How is biz?

So, today I was able to have a couple of lovely conversations with some folks from Multnomah publishers about our church and what we do. Inevitably, the question comes up, "How's your church doing?"

...

Um...

Good?

It's almost like asking, "How are you?" I get the point of the question, but I just don't know how to answer it rightly. When asked, "How's business?" I can say catagorically good or bad based upon my personal revenue generated by the sales that come in. This is because I have a single minded focus, to sell products. I don't get paid to do anything else but sell as much packaging and industrial supplies as I can. Church...that's another story.

When your goal is to impact the human soul, the waters get a bit muddied. I think when people ask, "how's church?" What they mean sub conciously is, "Are you adding to your numerical growth as a church organization?" This seems to be the sign of health. What other metrics are there? Francis Chan said it best that you can use marketing, dynamic (but not necessarily Biblical) teaching, and cool worship to grow a church, but that doesn't mean the Holy Spirit is there. And if He ain't in it, then what are you/we doing?

The problem lies in the fact that the purpose of church is to impact the human soul and condition and we don't have real access to that. We can see fruit for sure, but even that can be inorganic and fake...so how do you know?! Do you look at church involvement? Then that just breeds a church of busy people. Converts to the faith? Then you might have people only looking to add notches to their Jesus belt and create a quota system. Plus, God judges the heart and that's where real salvation occurs...so you can't even know that!?

I'm sure this is an age old question, but it's one that I have been struggling with for a hot minute now. My thoughts immediately go towards Matthew 28. We need to answer the question of what a disciple of Christ looks like and work from there. The disciples were left with a single call on their lives and whatever they did worked because here I am talking about them on an interweb blog about wearing a sweater vest on a Wednesday in Colorado in 2011 (that doesn't make me a disciple by the way, but it does make me a sweaty mess on 90 degree days here).

So, what does it like to create passionate, devoted disciples of Jesus? I mean real, full of love and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness and self-control (I think I'm missing one there) followers of Jesus? These are our metrics. All numbers say is that we are doing a good job of being a growing American church and I am thankful for that. But that can't be the end all be all of a vibrant, Kingdom growing church. It just can't be.
I'm so thankful for everyone who attends our church, but let's keep pushing and not stop until we cross that finish line.

Side note, I bought a sweet used sweater vest at the Goodwill today for $3...or as I put it, $3 more than I hope to ever be paid by a growing, life giving church like Alethia.