I had someone ask me offline where I was headed with my previous postings on Numbers in Ministry (post 1, post 2).
While each post stood alone, this person discerned that they were not going to be the end to the discussion.
Guess what? They were correct.
Today, I want to look at two terms that sicken me when I hear them. Ministerial Exaggeration and Statistically Insignificant.
Ministerial Exaggeration
How many people were at LIVE tonight? Oh, about 100. That’s funny, because my math said 85, including the workers. But hey, a 15-17% margin of error is tolerable.
How many we saved during the outreach program? Couple dozen. Of course, no one has SEEN them since the outreach program, so how do you really know?
Church leadership LOVES to inflate its statistics. Our attendance is always inflated. We are always doing a better job on paper than we really are.
Straight out, ministerial exaggeration is LYING. With our look at Titus 1, we see that our ministers are to be truthful and honest. Something is wrong when we have a separate category of exaggeration associated with our elders.
Statistically Insignificant
I personally heard a denominational leader tell us that after the age of 18, the number of folks that come to Christ are “statistically insignificant”. There is pressure then to get kids to “make a decision” while in the children’s or youth ministry.
But what numeric value does “statistically insignificant” represent? Are we talking 10%? Maybe 5%? How about as little as 1%?
Jesus himself considered 1% to be significant. (Matthew 18:13)
Was the Ethiopian eunuch “statistically insignificant”? God thought enough of this man’s soul to change Philip’s preaching schedule around. Instead of preaching to “many villages” (Acts 8:26) God has Philip go wait for one man to come by. (Acts 8:27)
Consider my good friend Ritchie Dzio. He became a believer well after he was 60. To call his salvation insignificant in and of itself is bad enough, but to look at the last twenty years that he has spent witnessing to the lost, counseling the dead in sin, showing Christ to a depraved world, is ludicrous at best.
Who is man to judge God’s ways? Who is man to place a value on God’s will?