an optimist? yup, i are one!

after having gone back and forth on the comments for the “its called discipleship” post, this started out as a reply to the latest comment, but it got so long I decided to do it as its own post. in a nutshell, the topic at hand has to do with a statistic put forth by george barna concerning the disparity between the percentage of church-goers who claim that God is the number one priority in their lives (15%), and what pastors who were asked the same question about their congregants believed that number to be (70%).

several commenters (<--this got a red line as i typed it in microsoft word, so i guess it isn’t a real word!) had put forth the idea that the pastors got it so wrong because by nature they are an overly optimistic lot, and that optimism is a defense mechanism designed to guard against discouragement and/or termination. i had started to think that i was the one that first used the word "optimism" to explain the seemingly poor grasp that some pastors appear to have on where their members are spiritually, but that first appeared in somebody else's comment (i wont go into who said what... you can click the link to the post and read the comments there). i was about to say that i brought this all upon myself by using that term :-)

it has been suggested that pastors cannot lead people where they do not wish to go (i.e: if some of the church members don’t want to be discipled, you cant make them), which I agree with 100%, and that I should allow for a bit of positive thinking for pastors who find themselves in such a position (which would be any pastor who takes on the responsibility of trying to take their people to a deeper level of commitment to Christ). although i was never a senior pastor, i did spend 13 years in youth ministry on church staffs, so i was once a "person in such a position"... i dont speak as an uninformed outsider. and while i wasnt fired from my last church because of being a realist concerning spiritual depth, it was a huge factor in my decision to voluntarily leave that church and church staff ministry in general. in another of the churches where i served as youth minister, while i wasnt outright fired, i was pressured to resign because "the numbers werent there."

as i said in an earlier comment, i once played the "numbers" game, as many do... just go to any gathering of youth ministers, ed. ministers or pastors, and inevitably the first question is "so, how many you running... in sunday school/in worship/on wednesday night/on sunday night?" and because success has been so closely associated with "how many you running?", the typical pastor often defaults to attendance as an indicator of the spiritual health of his church. when i said NO to the numbers game and started trying to take my kids deeper, thats when the doody hit the fan. i'm not against growing a church, but you cant ignore the need to give your folks the opportunity to go deeper.

take a look at rick warren's purpose-driven church model. nobody doubts that warren is into growing a church, and saddleback is huge. but part of the premise behind purpose-driven is to always be striving to bring those in the outer circles in to a deeper level of commitment. there are pastors who understand this and recognize the necessity for it... and there are those that think the numbers in and of themselves are the measure of spiritual health.

it was pointed out to me that pastors are “statistically” more optimistic. i think (and hope!) that not just pastors, but Christians in general are statistically more optimistic. if our hope is in Christ, we have the greatest reason of anyone to be optimistic!! i cant see where i ever said that it isnt a good thing for a pastor to try to be optimistic. believe me, if a down-in-the-mouth pessimist ever came to my church in view of a call, i'd vote "NO" in a heartbeat! i just don’t accept that optimism is a good substitute for realism, and for that matter, i don’t see how they are mutually exclusive.

though i may not have sounded very optimistic when i wrote that barna's findings "paint a rather bleak picture of the state of the Church in america", my optimism lies in the state of the Church world-wide. in china, vietnam, cambodia and a number of middle east countries (all places where persecution runs rampant), Christianity is not only growing numerically, but the people hunger for the Word, and they hunger to know God more intimately... and many of them are willing to die for the privilege of doing so! additionally, according to Christian history institute, the Christian population in africa has grown from 8-9% of the population in 1900, to 45% in 2000, and they report in the 20^th century alone almost 2 million Christian martyrs in africa, not including another 1.5 million who have been slaughtered during civil strife in rwanda, burundi and sudan. (even in a free country such as south korea, which is second only to the united states [and gaining fast] in the number of missionaries sent, Christianity is alive and thriving). while i may sound like the numbers-quoting pastors that i’ve been critical of in these 2 posts, it’s the numbers of people worldwide that don’t just claim the title of Christian, but seek to know and serve Christ more passionately - especially those that have died for their faith - that speak to me… shallow Christians will not put their life on the line for the sake of the Kingdom. they’ll barely sacrifice a football game for a worship service. if history is any indicator, it just may take a great persecution here in america before pastors and members alike wake up.