The month of March marks the beginning of spring. The snow turns to rain (at least in the valleys), the dead grass starts to green, the trees begin to bloom. Perhaps you will see some tulips and daffodils daring to break through the ground. At least in my family, it is a season of birthdays: my wife, my son, my dad. This is a season to celebrate life and birth. Easter is just around the corner.

But March always represents something else to me as well: statistics and spreadsheets. Mid March is always when my annual reports to the local church, district, and denomination come due. Every March I spend a few hours answering questions such as: How many members does your church have? What was your average worship attendance? Sunday School attendance? What were your total financial contributions? How was that money spent? What is the estimated value of your church property? If answering those questions sounds exciting to you, then you may need to go see a therapist!

I do not mean to sound bitter or lackadaisical about this process. I understand its importance for transparency and accountability. The problem is, none of the statistics I record can say much of anything about the life of the church. The life of the church is the Holy Spirit and cannot so easily be measured by numbers. It is entirely possible for a church to grow numerically and decline spiritually. It is possible for a church to decline and become healthier. Most pastors will attest the latter to be quite common! Growth does not always represent health. Cancer grows. Mold grows. Toxic churches also have a tendency to grow.

Of course, not all growth is bad. Flowers grow. Children grow. Churches led by the Spirit grow. The problem is that you cannot tell what kind of growth is happening based solely on a few numbers pulled from a spreadsheet. Numbers are impersonal abstractions. They do not tell stories. They do not have faces or names. They do not laugh or cry or sin or pray. Every year when I plug in the numbers, I want to write in the margins: There is more going on here than numbers! There is life!

But, understandably, numbers are quick and easy to read. No one has the time to read a bunch of meandering stories about every congregation in a district or denomination. Most of the stories are boring anyway. Of course, it is in the boring stories that God does his saving and sanctifying work! Nevertheless, no one wants to read them.

So if we are going to stick with numbers, here are some additional numerical statistics and questions I would like my denomination to ask its pastors. Even though these would be impossible to record, they might actually prove more helpful in understanding the life of the church. If anyone from the general church wants to steal these suggestions…go right ahead!

Number of laughs:

Number of tears:

Number of sins confessed:

Number of sins forgiven:

Number of sins still needing forgiveness:

If you are not planning to forgive those sins, what are you planning on doing with them? Please explain:

Number of conversations that had nothing to do with “church business”:

Number of conversations that went longer than you expected:

Did you (the pastor) take all your vacation time? If not…why are you stealing that time from yourself, your family, and the church? Your church needs a break from you as much as you need a break from the church. Get lost!

Number of times God surprised you:

Number of times you read the Bible without working on a sermon:

Number of church meetings where the pastor did not have to be present:

Number of congregants who sing out of key but sing anyway:

Number of times gathered around a table:

Number of Sabbath rests taken by pastor and congregants:

Number of Sabbath rests stolen by “church work”?

Number of meetings that could have been an email:

Number of times greeting time took far too long:

Number of times your congregation worshiped with a congregation from another denomination:

Number of times a young child’s voice “interrupted” worship (and how did you respond):

Number of prayers of thanksgiving to God:

Conclusion

I would like to say that if these were the kind of questions asked on my annual reports that I would fill them out with joy and thanksgiving. But that would be a lie. I am sure that I would still complain to someone (most likely my wife). Pastors are good at finding something to whine about, and I am no different.

Of course I would much rather spend these days outdoors dealing with all the new life around us than sitting indoors compiling numbers. Nevertheless, God works in the boring and the mundane, the tedious and the banal. At the very least, God uses this process to teach me submission and diligence. God, let me do this work well — even if I don’t like it!