Adam McLane

Why Do Church Leaders Count?

counting-sheep

If ministry is about people and not numbers, why do we count people?

I’ve been going to church a long time. I’ve visited and been a part of probably a dozen churches. Typically, churches count heads either during the offering time or during the sermon of the Sunday morning services. And counting is a big part of everything else that goes on in a church as well. How many in Sunday school, how many at youth group, how many in the choir, how many pastors, how many chairs are unused, how many people cars in the parking lot, how many donuts, how many old ladies, how many envelopes were in the offering… the counting never stops.

People in churches: I find it devaluing to be counted. If that’s you… communicate to your leaders to stop counting you. When people have to sit on the floors because the preaching or program is so good, we’ll know to give to a building campaign. Until then numbers mean squat. Tell your staff to focus on who does come to church and not how many more they need to reach a goal or propose their next fund raising campaign.

People on church staffs: Stop counting stuff. Find something better to talk about in your team meetings. If you’re judging everything by a number then you’re judging things by the wrong denominator. I’m all for measuring success and failure. But find a measurement device that isn’t butts in seats or dollars in the plate. Don’t give me that crap about the parable of the 99 sheep. That’s not why you’re counting! Counting heads, cars, envelopes isn’t about finding lost sheep... it’s about ego.

Admitting that is the first step towards recovery.

You can have a church that doesn’t count. It’ll work. Trust me. Next time someone asks you how many ____ come to ____, tell them you don’t know.

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33 responses to “Why Do Church Leaders Count?”

  1. roots-ben Avatar
    roots-ben

    Adam,

    While I agree with the basic message of this post (numbers aren’t important, people are) I still find some value in counting folks.

    By “taking attendance” each week at our church, our elders/pastors/leaders are able to see trends in who hasn’t been showing up. And we then check in with them — not to put them on a guilt-trip, but to see how they are doing and if we can help them in any way.

    I often am annoyed when I look behind me and see “the counter” up in the balcony counting heads during worship. But at the same time, I’m grateful for “the counter” because their work really does help our church in the long run — it helps us keep the pulse of those in our church.

    Reply
  2. Jonas Avatar
    Jonas

    I agree with you Adam. It seems that many church leaders use numbers as a security blanket and as an easy way to evaluate “success”. If you want to go to scripture David got into a lot of trouble when he started counting. I’m not so sure God is that excited about how many people are sitting in our chairs as much as He is concerned about their hearts. I hope someday we will be able to rethink the way we evaluate success and progress in our churches. Maybe we can let go of our security blankets.
    Just a thought, if our churches get so big that we must rely on counting heads maybe it’s time to think about planting

    Reply
  3. Leena Avatar
    Leena

    I agree it is annoying – I’m curious though are you annoyed with having people obviously counting heads or does this include having people ‘sign in’ for worship, class or an event?

    PC-USA holds congregations to paying per capita of their active membership. Somewhere between $30-$40 per person. They encourage members to try to give at least their per capita in offering annually. If they aren’t participating or giving on a regular basis they ask members if they’d rather be noted as ‘inactive’ rather than ‘active’ so that the church isn’t having to pay the per capita for them.
    There are times I’ve needed to provide a copy of the AWWA log (Average Weekly Worship Attendance) number to an organization for a discount on curriculum or to apply for grant money – it has been to the benefit of my ministry and ministry budget to have the numbers written down.

    Aside from that I’m a quality vs. quantity type of gal for children and youth ministry.

    Reply
  4. Todd Tolson Avatar
    Todd Tolson

    Adam, why are you so allergic to this? Even in Jesus’ most famous parable, the Shepherd accounts for His flock…he counts them. And when He found that one was missing, He went after it.

    The Apostle Peter tells the Church Elders to be like Shepherds to the Church…the flock. Why wouldn’t we want to know who is/isn’t coming?

    Let me submit a rule that the Tolson’s (that’s me) have in our house: “Always choose to believe the best about a person…and even when they give you evidence that you can’t, still be gracious with them”.

    I don’t think that this post, which I think is throwing churches under the bus because they count is neither believing the best about their intentions, or is gracious.

    What do you think?

    Reply
  5. adam mclane Avatar
    adam mclane

    @Todd- Allergic? I think counting people is devaluing them. If you don’t know my name, why are you counting me!

    Where I disagree with you is from my years of experience working for various churches. Those conversations about number are rarely driven by care… they are about something else.

    I’m tired of hearing that a ministry stinks because it is not well attended, or one is great because lots of people come. A lot of people watch the news on TV… does that make it good? A lot of people don’t come to church, does that mean church as a whole is bad?

    There are much better measurement tools to a churches health than counting sheep. All I’m saying is if any ministry is basing success/failure on a number of butts in seats or donuts consumed… they are focusing on the wrong things. People don’t come to any church to pad stats. My experience is that most church leaders have no clue why their people come, they just count ’em. Quantitative analysis is all that matters.

    What I am hoping to gain is church leaders thinking about why a person comes to a church qualitatively… the model of leadership should definitely be like that of a shepherd knowing his sheep. Is counting part of that, a very small part, but a part.

    I am allergic to the anemic use of attraction tactics prevalent in the church today.

    @leena- I usually make numbers up in situations like that. One time I’ll tell a ministry I have 10 kids, next time I’ll tell them 3000. 🙂 I’m just a dork like that!

    Reply
  6. Todd Tolson Avatar
    Todd Tolson

    Adam,

    The first year of counting anything in a church is not very helpful. It’s the second year that counts.

    How many (more) people this year made a commitment to Jesus and was baptized?
    How many (more) people this year served the poor?
    How many (more) people this year made a commitment to doing life together w/others in a small group?
    How many (more) people this year committed to daily spending time with God?

    If churches only counted people on Sunday, I’d agree that’s shallow. I’ve worked at several churches, and have been doing this “working at a church” thing for 13 years. Yeah, there’s some shallow Hal’s out there. But there’s some real shepherd’s out there too. Can’t we try optimism for a change and give them some props?

    Reply
  7. adam mclane Avatar
    adam mclane

    Sure, give me some examples of what you’re talking about and I’m going to celebrate. In my 10 years of church work I can safely label those conversations as “rare.” Or, when numbers are good (translate, we’re making budget) it’s about qualitative things.

    And… just FYI. If I posted it from a optimist perspective no one would read and/or comment. I can’t fix that cultural thing… wish I could!

    Reply
  8. Todd Tolson Avatar
    Todd Tolson

    ha, I get it. FYI – if you posted from an optimistic perspective, I would read & comment. That’s just ’cause I like you.

    Reply
  9. Uncle Dave Avatar
    Uncle Dave

    i love the way people look at church as a business.
    How can we get a high conversion rate?
    How can we hold on to our customers?
    How can we optimize our campaigns in order to get the most clicks?

    I love this. Running the church like it was a business. Because that is what it is all about. Create a product, and sell sell sell.
    JESUS the brand name.

    Sorry can’t keep up the sarcasm much longer.

    Your right, church is about the people. But people are not customers. Jesus built a community, if he was walking the earth today, he would have the greatest twitter account, the most awesome facebook group. He would connect… and be your friend on myspace. Sounds like an elementary sunday school lesson.

    The fact of the story is this. A shepherd had 100 sheep, each of which he knew by name, their lifestyle, their social status and eating habits (mm grass). Steve wandered off the path, so the shepherd WENT to him, and met him at his need and took his hand (hoove-thing) and brought him back so that he could follow again.

    This is church, this is not numbers, this is Jesus.

    Reply
  10. Jonas Knudsen Avatar
    Jonas Knudsen

    I don’t know if Jesus would have had a my space or facebook, but I agree with Dave, it’s about the Kingdom of God not global enterprise.

    Reply
  11. Joel Mayward Avatar
    Joel Mayward

    Adam, I’m curious, are you saying that any counting or attendance-taking in the church is inherently unhealthy, or that the motives behind attendance-taking are generally unhealthy? It’s an important distinction. You’re right that if we’re judging everything by numbers, then we’re missing the point. But if we connect numbers to relationship, to knowing the people in the community, to be strategic and intentional about growth/maturity, and to simply be organized, then I think numbers can be useful. Knowing the numbers is useful; basing success on the numbers becomes distracting at best and idolatry at worst.

    Reply
  12. adam mclane Avatar
    adam mclane

    Joel- I think the distinction comes in… what are the numbers used for? My contention is that there’s simply no reason to count heads.

    There’s really no functional reason to know “how many” are in any given event. “Who” is important, but not “how many” from a shepherding perspective. ala, the Moses principle.

    The justifications for taking attendance, especially with adults, are typically not evaluation… but at the end of the day they are… we’ve all experienced it! People look at numbers and judge stuff… we don’t look qualitatively at a gov’t program, we look at how much it costs. We don’t value the economy by anything other than numbers. We judge schools by numbers, etc. And there is merit in judging those things purely by numbers… to an extent. But in church there really is no functional reason you NEED to take attendance. (For kids ministry, I think it’s essential for safety.)

    This really is the result of church leaders not knowing how to handle data. It merely feeds into a biz model which is unbiblical.

    Reply
  13. Todd Tolson Avatar
    Todd Tolson

    Adam, the only problem I have with that is that God counts. And the New Testament writers counted too. We know that 3,000 were saved and baptized on Pentecost. We know shortly after another 5,000 men were saved. I won’t even mention the fact that there is an entire book in the OT called….”NUMBERS”.

    Reply
  14. adam mclane Avatar
    adam mclane

    Todd– those NT numbers were approximations. The book of Numbers is a census ordained by God for a specific purpose.

    I’d love to see a biblical justification for taking head counts on Sunday morning.

    You know I’m just being snarky about this, right? 🙂

    My contention is simply that there is no real reason we count everything. We just do it.

    Reply
  15. Todd Tolson Avatar
    Todd Tolson

    Dave,

    between the time that I first responded to Adam’s post, and you responded, I prayed with a man who has checked himself into a rehab center, because he’s lost his buisness, and his home. I helped feed a family of 5, because Dad got laid off, and unemployment hasn’t kicked in yet. btw…he just had surgery on his wrist because of a bone-eating tumor, thank God it’s NOT cancerous. Later in the day I counseled with a young guy in college who’s trying out for the Biggest Loser, because his weight level is life threatening, and then counseled another guy who’s struggling with homosexuality. Finally, I started the third installment of a class for people who’ve lost jobs, foreclosed on their homes, or are just struggling financially. 103 people came.

    I don’t know what you did with you day. I’d bet it was something like: make several other retarded, sarcastic comments against people who are trying to make a Kingdom impact in the world, switched your facebook status to “married”, because you’re in love with Jesus, and then played Xbox. Dude, it’s time to grow up, move out of your mom’s house and get a clue. The rest of us are trying to do something with our one and only life.

    We count people, because people count. Their life counts. Get over it.

    Reply
  16. Uncle Dave Avatar
    Uncle Dave

    i’m sorry but I don’t recall any specific need for a personal attack… I like the way you researched me first. I glad you care that much, all seriousness, I am glad you are taking action instead of just counting, People do count and I agree with you, times are tough and I know that completely and from personal experience.

    I respect you Todd and want you to keep on keeping on, and to remember that I am one of those people too.
    Thanks.

    Reply
  17. Todd Tolson Avatar
    Todd Tolson

    Dave,

    I took your assumption that I or anyone else you’ve never met treats the Church as a business…as personal.

    Anytime people start baggin’ on the Bride of Christ, as imperfect as we are…is personal: Both to God, and it should be to us too.

    Reply
  18. Uncle Dave Avatar
    Uncle Dave

    todd, I am not out to blast the church. In fact I am just restating what church is. And in churches I have been to / worked in / volunteered in.. I have seen how this can get clouded, ‘church’ can be hell. The more time I spend on the streets of San Francisco, the more I don’t want to go to church and feel apathetic. We are the bride of Christ, we are the church.
    I’ll talk later I have to get some work done

    Reply
  19. Todd Tolson Avatar
    Todd Tolson

    Dave, I agree with much of your last post. Email me your address, (todd@journeycom.org) and I’ll send you the financial kit for free. I over-ordered a little. I’m sure it’s extremely expensive to live in San Fran…the kit might help you save for a rainy day.

    Honestly, my gift to you.

    Reply
  20. adam mclane Avatar
    adam mclane

    Todd- curious how you think this post attacks the bride of Christ.

    In fact, I feel like a lot of churches are treating people like a commodity. I’m not a commodity to be counted and relegated as a giving unit. That makes me feel like as though I’m not truly part of being the bridge of Christ… just something capable of being bought, sold, and traded.

    As far as a hopeless theme of this post… just wait. I’ve got a doozy about church hoppers coming next week!

    Reply
  21. Andrea Avatar
    Andrea

    Oh my.

    Sometimes it can be useful to know how many doughnuts to bring.

    In all seriousness, I would contend that numbers are helpful. If people are leaving an organization, it might be worthwhile to start asking some questions to figure out why. This is not to say that you need to shut down your program or completely revise it, and maybe the people who are leaving are wrong in doing so. But asking the question is important.

    Even so, I do feel that having official “head counters” or a sign-in sheet is going overboard, and that general estimates are plenty sufficient. There is definite danger in relying heavily on numbers, because they never ever tell the whole story.

    Reply
  22. Todd Tolson Avatar
    Todd Tolson

    Adam,

    There’s a mass assumption (albiet based on your experience, perspective & opinion) that church leaders treat the Church like a business or commodity. In my opinion (everyone has one, so mine’s not worth much), a shotgun blast blog post isn’t beneficial for anyone.

    We have yet to meet. So I don’t think it’s fair to make such a generalized assumption about me, or people like me that still work in/for a church.

    Ha! Bring on the Church Hoppers post! We all LOVE them! PS – haven’t you already done a post like this recently?

    Reply
  23. jess Avatar
    jess

    loving the discussion.
    i don’t mind counting, as long as the church counting takes into account that each of those numbers represents a human soul, someone’s mother, father, brother, sister, neighbor, co-worker, friend, etc. and then takes the responsibility on to help grow the individual that represents that number, to reach out in love to the other people they come into contact with.
    thanks for the post adam.
    paz.

    Reply
  24. Todd Tolson Avatar
    Todd Tolson

    Jess – I TOTALLY agree with this post! My problem with it though is that there is this assumption that churches aren’t already viewing each number as a human soul, mother, father, etc…

    Why is it so hard for the Church to believe the best about the Church? We’re so suspicious of other’s motives/intentions…

    Reply
  25. Jonas Knudsen Avatar
    Jonas Knudsen

    I don’t think anyone here is “attacking” the church here (I know that’s not Adam’s intent). It’s an honest question to ponder for sure. I don’t think this is a question of morality (whether the church views people as human souls or not) either. I realize counting is a way of evaluating effectiveness, however there are other ways of evaluating that are more qualitative. I appreciate, Todd, that you see the best in the church, but please don’t assume that those of us who are rethinking these things don’t see the best in the church. Currently there is no strong biblical implications that it is imperative for the church to count their congregation. I don’t know what you do for ministry, but our churches are like a business. For some this is very frustrating and a bit disillusioning. I would like to see a more qualitative approach to our evaluation of effective ministry (maybe say spiritual growth over quantitative growth).

    Reply
  26. jess Avatar
    jess

    i think the assumption is valid. i’ve worked in churches for a long while. i think the problem comes when church leaders, i.e. pastors, don’t communicate the importance of each individual to the people who really care about the counting, which is usually lay people, or people higher up who aren’t as hands on.
    i don’t think the problem is in the counting, its in the lack of education and understanding of those who care about the numbers more than the people they represent.

    Reply
  27. Todd Tolson Avatar
    Todd Tolson

    Jonas, I agree with you. I know that Adam’s intent isn’t to attack the Church. As much as I know of Adam (even though we’ve never met, and he works and lives right around the corner from me ::hint, hint::) I know he’s a stand up guy that loves the LORD, and even loves the Church. Some of the stuff that comes out rubs me the wrong way…sometimes because he’s right on, and it’s convicting. Sometimes, I just think he’s out in left field.

    That said, I think we can ALL AGREE, that we want ALL churches to be healthy, for broken people to find wholeness, the grieving to find comfort, etc… and of course, it’s a relationship with Jesus that brings about that wholeness/comfort/etc… so, I have this story that I have to share with you all, because I think the people following this post will appreciate it:

    So, I’ve been working in the “church world” for 13 years. I’m fortunate enough to be full-time staff, and that allows for me to provide for my wife of 11 years, and our two children. I moonlight for my Dad, who owns/operates a computer build & repair business in East County San Diego. Most of my Dad’s clients are retired, disabled Veterans (like himself), who are going back to school, so the Military provides them a computer to do that with.

    Today, I delivered three computers. One of them was to a Middle Aged Philippino man in Spring Valley. I wrapped up my first appt. quicker than I thought I would, and I ended up at Daniel’s house about 10 minutes early. As I drove up to his house, I noticed that three very nicely dressed people (2 men/1 woman) were walking up to his porch. My first thought was, “great the JW’s got here before I could. Now I’m gonna have to wait”. When I walked up to his porch, the front door was open, and Daniel greeted me at his door, and invited me in. He told me that I could begin setting up, but the four of them were about to pray. Now, not knowing to whom or what they were praying to, I offered to come back later, and the lady said they’d only need three minutes.

    So, I went back to my truck to get the computer parts I needed. The three folks who had beaten me to the punch, got in their car and left. As I began to set up the computer, I said to Daniel, “…friends of yours?” “Yes”, he replied. “They are deacons at my church, and they just came over to pray for me”.

    Thinking maybe something was wrong, and that’s why they’d come over, I asked, “Do they come over often?”

    I was BLOWN AWAY by his response:

    “…no, not really. Only once a week.”

    ONCE A WEEK!

    Then I thought that maybe he went to a church of 25-40, which is why the deacons could visit the 8-10 families in their church that often. So I said, “…alot of people go to your church?” “Yes! No matter how early I get to church, I can rarely get a seat. Most of the time we have to stand, because there’s no room – which is funny, because the seating capacity is 400, and we have 4 services on the weekend, and 2 services during the week!”

    Then I added, “Those deacons must really like you, to visit you as much as they do.”

    Again, his response was pretty interesting: “Yeah, maybe. I know that there are a lot of deacons, and everyone in my church gets a visit every week. But it’s the same three that visit me. They’ve been coming to my house for a long time.”

    Sorry for the lengthy comment, but I thought it was too remarkable not to share.

    Reply
  28. adam mclane Avatar
    adam mclane

    Todd- that story is amazing! I read that and thought, “I want to go to that church.” I mean, for real… who doesn’t want to be known like that?

    Essentially, that’s the opposite of just counting heads, isn’t it?

    Reply
  29. Todd Tolson Avatar
    Todd Tolson

    why, yes sir, I’d have to agree with that 🙂

    Reply
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  31. LH Avatar
    LH

    So this was posted in March, and it’s December now…

    Just ran across it.

    I agree with this. Our church does a lot of counting. For example: one of the duties of the Sunday School director is to count. He counts people in attendance, number of Bibles brought, and offering. Why? I don’t know. For the past year, I was a Sunday School teacher at my church. Not once did the SS teachers meet to discuss why these numbers were important. As a matter of fact, we didn’t meet at all. Nobody really knows what the SS teachers teach unless they sit in for a few classes. And it was not until the last few weeks that someone not in my class (I taught teens) sat in for a few minutes two weeks.

    Now what was more important? Numbers, or what was being taught? I could have easily had steadily increasing numbers in all categories while teaching them all heresy! Not only would I not have gotten in trouble, I would have gotten praise for the numbers!

    We cannot count on numbers! Does God count decision cards? Does He count those who “come forward”, “ask Jesus into their hearts”, or testify about their changed lives? No.

    Ultimately, we cannot know with certainty who really is saved. Even when one is genuinelt saved, it takes time for the fruit of that salvation to mature. It takes time to see whether that seed will grow strong and deep, or wither under the sun, or be choked by weeds or eated by birds, or trodden by feet…

    Does the Bible count those saved? In a few places, yes. But we must acknowledge that the Scriptures were inspired by the Holy Spirit. He would KNOW who was saved. And He mentions numbers to reflect the work of the Gospel, not some preacher’s stirring sermon, VBS program, or drama.

    Reply
  32. adam mclane Avatar
    adam mclane

    LH- good thoughts. Ultimately I think people want to know that they count, they could care less that they are counted.

    Reply
  33. DF Avatar
    DF

    I have really been thinking and praying about this whole issue of numbers. I am in business and we do use numbers to evaluate growth. We just had a leadership meeting at our church and one of the leaders brought up the guys that are going up and down the isle with the clickers and how offensive he felt it was.I never really thought about it being offensive. My issue is the constant Boasting about it. We have so many people in our church, we had so many people attend this function, we have so many people in the bible study. I have found myself even saying it. It is like if we have so many in attendance people will be impressed?? We just did a message on the church and what it needs to be doing.. We did not talk about the numbers show that we are successful.We can use numbers for certain functional application, but please check the egos at the door. Thou Shalt Not Boast! This is the issue.

    Reply

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