Three years ago we met my son for the first time. When he was born he spent several weeks on the NICU. He is adopted and was on a hospital about 5 hours away so my wife and I would travel each weekend to see him.
One of the things he had to do do be able to go home was to have a good heart rate and oxygen saturation. He had sensors that measured these things and sent the info to a monitor. Whenever his oxygen saturation would drop below a certain point an alarm would sound.
Because we were worried about him, and the alarm would go off we would watch the monitor. We got to know what each of the numbers meant, when they were good, when they were bad. We could definitely watch the numbers.
We were surprised then when the nurse came in, turned the monitors away from us and sternly told us, “Watch your son, not the screen!”
We had become so focused on the numbers that we had lost focus.
Often we do the same thing in our ministry. We focus so much on the numbers that we shift our focus from what is important.
Numbers are definitely important. They can help you judge the status of your ministry. Often numbers are how some church leadership measure success.
And keeping track of number is important. Keeping attendance can help you see trends and notice member who my have stopped coming, or to notice your highly active committed youth.
However when we focus more on the numbers than on the youth we have in front of us then we have lost focus.