Michael Daniel in response to my posting on creating high expectation congregations asked "How would you measure faithfulness, and who would be responsible for keeping score?" Since this is an issue I feel very passionate about I decided to respond to his inquiry here.
Faithfulness is measured by action. Jesus said "Yes, the way to identify a tree or a person is by the kind of fruit that is produced" (Matthew 7:20 NLT). In other words, does a person's actions reveal the fruit of the Spirit? Or in the case of church membership, is a person making an attempt to do what that individual has vowed to do?
Before we worry about how we're going to measure faithfulness, we have to first get to the point where any level of action is expected. In Luke 13 we find this parable,
Jesus told this story: "A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard. He came looking for some fruit on the tree, but he found none. So the man said to his gardner, 'I have been looking for fruit on this tree for three years, but I never find any. Cut it down. Why should it waste the ground?' But the servant answered, 'Master, let the tree have one more year to produce fruit. Let me dig up the dirt around it and put on some fertilizer. If the tree produces fruit next year, good. But if not, you can cut it down.' " (Luke 13:6-9 NCV)
That leads me to ask, how long do we allow church members to continue to bear no fruit before we determine that they've had adequate time to demonstrate their desire to be faithful?
About one-third of the members of my congregation failed to attend worship even once in the last year nor did they provide any financial support for the congregation. For the majority of these, the same statement would have been true every year for the past 5, 10 and is some cases 20 or more years. But they are still members and unless they happen to die or move out of town will probably still be members 20 years from now, because removing them from the rolls may upset them. And nice Christian folk don't upset people.
While I am in no position to determine what is in anyone's heart, it seems pretty obvious to me what these individuals' actions, or lack there of, are saying about their desire to be faithful and their commitment to fulfilling their membership vows. They are like the fig tree that bears no fruit. And until we hold these people accountable, we need not worry about expecting so much from people that we have to be concerned about how we will measure faithfulness or who's going to be keeping score.
Well said. I see what you mean, John. I think the ideal is a step toward the accountability that was prevalent during Wesley's day. I'm afraid, however, that it would merely turn into a numbers game in that "score keepers" would be more concerned about the dramatic drop in numbers without seriously questioning the source of these numbers. After all, how much does it "cost" to keep an inactive member on the rolls? But still, how can that church say it is in ministry to its own if it will not hold its own accountable?
Posted by: Michael | March 19, 2006 at 07:59 PM