Ministry – Page 10 – John Markum

We’re All About the Numbers

Posted on March 16, 2012 by johnmarkum

If you are a “church” person or church leader, you’ve likely already formed an opinion regarding the title of this post. You may have thought of contemporary “growth strategies” for how to more effectively fill seats on weekend services. Or perhaps you made a judgment that churches who are “all about the numbers” are weak doctrinally, and weaker still in their discipleship, teaching, and preaching. Allow me five minutes to explain why my church is crazy about the numbers.

First of all, you should acknowledge that “big” churches are not intrinsically bad…

Jesus had upwards of 20,000+ people following His ministry at various points.
3,000 came to Christ in one “service” on the day of Pentecost.
5,000+ were in the church of Jerusalem within a few short months.
The church of Ephesus mentioned in Acts 19 likely consisted of several thousand people.

The fact that numbers are used to give us a picture of the metric growth of the church as it spread should be an indication. Now, there is such thing as an inappropriate view of the numbers. True, a church growing in number is not necessarily healthy. But it is also true that a healthy church should grow. Growth is a result of health. Not the other way around.

I’m all about the numbers because each number represents a real person. A life. Someone that Jesus died to save. The numbers of people coming to my church, are real people with real needs, searching for real answers that are available by a real God. The numbers are not simply measurements and benchmarks that we give high-fives over.

The numbers tell stories of people who were far from God that were awakened with life in Christ. They tell of the couple that was on the edge of divorce who found grace, forgiveness, and forbearance through the love of Christ. The numbers tell me about the woman who walked in feeling too broken to come to God but decided to try anyway, and gave her life to Jesus and found freedom and hope. The numbers tell me of a couple about to call it quits after living together for a year, who are now married, happy, healthy, and passionate about the lives being changed at our church and the change that Jesus made in them.

The numbers speak! It’s not just 1, 2, 3, 4… It’s Tyler, Marcus, Randy, Brian, Josie, Tiffany, Karla, Jason, Sarah, Andrew, Todd… It’s not about me, or an ego boost, or a fist-bump after the service. The numbers are an objective non-biased worship to the God who is redeeming people in our community. Someone once made the comment that they don’t count people in the services of their church because “it’s not about the numbers anyway.” They were asked if their church counted the offering, which was an awkward but obvious, “yes.” The other person simply pointed out that you count what matters to you!

We count people, because people count to us. So am I focused on the numbers? You better believe it. We love people. And we love the change that the Gospel brings to their life. We want to see more lives changed by the Gospel. And we’re going to continue to do everything we can to reach them. We’ll stop at nothing because they matter to God and they matter to us… count on it.

Blessings,

John

Un-Series

Posted on February 5, 2012 by johnmarkum

So taking a page from the sitcom, Seinfeld, which began as an idea to start a show about “nothing,” we thought we would do the same with an entire message series at our Saturday night worship service, The Awakening. A sermon series is suppose to be a collection of messages that are connected by a common theme, Scripture, or concept. Much like our Sun Stand Still series that we just finished. But this Un-Series is a collection of messages that have nothing to do with each other… aside from being in the same un-series. It’s like an anti-series. The opposite of a series.

Why are we doing this, you ask? That is a fair question. I find that there is a temptation to focus on what you “should” do next in a series instead of what God is speaking to you. In my personal time in God’s Word, I constantly read over different passages and think to myself, “Wow! That would make a great message.” But I often tuck it away because it doesn’t fit with the current series.

So the Un-Series is an opportunity to let God speak through me to you, unhindered by any other agenda. Don’t mistake what I’m saying, though… God speaks through my planning just as much as He speaks through spontaneity. The series I preach, I preach because I genuinely believe God wants me to cover a subject, idea, or passage of Scripture in the detail of a 3-6 week sermon series. I do not apologize for that. In fact, I have 4 more series planned out after this. And it’s going to be awesome!

I just wanted to simplify the process and show my church that I depend on God’s leading just like they do. We’ve already finished the first night of the un-series, and I couldn’t have thought of a better way to begin.

PS… If you’re a church leader that feels stuck in a creative-thinking slump, let your un-creativity inspire you!

Blessings,

John

Worship Perspective

Posted on August 25, 2011 by johnmarkum

With our consumer culture and love of music, it’s easy to get the wrong attitude for how we worship in church. Some people, quite honestly, annoy me with how they criticize worship music in churches. Like they’re the Simon Cowell of worship leaders.

Now don’t get me wrong… no one in church appreciates good, powerful music more than I do. And because of my church background, I have as much appreciation for the old hymns as I do RED. But regardless, if the song is something that challenges the people of God to be Christ-like, or lifts up the name of Jesus, it is something to glorify God.

I think we get it mixed up so much because we confuse ourselves with the three participating groups in church worship services:

The Performer(s) – The person(s) doing the actual worshiping.
The Audience – The one(s) for whom the worship is intended.
The Catalyst – The one responsible for prompting The Performer(s).

Typically, we see the people on the stage as The Performers, God as The Catalyst, and the people in the seats as The Audience. With this mentality, worship in our churches often becomes entertainment: the people on the stage are easy to criticize based on how well they did, or (as we’ve learned from American Idol) what songs they chose, and the people in the service are either mostly passive, or critical of what they liked and didn’t like, while God’s presence is judged by how well the band entertained us. This problem occurs in every flavor of “worship styles” too. So this is not just a generational thing.

But God intended differently. The people playing and singing on the stage are not The Performers… they are The Catalyst. the people in the service are not The Audience, they are in fact The Performers. And God is not The Catalyst, He is The Audience. When we see worship in our churches this way, we realize that the job of the worship leader is to call us into God’s presence with praise. The Audience (the people) has the job of accepting the invitation and bringing their praise before God. And God takes His place as the rightful recipient of our worship.

I find it offensive toward God when we talk about “what we got” out of worship. Since when has worship ever been about what we get?!? It’s about what we bring before Him.

We receive the greatest benefit of worship, but only because true worship requires us to be surrendered to the One we worship.

Blessings,

John