I have used these lines many times in speaking venues.
I ask the audience if they know how Baptists count weekly worship attendance. The knowing smiles break forth on most faces.
I then begin counting each person in the conference by saying 2, 4, 6, 8 …
As the audience waits for the punch line, I say that every believer is indwelled by the Holy Spirit, so each person counts as two.
Laughter. But it’s laughter because there is some parcel of truth behind my attempt at humor.
Let’s say it clearly without equivocation: Sometimes church leaders lie about the weekly church attendance.
Sometimes the lies are the result of an inflated ego where a leader gets his self-worth by leading a bigger church.
Sometimes it’s the result of the sin of comparison with other leaders and other churches.
Sometimes we rationalize it because our denominations or publications make such a big deal about it.
In all cases, it’s wrong. Inflating attendance numbers is committing the sin of lying.
How Did We Get Here?
In a previous post, I noted the history of how churches count. For most centuries, total membership was the primary gauge. Until the 1990s, the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in America, counted Sunday school attendance.
But today, the primary metric is weekly worship attendance. As I noted in my earlier post, it is even difficult to get all churches on the same page in counting worship attendance.
As worship attendance became the primary metric, it became easier to report numbers that were not precise. And if numbers are not precise, they tend to be inflated rather than deflated.
What, then, are some safeguards we can put in place?
What are Some Solutions?
Reporting inflated numbers is a temptation. And one might simply declare that the best way to avoid the sin is to stop doing it.
But, like other sinful temptations, a declaration of abstinence from the sin does not always work.
