How It All Goes Wrong (Again)

How It All Goes Wrong (Again)
NUMBERS 25:1- 26: 51

Numbers cause us some anxiety. I am often discouraged by the numbers of people in our church, afraid it is dying (the average age is quite high). A shrinking church will seem to be a failing church. So from time to time I glance at the attendance figures from a decade or so ago and find that they are not so different from today’s figures. We may assume that a healthy church is a growing church, though in the present context of Europe and the United States, simply staying the same is an achievement. On the other hand, a pastor friend of mine grew a church from three figures into four figures but then feared he had merely grown a large club and started insisting that the church do some tougher things, like reaching out to minorities in the area and to needy and homeless people. He soon saw the church shrink in numbers, but in another sense, you could say the church had grown...