THE NUMBERS GAME
Numbers 1:1-54
Acts 6:1-7
December 28, 2008

     In three days we start a brand new year!  It’s a time for new beginnings and fresh starts.  Many Christians who have recently become serious about their faith will make the decision to read their entire Bible in one year.  It is very do-able to read the whole Bible in twelve months, and there are several programs that will schedule readings for you.  If you follow one of these programs it is likely that you will meet your goal.  However, most people will make the decision to just read through their Bible from front to back, Genesis to Revelation. 

     It’s easy to start in Genesis.  The book is full of great stories, lots of action and adventure, and some amazing miracles on a cosmic scale.  Exodus is pretty entertaining as well.  You have the life of Moses; which was filled with these incredible encounters with God.  The desire of God to save his people becomes tangible and real.  And then we hit Leviticus – the book of rules and laws. 

     Rules and laws are important, but by the middle of Leviticus it can be a bit of a punishment for the reader.  “11:1 The LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying to them:  Speak to the people of Israel, saying: From among all the land animals, these are the creatures that you may eat.  Any animal that has divided hoofs and is cleft-footed and chews the cud--such you may eat.  But among those that chew the cud or have divided hoofs, you shall not eat the following: the camel, for even though it chews the cud, it does not have divided hoofs; it is unclean for you.  The rock badger, for even though it chews the cud, it does not have divided hoofs; it is unclean for you.  The hare, for even though it chews the cud, it does not have divided hoofs; it is unclean for you.  The pig, for even though it has divided hoofs and is cleft-footed, it does not chew the cud; it is unclean for you (Leviticus 11:1-7).”  Page after page, chapter after chapter. 

     If Leviticus doesn’t do you in, along comes Numbers, and we just saw how that starts out.  And, that’s the end of it.  Good intentions are so beaten down that the reader just gives up and goes away.  Less than 10% of those who try to read the Bible from front to back ever finish.  Of course, failed New Year’s resolutions are not just limited to the faithful.  One half of all Americans will start the New Year with a resolution.  In order, the top three resolutions are; lose weight, start exercising, and stop smoking.  By the end of the first week one out of four people will have already abandoned the resolution.  By the end of January 45% will have quit.  At the end of the year only 8%, one out of twelve, will still be faithful. 

     A significant number of Americans will start the new year by pledging to go back to church.  Two out of three Americans believe that attending church before age eighteen gives one a more solid moral foundation, and creates a more ethical person.   So, for the sake of the children, they will make the decision to go back to church.  By in large Americans are pro faith.  82% of young adults ages eighteen to twenty two believe that your spirit continues beyond death.   That number drops off as we grow older, but only slightly.  73% of all people over the age of fifty believe there is life after death.   In spite of those high numbers, only 17% of Americans attend church.   Still, that’s a higher number than our European counterparts.  Only 15% of the French have any affiliation with a church, and only 7% of the British attend worship.  

     A few years ago Jackie, Katie, and I toured Germany.  As a treat to ourselves we visited each of the historical sites which were important in the life of Martin Luther – the catalyst for the Protestant revolution.  We saw the church door in Wittenberg, where he nailed his ninety five complaints against the Pope and Catholicism.  We went to the city of Worms, where he was grilled by the Catholic inquisition and declared a heretic.  In Wittenberg we went to Luther’s home, which has been turned into a museum.  After Jesus, Paul, and Constantine, Luther may be the most important human in terms of shaping and altering the course of Christianity.  Do you know that none of the people who work in his museum believe in God, or attend church?   We asked every museum employee we came across, and none of them were people of faith. 

     It appears the Germans just walked away from their faith, and never came back.  That could happen in America as well.  Two out of three teenagers leave the church when they graduate from high school, and never return.   In fact, we lose our children even before they leave home.  Half of our marriages end in divorce.  Because of the constant shuttling back and forth between homes, and the tension associated with blended multifaith families, most children of divorce stop attending church.  Significantly, they don’t stop praying or believing that God loves them.   They just give up on organized religion.  In fact, 86% of all Americans believe they can have a good relationship with God, without ever being involved in a church.  And, 78% feel church is more about organization than about loving God and loving people.  

     As long as we’ve breached the topic of marriage and divorce, let’s take a deeper look there.  By the age of fifty five 95% of all Americans have been married once.  Of those who do get married 82% make it to their fifth anniversary, 65% reach their tenth, and only 52% are still married at the fifteen year mark.   Sadly, those statistics are the same whether you are a Christian or not.  Within the religious community 95% of all Jews marry another Jew.  Only 25% of Catholics marry another Catholic.  Protestants are somewhere in between.  Four out of five Methodists marry another Methodist.  

     If a Catholic woman marries a non-Catholic man, the marriage will most likely survive.  If a Catholic man marries a non-Catholic woman, the marriage will most likely fail.  Forty percent of all American adults have changed their faith from how they were raised as children.   Years ago, parents who had reached the end of their rope – marriage wise – would continue to stay together for the children.  New evidence suggests that was a wise choice.  Children of an intact, church going, family are five times less likely to repeat a grade at school.  The parents are five times less likely to be contacted by the school about behavior or achievement problems.  

     Not all marriage ends in divorce, sometimes one of the partners dies.  Five out of six survivors are female.  Across our nation 6% of the population is widowed.  Yet, 12% of church membership is widowed.  We have twice the statistical average of widows and widowers as members.  This suggests that the church is a good, safe, healthy place to help those who have lost their life partner.  Twenty percent of all widows and widowers develop clinical depression within one year of their spouse’s death.   That number is significantly lower among those who have a church family to support them through their loss. 

     So, whether we’re talking about moral and ethical behavior, school performance, marriage stability, or coping skills – life seems to be better for those who regularly attend church.  By the way, a regular church attendee is defined as someone who is present three Sundays out of eight.   We are considered consistent if we only show up three times in two months. 

     How is it that people find their way to faith?  Forty three percent of all Americans were led to faith in Jesus Christ by a family member.   Of those, 34% were helped by their parents, 19% by their spouse, and 9% by a grandparent.  Twenty three percent were led to faith by someone they were not related to.  Most often this was a Sunday school teacher, a Vacation Bible School teacher, or a youth pastor.  Youth camps and retreats accounted for 15% of all teens making the decision to place their eternal hope in Jesus Christ. 

     Now, we know that making the decision to accept Jesus and attending church are very different.  Who is responsible for getting people to attend worship?  Twenty nine percent started coming because of a family member, 23% came because of friend kept pursuing them.  Surprisingly, since 2006, 31% of those who decided to start attending church did so because they felt God himself had placed it on their heart.  Most of those used the church website to decide where to attend. 

     Websites have become increasingly important in helping the faithful find and maintain a connection to other believers.  As small as we are here at Ponder UMC, our website has a worldwide presence.  On average, our website is visited ten times an hour, twenty four hours a day.  We have peaks in interest.  On average there is one hour each month when we receive 300 hits.  In January of last year we had one hour when our website was visited 573 times.  In a typical month we have ten foreign countries that spend time going through our entire website.  Some months that number has been as high as fifteen. 

     Just this month we have been visited by:  Lithuania, Canada, Brazil, the United Kingdom, Seychelles, Germany, the Russian Federation, Thailand, Australia, South Africa, Norway, Sweden, Indonesia, and Moldova.  I had to look that last one up.  Moldova is in Eastern Europe between Romania and the Ukraine.  Fifty percent of all Moldovan children live in orphanages.  Seventy percent of the females will become prostitutes or be forced into sex slavery after being evicted from the orphanage at age 16.   Unless they have a relationship with Jesus.  I wonder who from Moldova checked us out, and if it made a difference. 

If you are visiting the Ponder UMC website, and you live outside of the United States, would you please send an e-mail to:   Rev.RockyEllison@yahoo.com  and let me know how you found our website, and what you were looking for.

     Now, not everyone is doing a virtual visit.  We have plenty of visitors here in person.  On average, how many times do you have to invite a friend before they will visit your church – six?  The first five invitations are just a warm up. Interestingly, the average first time visitor makes up their mind whether they will come back a second time in the first seven minutes they are here.   And, they make that decision based on how easy it was to find parking, how clean the bathroom was, and how easy it was to check their child into the nursery.  The other factor that visitors use to decide if they will return is how crowded the service was.  If the seating is more than 70% full, a visitor considers that ‘crowded’. 

     Last week we kept the choir up in the choir loft for the service, and we had 112 in attendance.  As I looked around, it looked to me like we had one and a half pews of open space before every seat would be taken.  So, it looks like our maximum seating (keeping the choir up here with me) is approximately 125 people.  Seventy percent of 125 is 88.  Eighty eight is the most we can have in a worship service before visitors look at us as crowded, and choose not to come back.  Church growth statisticians tell us you cannot break that 70% barrier.  We are routinely hitting 75 – 80 in our worship service.  It is unlikely we can make that number go any higher unless we build a new church with a larger sanctuary.  With 80 people in worship we are exactly covering our budget.  To get the extra money to build a new church we need to add 20 more people.  But, we can’t add 20 more people to this service, because it’s too crowded.  What this means, is that we cannot grow any larger, and we cannot build a new sanctuary, unless we add a second service. 

     We live in a world and a society that is completely consumed by numbers.  Many of you know where the DOW Jones closed last Friday, and what percentage of your retirement has been lost during this recession.  You know what income tax bracket you are in, and how much the IRS will want from you this next April.  In two weeks I have to personally go to the District Superintendent and turn in pages of paperwork concerning every statistic about Ponder UMC.  These numbers are very important.  They will determine our apportionment for 2010.  They will determine whether we can get a loan from the Texas Methodist Foundation.  They will determine whether a Pastor is left at their church or moved.  These numbers are so important that it is not unusual for Pastors to lie and falsify the report.  NUMBERS, NUMBERS, NUMBERS!!!

     We have to take a step back, and ask ourselves, “Where is God in all of this?”  Do you know what all of those numbers boil down to?  This!  There is no substitute for a relationship with Jesus Christ.  It will improve your health, improve your marriage, and improve your family.  Most people know Jesus because a family member or a friend loved them enough to keep telling them the story.  A church is valuable only if it impacts our relationship with Jesus, otherwise it’s just another social club.  Mega churches have their time and place, but the small ‘family’ church will never go away.  Because, families and intimate relationships will never go away. 

     So, take a deep breath, and just trust Jesus to take care of you.  In spite of the economy, in spite of the recession, in spite of cutbacks and layoffs, just trust Jesus.  In spite of phone calls from the school, in spite of your ex’s lawyer, in spite of fears for your child’s emotional health, just trust Jesus.  In spite of what you can or can’t put in the offering plate, in spite of the budget, in spite of the Pastor’s selfish dreams, just trust Jesus.  You are so important to God, and He desperately wants you to know the joy that comes from letting go of the world.  Don’t trust money, don’t trust your job, don’t trust your health, just trust Jesus.  When we make that jump, and we let go of the numbers game, we call that ‘the peace that passes all understanding’.  It will never make sense to the rest of the world, a world that defines itself through the numbers.  But, if you ever come into contact with that peace, if you ever know that contentment, you know that it is real.  Stop worrying about the numbers, put your trust in Jesus, and embrace the peace.