May 31 is the end of the calendar year in my denomination, which means one thing. Well, actually two things: 1) half the congregation is headed to the lakes area, never to be seen (or tithe) again until late September and 2) annual reports are due. I hate annual reports!

Once a year pastors have to tally up average attendance figures for morning worship, Sunday school, youth group, women's missionary society, and men's group; number of baptisms, wedding and funerals; plus figure losses and gains in membership; and provide a complete breakdown of every auxiliary's income and expenses—everything except the number of green bean with onion ring casseroles at carry-in dinners!

But numbers are not only important to the bean counters at the national office; numbers are also important to God. He devotes a whole book of the Bible to precise "Numbers" (not "somewhere around 600,000" but 603,550.) He determines the billions of stars "and calls them each by name." There seem to be as many sparrows, "yet not one is forgotten by God." And, even more than God's interest in stars and sparrows, is His concern for human numbers. "The very hairs of your head are all numbered." (And He probably knows the number of green bean with onion ring casseroles at carry-in dinners.)

So, it's not really the numbers that bother me, but what numbers are viewed as important. Nickels and noses are the numbers by which most churches are evaluated. And if a pastor is good at marketing, those numbers can be impressive even if no Kingdom good is being accomplished. In fact, most of the numbers on my denominations report card are the result of human—rather than divine—effort. Which brings me to my suggestion for annual reports. Forget income. Forget attendance numbers. Let's try to get a feel for what God is doing at [fill in church name here].

1. How many new people are attending your church? (Members from other church joining your churches don't count for increase in attendance. That's not growth, that's sheep shuffling.)

2. Have the number of cigarette butts in the parking increased over the past year? (One of our board members was incensed that “people who didn't know how to behave in church” were coming to our church in larger and larger numbers.) Extra points for beer bottles and bongs!

3. How many hours a week do you, the pastor, spend alone with God? (Do not count sermon preparation time or golf.)

4. Does each member of the full-time staff take a whole day off? (Calling the church office or checking church email on days off disqualifies it as a day off.)

5. Rather than how much work the pastoral staff has put in, how ‘bout how many volunteers have the paid staff equipped and empowered to do the work of the church? (Tony Evans notes that Jesus has already died for your church. You'd don't have to.)

6. How many divorces have been averted through the work of the church? How many broken families has God put back together? How much time have you, as pastor, devoted to your own family?

7. Did you treat the poorer members of your congregation as well as you treated the big tithers? Did you treat children with as much respect and dignity as the “big people”?

8. Did you preach as many sermons on “hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition and factions” as you did on “sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, idolatry, witchcraft, drunkenness and orgies”?

9. Did you subscribe to Rev.? Do you faithfully read “Off the Sanctuary Wall”?

10. Did you love God with all your heart, mind and strength, and that disagreeable board member as yourself?

There are probably many more ways to more accurately determine the health of a church rather than nickels and noses, but ten seems to be a good number to begin with. Now take the number from line 1 and add it to line 2, divide by line 3, then take the square root of line 4 and determine the hypotenuse of lines. . . .

© 2005 James N. Watkins



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