The average person, statistics reveal, attends church 1.8 times per month. That’s a churched person! That means the typical church goer gets to church 22 times per year. Other stats point to the growing number of people who attend church, but do not connect or ever truly know Jesus. And I agree, somewhat. If going to church means just showing up, dropping a twenty in the offering, singing a few songs and listening to a speaker go on and on for 30 minutes, I’m not sure that is the key factor in knowing Jesus. Church is far more than attendance. Biblically church is about a community, a group of people who now have a new destiny, who have left the pursuits everyone else chases. Church is about a group of people who commit to the Kingdom of God and commit to each other. Sunday attendance may be a step in that direction or it may just be a box checked. If our pursuit of the Kingdom stops at the 22 times per year attendance something is awry.
Developing a church is far more about what happens Monday – Saturday than it is about the 1-1.5 hours on Sunday. Maybe as we find ourselves awash in a new culture we will be pushed back to asking different questions. Rather than Sunday attendance, what if we counted disciples, people who chose to take up their cross and fully move into the community? What if we measured the attendance and impact of our discipleship patterns such as small group attendance (if your groups are not just for fellowship but for disciple making)?
We are in a new day for ministry. It is a day full of opportunity and crisis! This new day can drive us back to asking deeper questions, to more clearly thinking through what we do and why we do it. This new day can open up a new wave of disciples who can indeed take the world by storm. Some have said our culture bears great resemblance to that of Jesus’ time. How awesome is that! For in the darkest hours the light came. At just the right time Jesus showed up. And he is showing up today, inviting us to new patterns of ministry, to deeper calling and deeper hope. What a privilege we have!!