17
Aug

Churches: Less For More, More For Less? The Numbers

Lets be real about the numbers when it comes to so many churches in any area. Just think about it. No burger place thinks it can really succeed when there are so many other choices in the area without totally crushing the competition (by really getting loyal customers to make the switch while at the same time gaining a few more new ones.) So what could we expect from a town like the one I mentioned last post?

This town has about 28,000 people.  There are approximately 90 churches and places of worship bent towards “Christianity.”  That divides up to about 311 per church. Oh yeah, not everyone is a Christian or attends church.  According to a parable used by Jesus in Luke 8, only a few of even the seeds sown will continue to produce fruit.  So lets just say 1/5 of them are these really good fruit-producing Christ-followers (that’s about the national average for just church attendance so I’m being generous), that leaves just about 62 to a church.  Now if these 62 tithe 10% of their average income which is $35,000 of this town, it would leave an average income for the church of $217,000 for the year. Now believe me when I say that $217,000 is pretty generous for a small church to work with.

What do you think about this? Sounds like it would be better if the churches got together and combined their influences and I say yes on certain levels.  But if this was actually true, that you could find 62 good fruit-producing Christ-followers in every church, that would be enough to knock the socks off the town.  Jesus says in that same parable that those few good fruit-producing followers could produce a crop some hundred times more than what was even sown to begin with! That’s amazing.

An old time revival preacher by the name of John Wesley once said “Give me 100 preachers, who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God and I care not a straw whether they be clergy or lay, such alone will shake the gates of hell and set up the kingdom of God upon the earth.”

Sometimes the numbers don’t make sense, but that’s why God is supernatural.

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