Numbers Matter

I have been playing some with numbers lately. Actually my job has a lot to do with numbers. As Pastor for Newcomers and Outreach at Oak Mountain Church, you might say that numbers play a pretty big role in my daily life. The number of members, the number of 1^st time visitors, the number of repeat visitors, the number of new members….sometimes my desk feels like a never ending flow of numerical data.

Some people may balk at that. Decrying an over-emphasis on numbers can sound very “holy” and “righteous”. That is, of course, until you begin to realize (much like we learned in last night’s episode of LOST... Sorry, couldn't resist.) that every one of those numbers actually represents a unique individual, created in the image of God and in desperate need of a Redeemer.

Then you kind of begin to make a connection between 1^st time visitor number 347 and the guy who is walking through the doors because his wife decided last week that, after years of marriage she actually didn’t love him after all. And there he is saying, “Tell me again that God is in control. Tell me why to believe and how to explain all this to my 2 year old daughter.”

You begin to realize that new member number whatever and fifty-four is actually a legalistic, hard-nosed CEO whose wife and children hate him almost as much as his employees do. And there he is, hearing for the first time in his life of this new concept of grace. And he is saying, “How does this apply to me? What impact does this have for my socially functional yet relationally and connectionaly anemic, gospel-less marriage?”

Here is my point. Numbers matter because people matter.

We, as individuals, come into contact literally with THOUSANDS of people each week. If you add in contacts through social networking contexts like Facebook, Twitter, etc. that number then explodes exponentially.

Simple question. Who in your sphere of contacts are you inviting into your community of faith?

Two ways to take that question really. First, who are you literally inviting to become a member of the family of God? With whom are you, on a consistent basis, sharing your faith? You too? Hmm….

Secondly, who are you inviting into your locally recognizable community of faith, your church. If your church and its pastors are proclaiming the truth of the gospel, that God pursues the broken, the undeserving and the rebellious (and if they are not proclaiming this message, then why are you still there?), then wouldn’t it make sense to simply invite someone to attend worship next Sunday?

Here is what it might look like in our particular context at Oak Mountain Church. We have approximately 1,400 adult members of our church. For simplicity sake, let’s take that down to 1,000. If we then take HALF of that 1,000, that then leaves us with 500.

Stay with me now.

There are 12 months in a year. Let’s drop December because of the Christmas holidays and March because of Spring Break. That leaves us with 10 months.

500 people, inviting 1 person a month for 10 months, just gave us 5,000 unique visitors walking through our front door, exposing them to gospel infused, Christ-focused ministry and all of this with a relational connection already in place to our church. YOU!

5,000 people, whose lives could be dramatically changed.

Imagine with me for a moment what our church would look like with ….. no, wait, what our city would look like with 5,000 new people being influenced by the gospel? What would that do to the fact that 12% of Birmingham City School students are recognized as homeless? What would that do to our city’s murder rate? What effect would that have on our region? I think I could get kind of excited about dreaming like that.

So who are you bringing this Sunday?