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I was there!
I was there when The Pastor from Mars told a room full of Earthling pastors that Numbers-R-Everything. To prove the point that Big is Beautiful he told us that God had even named one book of his Bible after the god of Quantity.
Who's to argue with God?
Some church folks over lockdown, I am told, started listening to false teachers on YouTube. When the heterodoxy of the preachers was questioned, the astonished viewers kicked back "but 100,000 subscribers can't be wrong!"
Someone came running up to me the other day (yes, running)! They had found a faithful preacher on YouTube who only had a few hits and what is more, this sort of lamentable stat had been going on for ages. My runner was deeply concerned - "What should they do about it? Who could they report it to? How could they help the poor soul?" The idea that a pastor/preacher should languish with just a few hits was cause for great alarm!
The numbers virus has now entered the bloodstream of the church.
Numbers-R-Everything!
In a world which pursues - and trusts - high numbers, whether they refer to hits, followers, sales, likes or bank accounts, how are we to think of numbers?
(Oh by the way, the Pastor from Mars, became so drunk on numbers that he bought a great number of his own books so that it would climb high in the charts. But like all sins, this numerology transgression was found out.)
When it comes to describing the glory of God, Numbers are Important
Everything about God is stupendous and indescribable. Big Numbers count when we're describing the Lord.
God has designed and created some ten million different species of living creatures alive today, to reveal a little of his infinite glory. (And some think this 10 million is a mere fraction of the Designed total number because of extinctions.)
God's promises are out of this world; he promised to Abraham descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore. He keeps his covenant for a thousand generations. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills and when he sets out for battle, enemies beware, for his chariots are thousands and thousands and thousands.
When it comes to his forgiveness, God has put an infinity of distance between our sins and himself: to be precise, as far as the east is from the west. And so far as his children are concerned, God Almighty is able to do much much more than they can ask or even think.
God is glorified through numbers which reveal his power, creativity, promises and mercy....
Small Numbers characterize Human Beings
...but when it comes to describing human beings, small and few is the name of the game.
How tiny we all are in the vast cosmos, "What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?"
In an amusing reflection on the tower of Babel, we read that "the LORD came down to see the city and the tower the people were building." The gathered nations thought they were building some ginormous edifice! But it's so diddy to God that he has to go-a-hunting for mankind's little project.
How incy wincy our minds. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts." Job is rebuked for trying to understand the ways of God and confesses that he spoke of things he did not understand, things too wonderful for him to know.
But Jesus Christ, the Son of God, can speak to a gathered crowd of many thousands, He can feed thousands and cast out enough demons from a man that they enter and drown thousands of pigs. His majestic divinity is revealed in the numeric fact that if every one of his mighty acts were written down, the whole world, supposes the Apostle John, would not have room for the books that would be written.
Big Numbers are Everything when we are talking about God and his divine Son, but little numbers are the humble germane when we're talking about humanity.
Numbers and the Church Age
It is striking that almost nothing is known about church sizes in the New Testament. About the only numbers we have, apart from The Twelve, are the 120 followers who gathered to pray before the day of Pentecost (Acts 1:15), the 3000 converted on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:41), which increased in number to 5000 soon afterwards (Acts 4:4) and the claim that many thousands of Jews had believed (Acts 21:20).
Apart from those Acts-ian figures, the New Testament is silent on numbers. Significantly, big numbers only in occur in Acts which records the supernatural founding of the church. Big Numbers therefore confirm the supernatural origin of the church - that's their function and purpose in Acts.
We do not know the size of any church in the New Testament! Wehave no clue or a hint! No church is condemned for being small and none are praised for being large. The pastor from Mars could not have been more wrong. Numbers are utterly irrelevant when describing the churches of the New Testament...
...except as we reach the end-times Revelation when the whole Church in glory to come is described and John "hears the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand." And now Church numbers do matter, for John sees the whole redeemed community, "a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands."
Eight Reasons why Church Numbers are Irrelevant
So why do we know nothing about the sizes of the individual churches in the New Testament, why are numbers of all kinds so irrelevant?
Here are eight reasons:
(1) Because numbers are the way the world does its business. Worldly people, seeking earthly recognition, want large numbers to know about them and to follow them. Worldly people wanting the security of money, want large amounts of money in their banks. Rulers, wanting power over more people, seek large armies and armouries. Political parties pursuing earthly influence want more voters. Everything in this world revolves around big numbers.
That is a good reason - all by itself - to be suspicious of numbers.
(2) Because God is jealous for his glory. Time and again in the Old Testament, God was determined to use small numbers of humans to accomplish his purposes - so that instead of men getting the glory they don't deserve he gets the glory that he does deserve. For example, the Lord deliberately whittles the army of Gideon down from some 20,000 to 300 in order that "Israel may not boast against me that her own strength has saved her."
(3) Because God is pleased to use weakness. This is the flip side of point (2). Twelve men (11+1) turn the world upside down - and the Twelve are themselves weak ordinary unschooled chappies. Jesus commends the church in Philadelphia who have little strength. When we are pathetically weak, only then are we really strong.
(4) Because any human being can get up numbers. Quite literally anyone can build a large church. All you need to do is to lower the standard of holiness, raise the entertainment level, increase the volume of the band, tell folks that God is just about to do something amazing, preach that Jesus is coming back next Thursday lunch time (12:32, not wanting to be too precise) or spend thousands on social media, and quite literally anyone can build a following.
Churches don't need God to do big.
(5) Because Jesus only had a small church. What an insult to pastors of small churches to say to them - or to imply of them - that they are somehow deficient or lacking because they only have twelve people in their congregations? On the day of Judgement, when our deeds are assessed by the King of all kings, do we really think that pastors who have cared for flocks of a dozen or so, will be condemned by the One who faithfully pastored his little flock of 12 11?
(6) Because numbers are in the hands of the one who elects. If a church faithfully preaches the Gospel, the number of resultant converts is not in their gift. It is the Lord who elects who is saved and who is not. No amount of tear-jerking or brow-beating will add a single soul to the kingdom of God's sovereign choice.
(7) Because faith and love are more important than numbers. When the apostle Paul writes to churches he commends them for spiritual graces and he prays for spiritual graces, such as love and faith. Not once does he ask that the church would grow numerically.
There are more important issues to consider than congregational size.
(8) Because what really really matters is discipleship. This is perhaps the greatest reason numbers do not matter in the Kingdom of Christ. Jesus set the pattern of spending vast amounts of time with a very few people in order to produce depth, not breadth. And that is all that matters. Paul wrote letter after letter to produce, under God, spiritual maturity in the folks who were saved under his preaching. He was not interested in big numbers, he was interested in forming Christ in his converts.
If numbers do not matter, why, even in the evangelical world, are numbers so highly prized? Have we been totally seduced by worldly thinking? Or is there some small value to numbers?
We could, of course rationalize away all the Bible's teaching on numbers, above, and argue like this: aren't the books, writings and sermons of some preachers better than others - perhaps they have been given 5 talents rather than 2 or a meagre 1? And this explains why their numbers are greater?
That may be the case, but the proper assessment of talents will only be known on the day of judgement. It is dangerous for us to conclude, "this man has 10 million subscribers, therefore he is worth listening to."
As we continually witness, the big shots in the evangelical world turn out to be scammers in the background. You and I have no idea whether a present day big shot preacher is a big shot in the eyes of the Lord. Only the end will reveal who the Lord thinks are great - and it is very likely that heaven's OBEs will go to folk no-one heard of in this world.
Again, someone might argue, "But we want to see the Lord do mighty things in our day - we want and long to see thousands saved - are you not limiting God's power and assuming a day of small things?"
To which we must respond, "Are thousands of converts what the Lord desires or is it just fewer true disciples who then turn the world upside down?" The blunt fact of the matter is that it is quite impossible for any one Christian man or woman to make more than just a few disciples in his or her whole life time, because discipleship, according to the Bible (see HERE) is an arduous time-consuming process and practice.
Or, someone might argue, "You are only saying this because you are the pastor of a small church - it's sour grapes." Only the Lord knows our hearts of course, but the motive for writing this blog is out of concern for sheep tempted to follow preachers only by virtue of subscriber numbers or views, and who could easily be led astray. Saints who in their early spiritual childhood are learning to paint the canvas of their Christian lives by numbers, rather than...
What does matter, then, if not numbers?
If numbers do not matter, what does?
(1) The local church matters. Central to God's plan to make disciples of all nations is the local church. We are to be rooted in and come under the leadership and spiritual guidance and care of one local church. We trust these leaders only because their lives are an open book and they bear the qualities Jesus requires of elders.
We must not rely on YouTube preachers whom we do not know and who do not know us.
How do you know, dear reader, whether the big shot YouTube preacher is genuine or a fraudster? There are lots of fakes out there.
(2) Truth matters. In the second place, what counts is truth. Faithfulness to apostolic doctrine, not numbers (or worthless academic qualifications either), is what counts. Is the preaching in line with Scripture?
(3) The Life of the teacher matters. Life and teaching are connected - by their fruit you shall know them. And that is the whole point about the local church.
Ravi Zacharius - a highly popular evangelical apologist, for example - was living a wicked secret life. You may have followed him online but because he was 5000 miles away you had no idea what kind of life he was leading.
If we are going to listen to, or pay attention to, the writings of any teacher, make sure that they are personally accountable in the life of their local church, not freelancers or lone wolves. That assessment is much more difficult to do with someone who doesn't live in your city... which is why the LOCAL church and local pastors is God's plan.
Only follow men whose lives you can observe, close up and personal.
They will not be perfect, but they had better be holy.
Summing it up
So, do hits, likes and followers mean anything at all? No. On their own they are utterly and totally meaningless. In point of fact they could well be the surest sign of worldly success.
Quality, not quantity is what matters most to the Lord. Anyone can create a congregation of thousands and a following of millions. The world is full of both.
Focus on the local church.
Focus on local preachers and local leaders whose lives are an open book - that is one of the purposes and outcomes of the hospitality required of all elders.
Focus on the believers the Lord has given you, disciple and build them up in their holy faith.
Don't listen to or read anyone purely because of numbers. Listen only if they are faithful to the Word and only if their lives are accountably known to be holy.
Never seek to enhance your hits or followers or likes by any scheme, fair or foul, allow the Lord to add numerical blessing - if he so chooses.
Be satisfied the few the Lord has entrusted to you - be faithful in small things and then one day in heaven the Lord may entrust you with greater (not necessarily numerically greater) things.
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