A New Scorecard, A New Scorekeeper ... part II

…for the backstory… A New Scorecard…part I

The trouble we had at our church was that for all the effort we put into reaching out to people our church didn’t really seem to be growing. At least as we could tell.

Our attendance was pretty much the same, or it would go up, hang out, then go down. The parking lot had a pretty consistent number of cars and the offering plate looked about the same from week to week. Business was booming in the preschool, it was expanding exponentially, and needed to turn people away. The Food pantry was doing good, which is sort of one of those things you don’t know what to call it. It’s good that we’re getting food to these people, but it’s NOT good that they need it. You know?

But one of our pastors began reading a book called “Missional Renaissance” and quickly brought it to the elder board and the senior pastor. Wasting no time, they all read it together. The man who wrote the book, Reggie McNeal seemed to be speaking right into our situation.

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My wife shakes her head when I explain that I sometimes feel like I’m not adding to the family like I used to. She hates it if I make comments inferring that this is her’s or she bought that, or whatever. But the truth is, even though she’s right to be upset, it’s hard to redefine your value so radically after, well, earning my own money for so long.

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We as a church realized that we were using a common system of scorekeeping. Problem was it wasn’t the kind that our Scorekeeper was likely using. Wanting to align ourselves to our Creator, we decided to trade in our old scorecard for a new one.

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The value I add, or that any stay-at-home parent adds to a family is in legacy building. It’s in establishing and maintaining the kind of environment that you could only hope your child takes for granted: safety, shelter, Truth, and opportunity. The problem is how you touch lives as a parent is totally unquantifiable isn’t it? You see how they handle relationships or make decisions as they get older, maybe as they become parents themselves. But, for now, how do you mark that? Maybe in how my spouse seems to feel?

She frequently tells me how at ease she is, how comforting it is, how happy it makes her just to know that the kids are in their home, with each other, and being nurtured. Constantly. She says it frees her to do better at work. Ok. She hasn’t said that explicitly, but I believe that she would agree to it. If she doesn’t, I’ll just not tell you. Ok?

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God longs for communion. He longs to heal. He desired so deeply to repair what you and I have broken that he himself became a man, putting himself in harms way as a baby, putting himself at the greatest inconvenience, having to deal with good tastes and bad tastes, good feelings and bad ones, sickness, homelessness, hunger, temptation and tiredness. When he called the apostles, when he gave his Holy Spirit, when he sent us out to the ends of the earth he simply extended the range of his mission. The Church is an institution for healing. It is an institution for the purposes of reclaiming the world. Not shedding herself of it.

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The struggle in this is similar in nature to the struggle that I myself have been working through: How do you quantify something like that? It would be easy if we could just say that every person effectively “touched” by the church responded to God’s call and became himself a part of the church, giving his life back to God. But that doesn’t always happen. It doesn’t even usually happen.

Jesus performed miracles, performed healings, spoke truth into many ears that simply turned away. Jesus fed many people, who went home satisfied, but probably got hungry again. Well, so does the church.

Jesus was counted righteous.

Could it be that if the Church faithfully fulfills God’s mission to offer repair to what’s broken (free of charge), heal what is hurt (without expectation of a conversion), feed who is hungry (because they’re hungry), she too will be counted righteous?

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I think the point that I’m laboring to make is that I’ve begun to understand the notion of success differently. God longs to save people. He longs to save their hearts, souls, minds and bodies---their entire beings to Himself, through the work of His resurrected Son. And that redeemed person is of inestimable value to God as an individual and unique creation.

But the path to that person’s salvation is strewn with the loving work of the Church. And that is also of inestimable value to God. All by itself. Because that is how he designed the entire world to function: acting justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with Him.

So success is no longer measured by cars in the parking lot, money in the plate, or butts in seats. Yeah, we still measure those things. It would be irresponsible not to know if the parking lot is adequate for our needs, if we are filling services to a consistent level, if we need to add services because we’re turning people away, etc.

We’re just not defining the value of our efforts by those things. We count families that come through our food pantry, families that are served in our medical clinic. People who are given the opportunity to experience the same love that God has shown us.

Hopefully they ask us why.

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I don’t make any money. I help us save the money we do make. I’m trying not to focus in on that, or define my value by my profitability. Because money is only part of the equation. I fully expect to see my value spelled out in about 15 or 20 years. By then the “interest” should make the wait more than worth it.