A young woman pastor speaks of a small skirmish in her church over counting. In three years, the small, northeastern church she serves has increased from one Sunday service to two services on the weekend and one midweek. About a third of the congregation attends all three services. Unless a visitor finds a home with us, we don't have the right to use him or her to pad our statistics. This isn't about high numbers, it is about changed lives.
Improvement is crucial to the church.
There must be ways to measure growth that accurately reflect our reality. Numbers alone can't tell us what we need to know. Growing numbers are a smoke screen that may prevent us from seeing the true health of the church. Declining numbers may fool us into believing we know something about the church that we really don't. The identity of the church shall remain undisclosed because it is embarrassing to the home conference in which the story takes place.