Video Transcript: Quality and Quantity

welcome back. We're continuing our study of developing great commission  skills. We're still on skill number three, setting objectives and establishing  accountability. And what we're going to look at with this video is the skill topic,  quality and quantity. Now what we're going to find is that both quality and  quantity are very important when rightly understood. So as we broaden our  discussion of the various matrix, quantitative matrix, effective GCOs, address  quantity as well as quality. But dealing with numbers, when it comes to ministry,  can be very tricky. We can get a lot of trouble dealing with numbers. We don't  want to fall into the trap of thinking that bigger is better, that somehow more is  desirable, that the biblical idea of growth simply has to do with with number or  size. That is just not the case. However, there is a danger of shutting off the  importance of numbers of quantitative measurements. You will recall from  Revelation 7, when we look at that vision of the apostle John, he says, What,  behold, there's a great multitude that no one could number. Now the question is, this, is this vision about numbers? No, it's not. It's about souls. It's about the  eternal souls of people. The number is so large that it can't be counted at least,  at least by us. Obviously, God knows the number. We know that God is really  quite dialed in to numbers. In fact, let's look at a couple of Scripture passages  from Genesis 15:5. What does God say? Says he he brought Abram outside  and said, Look toward heaven and Number the Stars. If you're able to number  them, then he said to them, so shall your offspring be a clear indication that the  family of God is going to be gigantic insize big, big, big numbers from Psalm  147, he determines the number of the stars. He gives to all of them their names. Wow, that's an intriguing concept. You know, when you name something, you  set it apart, you give it a status, and God names the stars, absolutely, absolutely  incredible. Now I want to share a concept with you. I call this the numbers  continuum. This is something that I've run into over the years in my dealing with  with pastors and leaders. The numbers continuum stretches one end to the  other. In this way, on one end, I've had discussions with pastors and some  leaders that take great pride in the fact that their churches are shrinking to a  very small number. Now, how does that make sense? Well, their perspective is  that the reason we are shrinking is because we are being so faithful, we are not  compromising. You know, culture is pushing in directions that are against the  teachings of the Lord, against against scripture, and we're we're holding firm.  We're standing firm in the midst of fierce opposition because we are so faithful,  and the loss of people, the lowering of our numbers, is our Red Badge of  Courage, if you know that reference, it's an indication of just how faithful we are.  Now the other side of the continuum, at the other pole, there are those in  leadership that feel like whatever you need to do to reach large number of  people is credible. We'll do. Whatever it takes to get people in here, because the more people that come into the orbit of our church, the more of them will be  exposed to the truth, to the gospel. Well, yes and no, because I've noticed that 

there are those times when churches of that ilk have actually compromised on  non negotiables like the authority of Scripture say, in order to draw large  numbers of people. So in my estimation, each of these poles is in error. We  shouldn't be boasting about losing people and claiming that that proves  faithfulness, nor should we be compromising what can't be compromised in  order to draw a crowd. So either way you look at it, you're losing ground. Now,  when it comes to investigating any particular subject, I believe that the place to  go is scripture. Now I was very concerned about the perspective. What is the  right perspective? What is the biblical perspective about numbers when it comes to ministry? And I was so concerned about this issue that I actually made it the  center of my PhD dissertation, which gave me the motivation to spend about  four years investigating. Now I'm going to, I'm going to maybe save you about  four years of your life, because I'm going to cut right to the bottom line as we  work through but let me give you my my model for how to approach a given  subject biblically, there are two questions that I want to ask. I think I might have  spoken about this in an earlier session. First of all, what does God say about  this in his word? And in this particular case, talking about numbers? What does  God say about numerical growth in the church in His Word. And then secondly,  what does God mean by what he says about numerical growth in the church  that's in the Bible? What does God say about this? What Does God mean by  what he says about this? And so I investigated thoroughly, and I use that model  with just about any or anything that comes down the pike. I'm concerned. What  does God say about this? What does he mean by what he says? You see, it  doesn't matter what I say, no offense, but it doesn't matter what you say. It  doesn't matter what culture says. It doesn't matter what the guy on TV says, It  doesn't matter what social commentary says. It doesn't matter what Facebook  says. It matters what God says He is the only true voice of authority. So I want to know, what does God say about this? What Does God mean by what he says  about this? Now again, I'm going to save you four years of your life, you can  thank me later. Let me tell you one of the most startling realizations that I had in  my PhD studies as I was working through that question, what does God say  about numerical growth? What does he mean by what he says? Something  emerged in my study that was very surprising. It had to do with the significance  of the Lamb's book of life, which is mentioned several times throughout  Scripture, the book of life, the Lamb's book of life. It's often stated in the  negative, like you will be excluded from the Lamb's book of life. Okay, we're told  in Scripture that the Lamb's book of life was written before the foundations of the earth. So in other words, it's kind of hard to think about dates, about the  calendar, when you're thinking about eternity, but let's put it this way, before  time, there was the Lamb's book of life. Before Genesis 1, there was the Lamb's book of life. Now that's mind boggling to think about, but Scripture tells us crystal clear the Lamb's book of life before the foundations of the earth. Now, what is 

included in the Lamb's. Book of Life. The Lamb's book of life includes the names of the saints, of all those throughout all of time who will come to faith in Jesus  Christ, as John would say, who have been given the power to become children  of God, they're all listed. It's like the family tree, the family registry. All of our  brothers and sisters, past, present, future are all listed in the Lamb's book of life  before the foundations of the earth. This is a list of everyone who will come to  Christ throughout the course of their lifetimes. Now, what's that got to do with the Great Commission? What has that got to do with the mandate to multiply, to go  and make disciples? I'm going to put a diagram up for you now, the Lamb's  Book of Life diagram, and there you go on your screen. Now what you see there is four columns, so I'm going to speak to each column in that first column on the  far left, the one that's shaded you see at the top, we're talking about the past.  These are the names. These are the names of the saints, those who came to  faith in their lifetimes, who have already lived their lifetimes in the past, they're  already with the Lord. They are that great cloud of witnesses that the Scripture  speaks of those that went before us, that great cloud of witnesses, that that  gigantic group of children of God who have lived their lives and are now with the Lord in heaven. Now it's not our responsibility to reach them with the gospel.  They've already been reached, they've already lived, they've already died, their  souls have already gone on to heaven. Now on the other side of the chart, the  far right, you see future. These are the names of people who are going to live in  the future. I'm talking future beyond our lifetimes. Way down the line, they  haven't lived yet, but their names are already recorded in the book of life. They  are among the children of God, but they're going to come into the family in the  future. Their names already recorded in the Lamb's book of life. Now, if you're  struggling with this concept, theologically, just take a look at all that, that all of  the references to the Lamb's Book of Life, in Scripture, and just logically think  this through. God knows everything. God is sovereign over everything. God  providentially governs everything, including those who will come to Christ in their lifetimes. Well, those people who haven't lived yet are not our responsibility.  They're going to live sometime in the future, and future church will have the  responsibility of connecting with them, drawing them in, by the grace of God to  the kingdom that they might become children of God. So we're not called to  reach those who already lived. We're not called to reach those who are going to  live later. Now that brings us to the present in the center, and you'll notice that  I've split the present out into two separate columns. One column I'm referring to  as already, the other column I'm referring to as not yet. Here's the thing, the  already group is a listing of all of those who are alive today, whose names are  recorded in the Book of Life, who have already come into faith. They've already  received Christ as Savior and Lord. They've already come into the family of  God. They are not our responsibility in terms of evangelism. They've already  been reached. They're not in the harvest, as it were. They're already in the 

family, in the church, but the other group, the not yet group, these are people  who are alive today, whose names are recorded in the Lamb's book of life, who  have yet to come to faith. This is the plentiful harvest. These are those with  whom the harvest is white for harvest, these are the folks that will be reached in  their lifetimes, will be brought into the family of God, and these are the folks that  we are responsible for reaching alive today, names in the Book of Life haven't  come in yet. That is the harvest, the plentiful harvest that Jesus speaks of, but  Jesus also speaks of a limited labor force, now the Lamb's book of life is really  not about numbers. Numerical growth in the church is not about numbers, just  like the stars of heaven are not about numbers. Numerical growth in the church  is about names, names that are recorded in the book of life. People that are are  waiting spiritually, even if they don't know it. They're waiting for the church to  come and get them to bring them home. They're prodigal. Now we don't have  the ability to regenerate anyone. No one comes to faith unless the spirit draws  them, but God has chosen to utilize those of us who are already inside the  family home to go out and find those who are missing and bring them home.  This was the mandate that Jesus had in mind when he said, Go and make  disciples, baptize in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teach them to be obedient, to live the life that I'm calling them to. We are  responsible for those who are alive today, who have not yet come in. That is the  harvest that we are seeking. The huge significance, huge significance of the  Lamb's book of life. Quantity is important and should be reflected in our great  commission objectives, quantity. Now let's talk about quality for a few moments.  Quality is also important for several reasons. First of all, God is about quality.  You know, right in Genesis, in the first couple chapters, what do we see God is  in the process of creation, and as he creates these various components of  creation, he stops and evaluates and he says it was good. You know, God  distinguishes between good and bad. It was not good for the man to be alone.  God distinguishes between good and bad. God distinguishes between good and evil. God distinguishes between right and wrong. Let me give you an example.  I'm fascinated. I'm fascinated by the accounts in in the Book of Kings, bleeds  over into Chronicles, the accounts of the kings of Judah and Israel once the  kingdom had divided. You know, you've got the kings of Judah, you've got the  kings of Israel, and you have all of this recording in Kings and in Chronicles of  who these people were and what they're known for. Well, it it appears that God  was very concerned. And with one thing in particular, let me read you a couple  of verses that deal with several of these kings. I'm reading from I Kings 15:9, in  the 20th year of Jeroboam, king of Israel, Asa began to reign over Judah, and  he reigned 41 years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Maakah, the  daughter of Abishalom, did what was right in the eyes of the Lord as David his  father had done. He put away the male cult prostitutes out of the land and  removed all the idols that his father had made. You see, what he did was he 

purified the worship, and he had the people of Israel worshiping God, we might  say, in spirit and truth, the true God being truly worshiped. Now let me jump over to verse 25 Nadab, the son of Jeroboam, began to reign over Israel in the  second year of Asa king of Judah, and he reigned over Israel two years he did  what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and walked in the way of his father and in  his sin, which he made Israel to sin. One more down to verse 33 in the third year of Asa, king of Judah Baasha, the son of Ahijah, began to reign over all Israel in  Tirzah and he reigned 24 years, he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord,  and walked in the way of Jeroboam, and in his sin, which he made Israel to sin  all right. As you read the accounts of each of these kings, we find that statement either he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord or he did what was evil in the eyes of the Lord. And what was the criterion upon which God made that  judgment? It had to do with worship. Did these kings lead the nation in the  authentic worship of the living and true God, or did they bleed their worship  practices into the pagan practices that surrounded Judah, that surrounded Israel in the Foreign nations that worshiped pagan idols and practiced their their cult  practices. God was concerned with being glorified. That was his priority, and he  wanted to be worshiped properly, authentically, truthfully. And the king that did  so did what was right, the king that did not did what was evil? Interesting. Now I  want you to think about this is that all that these kings did is that all that they're  known for, what about other things that the kings did? Well, let me call your  attention to I Kings 15:23 it says this, in summary, we're talking about Asa. We  go through this. Asa did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, and he did this,  and he did that, and he did these. And we come to the end of that little passage,  and it says this, Now the rest of the acts of Asa, all his might, all that he did and  the cities that he built. Are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the  kings of Judah? One more of these, with Nadab verse, 31 now, the rest of the  acts of Nadab and all that he did. Are they not written in the book of the  chronicles of the kings of Israel. In other words, some kings did what was right in my eyes because they worshiped me properly. Others did what was evil in my  eyes because they did not worship me properly. Now, anything else you want to  know about these kings. Look it up. Go to the library. Check out the chronicles of the king. Look it up. But the thing I want to focus on is how the Kings led the  nation in worshiping Me. Amazing. It says so much about God's concern about  his glory. So why do we deal with quality? God dealt with quality, separating  good from bad, good from evil, right from wrong. Uh. Secondly, Paul explains  that all things would be to be done to the glory of God. We notice this in I Kings,  I Corinthians 10, Paul explains in his first letter to the Corinthians that all things,  regardless of what they are, are to be done to the glory of God. All things,  nothing falls outside of that purview. All things are to be done to the glory of  God. God is concerned about quality. Now there's a strong relationship also  between quality and quantity. So I want to take you back for a moment to our 

discussion about levels of commitment. You might recall that we talked about  that before. Let me see if I can remember those off the top of my head, we  started with the idea of people who are observing that our church is there. They  might be considering showing up at a church service or some function or some  event they visit, they begin to attend regularly. They start to become connected.  They ultimately move into serving. And at the top of the list, they become people who invite they invite others to come. All right, where does quality fit in? One of  the leading elements that either encourages or discourages someone from  inviting other people to come to their church. Is the confidence level that they  have, confidence in the quality of what their friend, their neighbor, their business  associate, whoever it is that they're inviting? Are they confident that the quality  of that experience is going to be very high? What bolsters their confidence in a  church's ministry is high quality. They have to be certain that if my invitees, my  guests, were to come to my church, their experience would be warm, pleasant,  desirable, dynamic, special. They would be impacted in very positive ways. If the quality is not there, the confidence will not be there. So here's the word of  warning, the potential for increased quantity. In this case, new folks coming in,  will be handcuffed by the lack of quality. That's why this is so important. Setting  Great Commission objectives and establishing accountability effectively requires that consideration be given to both quality and quantity in crafting Great  Commission objectives, we need to see high quality. We want to see high  quantity in ways that bring honor and glory to God. Now that concludes our  video on quality and quantity. When we get together in the next session, we're  going to be focusing in on what I call completed actions. Completed actions. So  I invite you to stay tuned for that. We'll see it next time, and in the meantime,  may God bless your continued efforts to serve him well in the name of Jesus.  Amen