Monday, April 03, 2006
The Tyranny Of The Metric
Last week at T4G, Mark Dever put up an excellent post about how ministries often work
You know, in this day and age you can walk into a lot of trinket shops and by a "ship in a bottle" - it's shaped like a ship - it induces a little of that "how'd they do that?" awe, but it's obviously mass-produced.
Then you can walkinto a top-notch maritime museum and see a ship in a bottle that takes your breath away. All the rigging completely present and hand-tied, painful knot by painful knot. Each deckboard neatly shown, with a nails visible! The hull is not just a solid piece of balsa wood, but the ship is framed and planked just like the real thing. No mass produced thing, you have found a work of art and a work of love.
I think that is an analogy to building an organization and bulding a disciple. A disciple is a work of art and a work of love. A disciple cannot be mass produced. But mostly, building a disciple takes more time than you possible have and more committment than you can possibly muster. Don't worry, God will provide, all we have to do is be willing to accept.
Related Tags: church, disciples, The Great Commission, numerical goals, Christianity
Let me be clear--I AM NOT AGAINST NUMERICAL GOALS. They can be great motivational tools. I think that they have dangers, and particularly severe dangers when allowed to hold firm in a culture of churches and church leaders that go less and less to Scripture and more and more to business, pscyhology, the health professions for pragmatic answers. I could go on, but you all know what I mean.Dever goes on to point out that Christ set the ultimate goal - "All nations" - but there is more to the Grat Commission - he sent us to "make diciples" - not build a organization.
While this is not in itself a complicated theological attack on the gospel, it acts in a complicated, multi-layered, subtle and unintentional way to degrade churches which are, in turn to proclaim, exemplify, define and defend the gospel.
You know, in this day and age you can walk into a lot of trinket shops and by a "ship in a bottle" - it's shaped like a ship - it induces a little of that "how'd they do that?" awe, but it's obviously mass-produced.
Then you can walkinto a top-notch maritime museum and see a ship in a bottle that takes your breath away. All the rigging completely present and hand-tied, painful knot by painful knot. Each deckboard neatly shown, with a nails visible! The hull is not just a solid piece of balsa wood, but the ship is framed and planked just like the real thing. No mass produced thing, you have found a work of art and a work of love.
I think that is an analogy to building an organization and bulding a disciple. A disciple is a work of art and a work of love. A disciple cannot be mass produced. But mostly, building a disciple takes more time than you possible have and more committment than you can possibly muster. Don't worry, God will provide, all we have to do is be willing to accept.
Related Tags: church, disciples, The Great Commission, numerical goals, Christianity
