The Illusion of Quantity

Jesus told us to go and make disciples.

So we develop strategies and definitions of what this means.

Sermons. Good works. Church membership. Baptisms. The number of persons or the amount of time spent in the mission field. The number of times we witness. New Converts. Ten Commandments.

All good things.

But we may be overemphasizing them.

Unfortunately, it’s quite easy to do.

They share a common trait. They are measurable.

They can be quantified and charted. Perhaps graphed or placed in pie charts for the real nerds.

photo by T. Al Nakib (stock.xchng)

And the measurement of quantities satisfies the need to feel like we are making a difference.

So we leave off important, less measurable aspects of disciple making.

We forget about relationships.

Establishing relationships is hard. It requires that we actually care. Caring takes time. Sacrifice. Giving.

All hard work. Work that can’t be proven through a statistic.

Mission requires establishing relationships.

And relationships require love.