It continues to sadden me when I see how much the "number of members" i.e. quantity is used as a guage for success in ministry. The quality of the members in a church is definitely more important and valuable to any Pastor. I'm not saying that churches should not grow - far from it. Churches have to grow in order to depopulate the kingdom of the devil.
However, the way I see it, if it's all or only about quantity i.e. numbers, you may find that the church lumbers. The church may even slumber because some people may expect that someone else will do what anyone can do only to find out that no one is doing it because everyone is waiting for someone else to do it.
On the flip side, when the focus is quality, the church is more nimble and impactful because each member knows and owns their stake in the church. In fact, if there is only one thing that we can learn from Judges 7, it is that numbers are not too critical to God. In verse 2, the Lord said to Gideon:
"You have too many people on your side. If I were to hand Midian over to them, the Israelites might claim credit for themselves rather than for me, thinking, We saved ourselves." (CEB)
A retweet by my husband put it slightly differently:
It’s not about the SIZE of your circle, it’s about the LOYALTY that’s in it!
- Rick Godwin @ricklgodwin
So please be more interested and invest more in the quality of the members of the church vs. the quantity.
