17 Reasons to Keep Your Morale Up When Numbers Are Down
17 Reasons to Keep Your Morale Up When Numbers Are Down
One of the biggest emotional struggles in ministry through the years has involved numbers. If our attendance averages year-to-date were higher than the previous year’s, we feel encouraged. But if they slipped below the previous year’s levels, a little bit of panic creeps into our heart. We find it much more exhilarating to preach to a full house than to a half-empty room.
“Those empty benches are a serious trial,” one preacher said, “and if the place be large and the congregation small the influence is seriously depressing.” That particular preacher seldom saw an empty seat, yet the empathetic Spurgeon instinctually understood the great pastoral temptation of letting one’s morale rise and fall with statistics.
Success in our world is usually defined digitally. Poll figures, batting averages, income levels, large crowds, big bucks, and high yields. The result? Many pastors feel unsuccessful and disappointed, for we’re likely serving double-digit congregations, not mega-ones. Furthermore, we labor alongside lay workers who often face “low turn-outs.”
The famous missionary Mary Moffat expressed the feelings of many when she wrote, “could we but see the smallest fruit, we could rejoice midst the privations and toils which we bear; but as it is, our hands do often hang down.”
Well, of course, numbers are important for they represent souls. The reason we count numbers, someone said, is because numbers count. Sometimes lean statistics denote laziness, carelessness, personal failure, or spiritual powerlessness. Furthermore, envy has no place in our hearts. We thank God for today’s super-sized congregations, even if someone else leads them.
But church history, common sense, and the scriptures also present another set of truths for those of us who seldom preach to sellout crowds.
1. The servant is not above his master.
As he pressed the demands of discipleship, Jesus saw his own crowds dwindle. “From that time many of his disciples went back and walked with him no more. Then Jesus said to the twelve, ‘do you also want to go away?’ ” (John 6:66–67). We shouldn’t be too surprised, therefore, to find that biblical preaching doesn’t always attract multitudes. Warren Wiersbe wrote, “we dare not measure the quality of our sermons by the quantity of the statistics. If we do, we might become either too elated or too depressed, and both pride and discouragement are sins. One day our lord gave a sermon on the bread of life and lost his whole congregation, and yet false prophets always seem to have a crowd.”
2. God sovereignly assigns tasks as he will.
“And they came to John and said to him, ‘rabbi, he who was with you beyond the Jordan, to whom you have testified—behold, he is baptizing, and all are coming to him!’ John answered and said, ‘a man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from Heaven. . . . He must increase, but I must decrease.’ ” (John 3:26–27, 30).
Paul wrote in Romans 12:6: “having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them.”
John Oxenham wrote:
Is your place a small place?
Tend it with care!—
He set you there.
Is your place a large place?
Guard it with care!—
He set you there.
Whate’er your place, it is
Not yours alone, but his
Who set you there!
3. Success and statistics are not synonyms.
In their book, liberating ministry from the success syndrome, Kent and Barbara Hughes describe their anguish when, early in ministry, they were given a promising church-planting effort in Southern California. When the work foundered, Kent grew depressed. If church attendance was up, I was up; if it was down, so was I. And the numbers had been going down for a long time. But gradually the lord led the Hughes to ponder these questions: Can a man be a success in the ministry and pastor a small church? What is failure in ministry? What is success in ministry? From the experience, Kent learned that God defines success in ministry as being faithful, serving others, loving and trusting Him, praying, pursuing holiness, and developing a positive attitude. This liberating discovery enabled Hughes to plunge back into his work, despite its paucity, with joy and enthusiasm. We saw how success was equally possible for those in the most difficult of situations . . . as well as those having vast ministries.
According to A. P. Fitt, D. L. Moody never counted converts. “He depreciated the boastful use of statistics. People used to ask him what were the most notable conversions he had achieved, and the greatest meetings he ever conducted. They could not draw him out on such matters.”
Senator Mark Hatfield, while touring mother Teresa’s work in Calcutta, asked her how she could bear her load without being crushed by it. “My dear senator,” she replied, “I am not called to be successful, but faithful.”
4. Small is not bad.
We can often do more with less, and sometimes the scope of our impact is in reverse proportion to the size of our audience. Jesus had more success with one Samaritan woman than with all Jerusalem, and Gideon found 300 committed men preferable to 32,000 vacillators. God called Philip from a city-wide revival to a congregation of one in the desert.
Carl S. Dudley wrote, “In a big world, the small church has remained intimate. In a fast world, the small church has been steady. In an expensive world, the small church has remained plain. In a complex world, the small church has remained simple. In a rational world, the small church has kept feelings. In a mobile world, the small church has been an anchor. In an anonymous world, the small church calls us by name.”
Matthew 18:20 is a divine promise, not a lame consolation: “for where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there in the midst of them.”
5. Oaks start from acorns.
After the civil war, John Broadus, burdened for more preachers to heal the nation’s wounds, prepared a seminary course on homiletics. To his dismay only one student, a blind man, enrolled in the class. “I shall give him my best and I shall pursue my lectures as planned,” said Broadus. Day after day, Broadus gave his lectures conversationally to his solitary, sightless student—lectures so powerful they later became the classic for the preparation and delivery of sermons.
Remember the old gospel song that says:
Little is much when God is in it;
Labor not for wealth or fame.
There’s a crown and you can win it,
If you’ll go in Jesus’ name.
6. You can often light a fire in the rain.
Mrs. William Butler and Mrs. E. W. Parker of India envisioned a woman’s missionary society for the denomination, the Methodist Episcopal Church. But on the day of its organizing, a pelting rain kept the women at home. Only six showed up. Mrs. Butler and Mrs. Parker, however, “spoke as eloquently as if to hundreds.” out of that meeting came the Women’s Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
7. God anticipated our feelings of failure.
The messages of Haggai and Zechariah were specifically given to encourage those whose work seemed small and futile in their own eyes. The remnant of Jews who had returned to restore their nation had worked very hard, clearing away debris, recovering stone, restoring the foundations of buildings. While working on the temple, a wave of depression swept over them. So much work, and yet it seemed so pitifully small and bare compared with the grandeur that had once been the Solomonic Temple. They gave up.
“Thus the work of the house of God which is at Jerusalem ceased, and it was discontinued until the second year of the reign of Darius King of Persia. Then the prophet Haggai and Zechariah the son of Iddo, prophets, prophesied to the Jews who were in Judah and Jerusalem, in the name of the God of Israel, who was over them. So Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and Jeshua the son of Jozadak rose up and began to build the house of God which is in Jerusalem; and the prophets of God were with them, helping them” (Ezra 4:24–5:2).
God sent Haggai and Zechariah to remind the remnant that the glory of the latter temple would be greater than that of the former one, for in the temple they were seeking to rebuild, the desire of all nations—the messiah himself—would minister (Hag. 3:7)
“How does (your work for the lord) look to you now? Does it not seem to you like nothing? But now be strong . . . and work. For I am with you . . . I will fill this house with glory,” said Haggai (Hag. 2:3–4, 7).
“Who despises the day of small things?” echoed Zechariah (Zech. 4:10).
Many times when I’ve grown discouraged, I’ve turned to these two prophets and reminded myself that God anticipated discouragement among his workers; thus he set aside two books of the bible just for them.
8. There are no small churches.
“I do not believe there are any small churches,” Joseph Parker once said. “I am more and more convinced that we should be very careful what epithets we attach to the term ‘church.’ ”
9. Who knows the impact even a poor sermon might have on all subsequent church history!
January 6, 1850, was bitterly cold in Colchester, England, a hard-biting blizzard keeping most worshipers at home. At the Primitive Methodist Chapel on Artillery Street only about a dozen showed up. When it became apparent not even the Pastor would arrive, an unlettered man rose and spoke haltingly from Isaiah 45:22, then the crowd dispersed, thinking the day’s service a loss—not realizing that a 15–year-old-boy had wandered into the room, heard the sermon, and given his life to Christ.
Years later that boy, Charles Spurgeon, wrote: “don’t hold back because you cannot preach in St. Paul’s; be content to talk to one or two in a cottage. You may cook in small pots as well as in big ones. Little pigeons can carry great messages. Even a little dog can bark at a thief, wake up the master, and save the house. . . . Do what you do right thoroughly, pray over it heartily, and leave the result to God.”
10. Your congregation is bigger than you think.
In one of his inimitable lectures, F. W. Boreham said, “Has not every preacher an invisible congregation? At every service, there is a dim, unseen, listening throng.”
Who are they? Christ is present, the Angels gather, and don’t forget those outside the church who will be touched by your sermon through its impact on your listeners. And there is yet another audience, said Boreham, a vast one who will be affected more than we can ever know: “There are generations yet unborn. Posterity is simply the invisible congregation, sitting a little further down the aisle.”
Here’s an example. James Taylor so detested itinerant preachers that he often pelted them with rotten eggs. One day a Wesleyan circuit rider entered town, and James went to disrupt the meeting. But the preacher’s text—“as for me and my household, we will serve the lord”—struck Taylor like an arrow, for he had recently proposed to a young lady. On the morning of his wedding, James retired to the fields, knelt in the grass, and earnestly asked Christ to be his savior. He prayed so long he was late for his wedding. Rushing to the chapel, he shocked his bride by announcing he had been saved.
Eight generations have since passed, each filled with Christian workers who have served the lord around the world—among them, James Taylor’s great-grandson, Hudson Taylor, founder of the China Inland Mission.
If the Wesleyan preacher had only known. . . .
11. God even can work in bad weather and sparse crowds.
The aforementioned Hudson Taylor was once advised to cancel an appointment on a stormy night in Birmingham, England. “I must go,” he replied, “even if there is no one but the doorkeeper.” only a dozen people showed up that night, but the meeting hummed with unusual spiritual power. Half of those present later became missionaries or gave their children as missionaries, and the rest became faithful supporters of China Inland Mission for years to come.
In the life of Edward Payson it is recorded that, on a stormy Sunday, the famous preacher had but one hearer. Mr. Payson preached his sermon, however, as carefully and as earnestly as though the great building had been thronged with eager listeners. Several months later his solitary listener called on him.
“I was led to The Savior through that service,” he said. “For whenever you talked about sin and salvation, I glanced around to see to whom you referred, but since there was no one there but me, I had no alternative but to lay every word to my own heart and conscience!”
12. Statistics, while often diagnostically helpful, can be dangerous to your spiritual health.
Few can observe another’s success without feelings of envy; and when our vital statistics are sized up beside another’s, it tends to produce feelings of inferiority in some and superiority in others. “Each one should test his own actions,” says Galatians 6:4. “Then he can take pride in himself without comparing himself to someone else.”
Or, as Paul put it in 2 Corinthians 10:12: “for we dare not class ourselves or compare ourselves with those who commend themselves. But they, measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise.”
Some ministers even lie to preserve their bragging rights. A friend told me of going to a meeting in which the host pastor, looking over the crowd, crowed, “what a great number we have tonight! I suppose there are 600 present.” My friend, sitting in the back, decided to do an actual count—coming up with half that.
Don’t forget that while the lord led Moses to “number” the children of Israel for practical reasons, the devil tempted David to number them for evil ones.
Vance Havner said, “Watch for souls and not for statistics. God keeps the books. Matthew Henry lamented over the poor response to his ministry and felt that his labors were done, since so many had left and few had been added. But he still feeds us with messages not too well appreciated in his own time. One of the many delusions from which the ministry needs to be delivered today is the notion that a preacher may be judged by the size of his crowd. The man who thinks he is too big for a little place is too little for a big place.”
13. Apples are only “in season” in October.
A man owned an orchard in the Carolina Mountains. You could watch him work eleven months a year mowing, spraying, pruning, repairing, fertilizing, all without seeing a single mature apple. He labored with the confidence that, barring a late freeze, the harvest was coming. Similarly, we’re told to preach the word “in season and out of season” (2 Tim. 4:2). Seed takes time to germinate, and fruit takes time to ripen. “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase” (1 Cor. 3:6). The story is told of a man who was converted at age 116 by recalling a text of a sermon he had heard 100 years before. “And let us not become weary while doing good,” says Galatians 6:9, “for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.”
14. God’s promises cannot fail.
We not only walk by Faith, we work by Faith. Remember Isaiah 55:10–11? God’s word, like rain and snow from heaven, will not return to him void. Peter Cartwright once planned an evangelistic crusade in which, on the first night, only one person showed up. Cartwright nonetheless preached his best for 45 minutes to a one-eyed Presbyterian Elder. “It was the greatest sermon I ever heard,” said the Elder, spreading the news all over town. The next night, the hillside was covered with horses and wagons, the hall overflowed, and revival came.
“He who continually goes forth weeping, bearing seed for sowing, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him” (Ps. 126:6).
15. If we are faithful in little, God will sooner or later entrust us with much.
George Matheson grew discouraged over his small crowd one winter’s evening in Innellan, Scotland. He had worked hard on his sermon, but the sparse numbers and empty chairs nearly defeated him. He nevertheless did his best, not knowing that in the congregation was a visitor from the large St. Bernard’s Church in Edinburgh, which was seeking a pastor. “Make every occasion a great occasion,” said Matheson, who was to spend the rest of his career at St. Bernard’s. “You can never tell when somebody may be taking your measure for a larger place.”
16. Our reward in heaven is not based on the size of our audience on earth.
Remember the lord’s chosen adjectives: “well done, good and faithful servant” (Matt. 25:21).
17. Our significance rests in Christ, not in crowds.
It’s our walk with Christ, not our work for him, that is most important. I’ve read that Washington Gladden, well-known Massachusetts pastor of an earlier era, grew discouraged during a season of little success. One day he climbed up to the belfry to think, and he wondered if, had he been unconverted, he might have jumped from the height. Instead he had a long talk with the lord, and from that experience wrote out a prayer which I sometimes pray before going into the pulpit:
O master, let me walk with thee
In lowly paths of service free;
Tell me Thy secret; help me bear
The strain of toil, the fret of care.
All of us want to leave a mark, and we passionately fear a fruitless ministry. But the Bible assures us that our work, properly committed to him and faithfully executed, is never wasted. We are doing more good than we know, and the extent of our fruitfulness will be known only in heaven. Our self-worth doesn’t rest in fame but in faithfulness.
We have to work on keeping our attitude upbeat and positive, even when numbers are down, and it helps if we don’t take ourselves too seriously. Once, just as an oratorio of his was about to begin, several of George Frideric Handel’s friends gathered to console him about the extremely sparse audience attracted to the performance. “Never mind,” Handel said, “the music will sound better” due to the improved acoustics of a very empty hall.
That isn’t an easy lesson, but once learned it prevents a lot of stomach spasms, migraines, and Monday morning blues.
“Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord” (1 Cor. 15:58).