Christ Community Counting
7 min read
5 So my God put it into my heart to assemble the nobles, the officials and the common people for registration by families. I found the genealogical record of those who had been the first to return. This is what I found written there:
6 These are the people of the province who came up from the captivity of the exiles whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had taken captive (they returned to Jerusalem and Judah, each to his own town, 7 in company with Zerubbabel, Joshua, Nehemiah, Azariah, Raamiah, Nahamani, Mordecai, Bilshan, Mispereth, Bigvai, Nehum and Baanah):
— Nehemiah 7:5-7
A long time ago, I was at a church where the pastor decided to start taking attendance each Sunday. There were several people in the congregation who expressed their objection to taking attendance. Honestly, I was a little surprised. Why would anyone object to such a thing?
The main reason for objecting to counting heads is that doing so made it seem like the church was only interested in numbers. There is the story of King David who took a census of all the fighting men in Israel (2 Samuel 24; 1 Chronicles 21). That census was offensive to God. But it wasn’t the act itself that was offensive to God; rather, it was David’s motivation for taking that census. It’s not even clear what the offensive motivation was, but for sure, David was not right before God.
On the other hand, there are many times in the Bible where a census is taken with God’s blessing—such as this census taken by Nehemiah (and hello, Numbers?). In fact, the census ordered by David appears to be the only time in the Bible that a census is offensive to God (the only exception may be Solomon’s census of foreigners to administer slave labor in 2 Chronicles 2). Even the census ordered by Caesar Augustus led to the fulfillment of the Christ being born in Bethlehem (Luke 2).
Counting people during Sunday service is a neutral act. What matters is our motivation for doing so. Are we simply interested in seeing the progress of our growth, as if to pat ourselves on the back for a job well done (churches don’t like counting heads when attendance is steadily declining)? That would be offensive to God.
So what is the right motivation for counting heads? There was an associate pastor at that same church, and he said something at one of our retreats that was right on target. He said, “We count heads because every head counts.” That is the inspiration from God that motivated Nehemiah. And that should be our motivation too here in Canvas.
Every soul matters, so every soul counts, and so we count every soul.
If we were not teaching and preaching the gospel, if we were not doing our best to stay true to the word of God and model the gospel in our community, our growing numbers would be highly suspect.
But we do. We remain humble before the Spirit of God, and in that posture we stay faithful to the word of God. Because the letter kills; it is the Spirit that gives life (2 Corinthians 3:6).
One of the greatest challenges as a church leader (and in fact, as a church community) is the awareness that it is practically impossible to attract nonbelievers and even unchurched believers without some bells and whistles. But we must never put our trust in the bells and whistles. We must never grow overly fond of our bells and whistles so that they become idols and a part of our “spiritual” DNA.
We are not trying to “attract” nonbelievers and unchurched believers simply for the sake of numbers. Every number represents a number of people who have the opportunity to hear the gospel and see the gospel at work in a gospel community and experience the gospel at work in their own lives through the power of the Holy Spirit.
For that reason, may God continue to increase our attendance so that our numbers grow. But no matter how large God allows us to become, no matter what bells and whistles we use to “attract” nonbelievers and the unchurched, we must, must, must remain true to the BASIC gospel—brothers and sisters in Christ.
Father, You are faithful to Yourself, and You are patient with us. Draw us into Your truth and make us a BASIC community that understands how much You love and care for each and every one of us. In Jesus’s name. Amen.