I wrote yesterday that some who advocate that we “love the church,” really mean their institutional church, and that people can make a difference by going to church and listening to good teaching. I don’t agree. Local churches should be training people to put the Word into practice…out in the world. Jesus is clear that just listening to good teaching is not enough. (See, for example, Matthew 7.24 – 27.)

There is a good reason to go to church. This paragraph was embedded in an article about the dangers of social media:

When you go to a church, you’re choosing to associate with lots of other people who you often would never associate with otherwise. But once you see that someone whose personality or politics might otherwise rub you the wrong way also shares your deepest values and beliefs, it becomes easy to overlook such differences. – From Christians Delete Your Accounts? by Mark Hemmingway 

Our pastor frequently makes the point that we have people on both sides of the political spectrum, and we need to learn how to get along with each other. And here’s a good reason why: because we agree on the most important things.

We should be able to get along with folks in our church as well as folks in other churches. Often an overemphasis on the “rightness” of our church results in putting up walls that exclude others. Back in the 90s, I went to the first few Promise Keepers events. These were fantastic displays of “the church” – the people – all kinds of people: young, old, black, white, rich, not so rich, charismatic, non-charismatic – we were all there, and that alone was worth the price of admission.

And in that marvelous environment, I’ll never forget what happened in the lunch line. I was talking with some men, also from Colorado Springs, and they asked where I went to church. When I told them, they immediately and obviously increased their distance from me. Why? Because they went to one brand of Presbyterian church, and I went to another. Another church. A different brand. One they felt was inferior.

Folks, if we’re going to love the church, let’s love the whole church, not just our Sunday morning expression of it. (I think I’ll have more to say about that tomorrow.)

Let’s love the people. The ones who share our values on the most important person of all: Jesus.

And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation… (Revelation 5.9, ESV)

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. (Ephesians 2.19 – 22, ESV)

I closed yesterday’s blog with “Did you see the baseball in your shoe this morning?” The manager wants you to pitch today. Or, as Seth Godin says, “It’s your turn. It’s always your turn.” In one blog, he states it this way:

It’s easy to wait for it. The movies have taught us that when the music swells and the chips are down, that’s when leaders arrive and when heroes are made.

It turns out, that’s not how it works.

Our work is what happens in all the moments. Leadership doesn’t simply appear when the script announces it does: it is the hard work of showing up when we’re not expected to, of seeing what’s possible when few are willing to believe.

Your defining moment is whenever you decide it is, and you get a new chance to lead every day. – Seth Godin

I really resonate with these messages. Maybe that’s why I react so strongly to articles like I read the other day. The primary intent of the article was that we love “the church” because Jesus did. There’s truth in that, but sometimes the idea of “church” – the people called out by God to follow him and do his work in the world – gets mixed up with, as Reggie McNeil calls it, “The building on 1st and Main.”

I’ve written about this before. Todd Wagner, pastor of Watermark Church in Dallas, Texas, is trying to change the definition of church. His point is that somewhere along the way, the New Testament’s ecclesia, assembly of people, got hijacked and replaced by the German word kirk, church building. Here’s the official Greek definition of the word translated “church” in the Bible:

ἐκκλησία (ekklēsia) ‘assembly’ church, congregation, assembly; a group of people gathered together. 

Why is this important? Here’s how Watermark Church expresses it on change.org:

If we primarily define church as a building, we miss the point of what God intended His Church to be: a group of people that are on mission 24/7 to bring hope and restoration to a broken world. This could not be more important. We’ve let culture define what the church is, causing people to first think of walls and windows instead of men and women who love and care for them. – Todd Wagner

I don’t get the sense of a people on mission when I read the article by Kevin DeYoung, “Why Christians must love the church.” Here’s how he closes:

“I will build my church.” Who builds the church? Not the pastor, not the seminary, not the sheep, not the government, not the publishing house, not the critics, not the powerbrokers, not a class of people called the oppressed, not the social media influencers. Jesus does. And what does He build? Not a brand, not a school, not a magazine, not a campus ministry, not a nation, not a party, not a platform, not a webpage. The church—the only institution on earth that Jesus promises to build and promises will last.

Are you wondering what you can do to make a difference in the world? Go to church. Give to the church. Pray for your church. Correct the church when she errs and encourage those serving the church whenever you can...

Jesus builds the institutional church? I can make a difference by going to church? That’s what this brother believes. I think I subscribe to the other view that I’ve seen on t-shirts worn by people on work teams:

Tomorrow I’ll have one more look at this article plus a word (don’t panic!) on why we should go to church.

The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: “Stand in the gate of the LORD’S house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the LORD, all you men of Judah who enter these gates to worship the LORD. Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will let you dwell in this place. Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD.’ “For if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly execute justice one with another, if you do not oppress the sojourner, the fatherless, or the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own harm, then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your fathers forever. (Jeremiah 7.1 – 7, ESV, emphasis mine)

The Major League Baseball playoffs are underway. Back in the day, we’d be well into the World Series by now. I’m grateful to my friend Dr. John Ed Mathison for reminding us through his October 6 blog that yesterday was the 65th anniversary of Don Larsen’s perfect game, pitched in game 5 against the Dodgers, October 8, 1956.

I remember it well. I was only 9 years old at the time, and the game was played in the afternoon while I was in school. My dad was a pitcher in the New York Giants minor league system, and we were always National League fans. I asked my dad, “Did the Dodgers win?” And he replied, “No, but something wonderful happened.”

The next day, the World Series was the headline story in the newspaper (as it usually was), but there was also a large, above-the-fold picture of Don Larsen. I cut that picture out and kept it for many years. Thanks to online archives, it lives:

Don Larsen was not a great pitcher. His career was mediocre at best. In game 2 of the Series, Larsen lasted only two innings, giving up six runs. He didn’t expect to start game 5, but as John Ed tells it:

When he got to the stadium and went to his locker, he saw a baseball in one of his shoes. Frank Crosetti was the third-base coach. He would customarily inform who the starting pitcher could be by putting a baseball in the shoe.

Larsen went out and pitched the only perfect game in a World Series – one perfect game in a World Series from 1903 until now.

When the 1957 season started, we had a television, and I’ll never forget Dizzy Dean, former pitcher and legendary color man of the “Game of the Week,” announcing: “We have a surprise for you today, sports fans. Don Larsen is starting the game for the Yankees!” I’ll also never forget that the first pitch went off the left field wall for a double, the next pitch went off the right field wall for another double, and I don’t think Larsen made it through the first inning.

What’s the lesson? As John Ed tells it:

Miracles happen – even in baseball. They also happen in the game of life. Your past doesn’t have to determine what’s going to happen in the future. Jesus picked some really shady characters to be his close-knit group of advisors. He related to a prostitute and gave her a new chance at life. (John 8) He talked to a woman who had been married multiple times and then sent her back to tell the good news. (John 4) He transformed a tax collector into a benevolent Christian follower. (Luke 19) He made a buffet meal out of a little boy’s basket of fish and bread. (Mark 6) Miracles happen! – Dr. John Ed Mathison (links to scripture added by me)

And I can’t improve on John Ed’s close:

How big is the miracle that God wants to do in your life? And the miracle that God has in store for you might be far greater than the miracle that happened to Don Larsen on October 8, 1956!

Did you see the baseball in your shoe this morning?

Yesterday I promised one more look at this idea:

All I’m suggesting in these measurement posts is that think about what we’re doing and how we can measure the right kind of success. How we measure may even drive what we do or how we do it. More on that tomorrow.

Navigator colleague Justin Gravitt, a “next-generation” leader in Navigator Church Ministries, wrote about a disappointing experience with what he thought was going to be advanced leadership training. It started like this:

Not long ago I hugged my kids goodbye, stepped onto an airplane and into a faraway hotel to participate in five days of leadership training.

It didn’t start there.

Nine months earlier, I was invited to apply to a year-long leadership development opportunity. Not long after, I was selected from a pool of applicants to participate. Before arriving I worked for two months to complete a number of thought-provoking assignments.

I was excited.

It began with an engaging mixer. Then a presenter stood up and reminded us that we were “leaders of leaders,” that many had applied, but few had been chosen. It was after those opening remarks that it happened; a lecture broke out. Followed by another. And then another. -Justin Gravitt, “In Leadership the HOW Matters“

“A lecture broke out.” Justin went on to explain why he was disappointed.

Sure, they called us “leaders of leaders,” but they didn’t relate to us that way. Instead, we were treated as people who needed to be taught how to lead. We had a problem to be solved. And they knew how to solve it. They knew what we needed (even if we didn’t). In other words, they were the experts and we were the consumers. In our culture of consumerism this model of people development is repeated every day. It happens in churches and companies. It’s the dance of consumerism.

Justin’s whole article is worth the read. What I want to focus on as we conclude this series on Measuring the Wrong Thing, is that the “leadership development” people might have been driven by metrics. It’s hard to measure leadership and leadership development. It’s easy to define a selection process, count the number of people who applied, count the number who actually enrolled, and record what the lectures were about. Then they can say something like, “We carefully selected so many ‘leaders of leaders’ and taught them X, Y, and Z.”

Justin calls the “I lecture/you listen” process a culture of consumerism. I’ve written about this before. In churches, we have the pastor and adult Sunday School teachers as teachers. Everyone else is a student. And everyone likes it that way. 2 Timothy 2.2, however, does not allow for a permanent student class:

And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others. (2 Timothy 2.2, NIV)

Jesus certainly didn’t develop the twelve by lecture: his method was a “relational laboratory.” And he measured “success” not by the number of followers, but by what they did as leaders.

From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him. “You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve. Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. (John 6.66 – 68, NIV)

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. (Acts 1.8, NIV)

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them…Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: “Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say….” (Acts 2.1 – 4, 14, NIV)

It was a Seth Godin blog that got me thinking about measurement. Here was his opening line:

“When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” Marilyn Strathern expanded on Charles Goodhart’s comment about monetary policy and turned it into a useful law of the universe. As soon as we try to manipulate behaviors to alter a measure, it’s no longer useful. – Seth Godin, September 21, 2021

Researching Strathern’s Law, I uncovered all kinds of ways to mess up with measurement. For example, “the Cobra Effect is the most direct kind of perverse incentive, typically because the incentive unintentionally rewards people for making the issue worse.” What’s the Cobra Effect, you ask?

The British government, concerned about the number of venomous cobras in Delhi, offered a bounty for every dead cobra. Initially, this was a successful strategy; large numbers of snakes were killed for the reward. Eventually, however, enterprising people began to breed cobras for the income. When the government became aware of this, the reward program was scrapped. When cobra breeders set their now-worthless snakes free, the wild cobra population further increased. – Wikipedia

You can’t make this stuff up. Another one, probably more directly relevant to this blog about discipleship is the McNamara Fallacy:

The McNamara fallacy (also known as the quantitative fallacy), named for Robert McNamra, the US Secretary of Defense from 1961 to 1968, involves making a decision based solely on quantitative observations and ignoring all others. The reason given is often that these other observations cannot be proven. Daniel Yankelovich has this analysis (bullets are mine):

• The first step is to measure whatever can be easily measured. This is OK as far as it goes.
• The second step is to disregard that which can’t be easily measured or to give it an arbitrary quantitative value. This is artificial and misleading.
• The third step is to presume that what can’t be measured easily really isn’t important. This is blindness.
• The fourth step is to say that what can’t be easily measured really doesn’t exist. This is suicide.— Daniel Yankelovich, “Corporate Priorities: A continuing study of the new demands on business” (1972).

The McNamara fallacy is unintentionally practiced by most churches. No one would say that discipleship isn’t important. We just don’t know how to measure it. Therefore, we rely on buildings, bodies, and bucks, as I wrote on Tuesday. We also tend to rely on events. I recently met Tony Morgan, founder of The Unstuck Group, a consulting service for churches. He wrote a nice piece about events, which opens this way:

Attendance to events doesn’t reveal health in a ministry. Have you ever considered that keeping people busy at your events may prevent them from spending more time on their marriage, children and/or relationships with non-believers?

We must be wary of reducing the faith to attendance at church. There may be times when an event is strategic, but we can become lazy in relying on events to be the litmus test of our ministry. – Tony Morgan, Do Your Events Improve Church Health?

I’ve always observed that churches seem to assess an event as successful if:

• It takes a lot of people to put on.
• It is attended by even more people.
• Everyone goes away with a good feeling.

By contrast, Tony Morgan suggested in another piece about events that an event should be helping people take the next step after the event rather than just getting people to show up to the event. More of Tony’s event assessment ideas are in this handout: Healthy Versus Unhealthy Events.

All I’m suggesting in these measurement posts is that think about what we’re doing and how we can measure the right kind of success. How we measure may even drive what we do or how we do it. More on that tomorrow.

You have been weighed in the balances and found wanting. (Daniel 5.27, ESV)

We started thinking yesterday about how we sometimes measure the wrong thing. Today we continue: if what we measure becomes what we value, and if we’re measuring the wrong thing, we’ll value the wrong thing. It turns out that Facebook is apparently a textbook example. The Denver Post reported Sunday night about a 60-Minutes interview with Frances Haugen, a data scientist who worked at Facebook and has filed complaints about the company. Here’s a snippet of the Post’s report:

A data scientist who was revealed Sunday as the Facebook whistleblower says that whenever there was a conflict between the public good and what benefited the company, the social media giant would choose its own interests…

“Facebook, over and over again, has shown it chooses profit over safety,” she said. Haugen, who will testify before Congress this week, said she hopes that by coming forward the government will put regulations in place to govern the company’s activities.

She said Facebook prematurely turned off safeguards designed to thwart misinformation and rabble-rousing after Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump last year, alleging that contributed to the deadly Jan. 6 invasion of the U.S. Capitol.

Post-election, the company dissolved a unit on civic integrity where she had been working, which Haugen said was the moment she realized “I don’t trust that they’re willing to actually invest what needs to be invested to keep Facebook from being dangerous.”…

“No one at Facebook is malevolent,” Haugen said during the interview. “But the incentives are misaligned, right? Like, Facebook makes more money when you consume more content. people enjoy engaging with things that elicit an emotional reaction. And the more anger that they get exposed to, the more they interact and the more they consume.“ Denver Post, posted online October 3, 2021

“The incentives are misaligned.”

If the church youth minister is rewarded only for bringing lots of kids into the building, he’ll spend less time investing in kids to help them grow and more time planning big events. If a pastor is pressured to keep “big givers” on board, he may be less inclined to preach sermons that challenge people to “take up their cross and follow Jesus.”

We’ll continue this discussion tomorrow.

After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. (John 6.66, ESV)

For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. (Galatians 1.10, ESV)

Seth Godin got me thinking about measurement with his recent blog “Messing with Strathern’s Law.” Here’s the main idea:

“When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” Marilyn Strathern expanded on Charles Goodhart’s comment about monetary policy and turned it into a useful law of the universe. As soon as we try to manipulate behaviors to alter a measure, it’s no longer useful. – Seth Godin, September 21, 2021

The simple point is that when people know what and how you’re measuring something, they can alter their behavior without necessarily achieving the measurement’s goal. One of the many references in the articles I read about Strathern’s law was a new book by Jerry Z. Muller, The Tyranny of Metrics. He tells terrifying stories about how surgeons refuse to operate on really sick people because if they die, it degrades their success rates, for example. I’ll write more on this tomorrow.

The larger question becomes, do we measure what matters? Here’s a fascinating paragraph buried in a story about this year’s New York Yankees, who, as I write, have squeaked into the Major League Baseball playoffs. The wild card playoff is tonight. But here’s the paragraph:

[After a disastrous half-inning on defense] the Yankees stepped up to the plate. First baseman Anthony Rizzo ripped a double that left his bat at 115.2 mph. Outfielder Aaron Judge followed it with a double measured at 118.4 mph. Outfielder Giancarlo Stanton delivered the final blow, blasting a 448-foot home run that soared over the Green Monster and out of the ballpark. There are seven major-league teams that haven’t hit a ball this season with an exit velocity of 115 mph or greater, including the 100-win San Francisco Giants and Los Angeles Dodgers. Rizzo, Judge and Stanton all hit balls that hard in consecutive plate appearances. – Wall Street Journal, September 28, 2021. 

Let me see if I’ve got this straight: in this year’s regular season, the Giants and the Dodgers won 15 and 14 more games than the Yankees, respectively, and they have no batters that have hit the ball more than 115 mph this year. So what difference does it make that the Yankees have a couple of guys who have hit it that hard? It’s an example of measuring something that we now have the technology to measure but that apparently doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t seem to add to the bottom line of actually winning games.

Jesus told us to make disciples at a time when there were no organized churches that met in buildings. Now we have huge buildings (in some cases), and therefore we count:

• The size of our buildings
• The number of people who come to these buildings
• How much these people give

Buildings, bodies, bucks. But have we made any disciples? And how would we count them or measure their quality? Questions worth thinking about. Let’s continue the discussion tomorrow.

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28.18 – 20, ESV)

64 years ago today, October 4, 1957, the Russians launched the first earth satellite. I was in the 6th grade, and I remember it well. In 1970 – 1971, I was in the Air Force tracking Sputnik’s successors with long-range radar.

Today, unfortunately, the challenge is to get people to accept the vaccine. Today is an age of people making up their own version of events. There are people who don’t believe Sputnik happened nor that the United States put men on the moon. But Sputnik and its successors are real – I’ve tracked them myself. I once was an official eye-witness to a Soviet reconnaissance satellite re-entering earth’s atmosphere. I’ve talked with many of the astronauts who walked on the moon, including Buzz Aldrin, whom I’ve written about before.

There are also people who don’t accept the results of the last presidential election. Tom Brady in the same Wall Street Journal interview I mentioned Saturday, having a little fun with President Biden, said about Tampa Bay’s Super Bowl victory, “Not a lot of people, you know, think we could have won. About 40 percent of the people still don’t think we won. You understand that, Mr. President?”

Anyway, today is Sputnik Day, a fact of history, an accomplishment of science.

Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? (Isaiah 43.19, ESV)

Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. (1 Corinthians 15.12 – 20, ESV, emphasis mine)

I saw something new in this well-known passage in Isaiah, quoted in part by Jesus in Luke 4.18, 19:

The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to grant to those who mourn in Zion— to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he may be glorified. They shall build up the ancient ruins; they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations. (Isaiah 61.1 – 4, ESV)

Jesus took this as his personal commission, and if we are followers of Jesus, it would be ours, too: (“As the Father has sent me, even so send I you.” – John 20.21) What are we to do?

• Bring good news to the poor
• Bind up the brokenhearted
• Proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those who are bound
• Proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor
• Comfort all who mourn

Why are we to do these things? Here’s where I saw something new. We are not the heroes serving these needy people. We are participating with God so that “they“…

• May be called oaks of righteousness
• Shall build up the ancient ruins
• Shall raise up the former devastations
• Shall repair the runined cities

In other words, there is not a permanent “helper” class and a permanent “oppressed” class that needs help. The oppressed become the next wave of difference-makers. I think that’s exciting.

Your people shall all be righteous; they shall possess the land forever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I might be glorified. The least one shall become a clan, and the smallest one a mighty nation; I am the LORD; in its time I will hasten it. (Isaiah 60.21, 22, ESV)

You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others. (2 Timothy 2.1, 2, NIV)

I read the same message twice a few days ago from completely different sources, so maybe it’s worth thinking about.

• Dilbert says to Dogbert: “What can I do to fix my social anxiety?” Dogbert replies:
  • Try keeping in mind that no one cares about you whatsoever. – Dilbert, September 28, 2021
• Tom Brady, ageless quarter back of the New England Patriots and last year’s Superbowl winner while playing for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, in a conversation with Jason Gay of the Wall Street Journal:
  • You think peo­ple care what you think, and then you care less what peo­ple think, and then you re­al­ize no one cared, any­way.
• Both of these remind me of something I say often to whomever will listen:
  • You’d worry less about what people thought of you if you remembered that people aren’t thinking about you at all. They’re thinking about themselves.

Look to the right and see: there is none who takes notice of me; no refuge remains to me; no one cares for my soul. (Psalm 142.4, ESV)

Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. – Jesus (Matthew 6.1 – 6, ESV)

Obviously, I’m not trying to win the approval of people, but of God. If pleasing people were my goal, I would not be Christ’s servant. –The Apostle Paul (Galatians 1.10, NLT)