillimon month. i’ve been reading resident aliens (one of the hauerwas co-authored books) and have been reading some of willimon’s writings as bishop.
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perhaps numbers in ministry are a bit like a person’s weight. this is an imperfect analogy, so play along. i’m not thinking in terms of growth (as in a growing weight is typically a bad thing, a growing ministry is decidedly not), but in terms of the tools’ effectiveness in measuring health.
a person’s weight can be very useful if a person needs to lose weight. It indicates progress, setbacks and change. at the same time, a person can use unhealthy techniques to stimulate that weight loss. weight is an indicator, not a full view. for a full view of a person’s health, you must go beyond the surface and measure blood pressure, cholesterol, etc.
likewise, numbers in ministry can indicate poor health or healthy progress, but they never provide the full view. you must also look at faithfulness to scripture, service to the community, relationships among the people.
i don’t think it is necessarily a bad thing to help people recalibrate their understanding of healthy numerical growth, but it must be tempered with a full view of congregational health assessment.
I think it’s a great analogy and makes perfect sense. It’s an indicator, predictor, and standard of measurement, but not the final word.
I’ve noticed the posts on Resident Aliens. Haven’t read it yet. It’s on my “to-read” list, like so many others. But you are enticing me to pick it up sooner rather than later.
i know all too well the ills of the “to-read” list. so. many. fun. things!
the thing that i am loving about resident aliens is the brevity it uses to explain issues of deep gravity without being weighty in language or presumptuous about the reader’s foreknowledge.
they unpack a number of contemporary concerns of the church in very thoughtful, but accessible ways.