Roy’s Ramblings
The United Methodist church is known for many things. It is known for its willingness to help others – UMCOR, Hospitals, Food Pantries, Soup Kitchens, AA, Scouting, Habitat, etc. It is known for its openness to diversity, minorities, less fortunate, fringe of society folks. We are know by our generosity, our prayer groups, the connectional system, and team attitude. And we are know by out methodical way about us (I mean really … it’s in the name).
So that means that we have a committee for just about anything and we keep track of almost everything. This past week I submitted to the Indiana Conference our “End of Year Report”. This is the form that we tell the Conference all of our numbers – how many baptized, how many joined the church, how many died, average attendance in Church/Sunday School/Small Groups, how much our building is worth, how much money we have (or don’t have) in any given category. It seems like – It’s All About The Numbers.
BUT – It’s Not All About The Numbers!!
“Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time,
and always start with the person nearest you.”-Mother Theresa
We live in a numbers driven society. It’s all about how many, how much, how often, etc. It drives our passion and willingness to go deeper and deeper if our number is large that we are serving. In times like this, however, you can often times forget about the ones who aren’t in the group and especially those that are right next to you.
If you are always looking to how to impact the most people all the time, you will miss out on your chances to disciple those closest to you. Jesus always took time for the individual as well as the groups but His best miracles were done to individuals, not large groups. Always be on the look out for someone that is close enough to you that you can help before going out to the masses. Those closest to you are as important to disciple as any other group you share with.
I love the movie “Pay it Forward” it takes the concept of helping the next person over and over again and many people get impacted by this. Maybe this can be a focus of ours so that others don’t have to be in the big groups for us to help, they can experience a personal touch of the fruit of the spirit through us. Always help/pray for/love the other … especially those closest to you.
“And do not forget to do good and to share with others,
for with such sacrifices God is pleased.”
Hebrews 13:16 NIV
May we be Blessed and Be a Blessing to All – Pastor Roy