Numbers are so important, there is a book of the Bible named after them.

 We've obviously been doing a lot online at Our Saviour Lutheran.    To what ends?   My October newsletter article may shed some light on that question.

========

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ!

“I wonder what Pastor Lance does these days?’  

No one has asked me that directly, but it IS a valid question a congregation should ask of its pastor during these weird times.    Of course, I’m spending a LOT of time working on online work.    If you have been getting your Grapevine issues over the past few months, you should know that.  But a second question is—is it worth is it?

Well, let’s look at some numbers.   For a few decades, the media and academy around the church has been pretty dim on the notion of numbers.   They have said things like “American churches are too focused on the number of rumps they are putting in the pews and how many bucks are going in the offering plate.   They OUGHT to be focusing on _____!”   You can fill in the blank with a thousand different things—social justice, discipleship, you name it.   

But I’ll disagree.   As Pastor Mel from the bishop’s office told a bunch of us seminarians heading out to calls.  “Numbers ARE important.   So important that God named a book of the Bible after them!”  Cute, but also true.   Numbers aren’t the be all, end all.   But they tell us important things.   Would you be impressed if the name of the story“ was Jesus feeds a bunch of people” rather than “Jesus feeds the 5000”?  Why does Luke write that after Peter preached three thousand were baptized (Acts 2) and that about 5000 came to believe some time later (Acts 4)?   Numbers are important in telling a story.

So let us consider the story of this congregation and how it touches the hearts and minds of people in our proclamation of the Good News.   And let’s roll the clocks back to this time last year in 2019 or even 2018.  

   Avg Worship attendance per week = 60

   Avg Bible Study attendance per week= 12

Now let us say (even though we know there is some overlap in the actual people) that those events are called “touches”.  So this congregation was making an average of 72 touches per week.

Now let’s come up to date.    September of 2020—yikes, the COVID Crisis Era!

   Avg Worship attendance = 35 per week

   Avg number of listeners to PL’s sermon on Soundcloud = 12 per week

   Avg number of people watching OSLC’s worship (live or recorded) = 33 per week

   Avg number watching Daily Prayer with Pastor Lance = 100  per week (5 days, ~20 per day)

 

That is a number of weekly touches that totals 180.    And that…is an increase of 150% in just 6 months.    That is enormous.    A 150% increase in six months means that—right about the time of Holy Week 2021—we would (could? will?  be making 450 touches a week!

Is this the work of the Kingdom of God? Maybe.   I remember some guy telling his disciples about the Kingdom of God being like a mustard seed.  

                                                 Peace in Christ,

                                                Pastor Lance