Keeping Score

A friend and I were talking about some youth groups from his church which have been working in Uganda this summer. (Including a couple of my daughters!) He said that they seemed to be getting good results, and then seemed to pull up short. I understand his hesitation. In my experience, we tend to measure our effectiveness in evangelism and other work by the numbers, such as, "We had fifty decisions for Christ."

Our assumption that this information is important may not be wise. Experienced evangelists who spend years in the Third World tell me that often such a "decision" at a meeting may be little more than courtesy to a visitor. Most certainly, thinking that we have created X number of Christians in a crusade or a mission tour is probably more wishful thinking than reality. This is not to say that people are not being saved in these works, or that lives are not being changed. I am quite certain that God is showing up in the work these folks are doing. There is so much undeniable evidence of the power of God and changed lives! I am NOT in any way criticizing the work. It is not the work that needs to change, so much as the scorekeeping.

If God has called a group of young Texans to Uganda for two weeks, that is sufficient reason for the trip. God is faithful to lead them in what He calls them to do. Their task is not to be able to report a particular number of harvested souls. Theirs is to follow and participate in what the Father is doing. Reporting such things by numbers is an unfortunate human measurement that is at worst self-glorifying, and at best completely beside the point of the exercise. What if a mission group washed pots and mended clothes for an unknown orphanage for two weeks, leaving behind only the aroma of the Servant King? What if a street encounter is not a rejection, but a sowing of seed for a later harvest? What if the only real result of a meeting was that one believer who was about to give up was rejuvenated, but told no one about it? Those things don't show up in the statistics. But they are just as much the work of God as baptisms or decisions or buildings erected.

I relish those who come back from experiences like these brief mission trips with testimonies like, "I saw God move!" "I saw a blind man healed!" "I told a lady about Jesus!" Or best of all, "I got to do exactly what God was telling me to do!"

This is SO much better than counting heads. Such a worldly practice does not validate the work of pure-hearted servants, it demeans it. We serve for the joy, and let God keep the score.