Is church all about the numbers? Part 2 of my case for tent-making.
Before going to Japan, I was on staff at a church of nearly 2,000 people. We met in a 65,000 square-foot warehouse located in “America’s Safest City.” I think this would qualify it as being a megachurch, though it seems downright puny compared to some of the well-known megachurches in the area. These mega-megachurches feature sprawling campuses boasting man-made lakes and parking lots so vast, there are Universal Studio-style trams to shuttle people from their cars to the main entrance and back. Their congregations easily number in the tens of thousands every Sunday.
This is Orange County, California, birthplace of some of the most influential Christian movements of the late twentieth-century. Calvary Chapel. The Vineyard. Saddleback Church. The Trinity Broadcasting Network. It was in this environment that I got my start in ministry.
Then God called my family to Ofunato, a fishing town on the coast of Iwate, one of the least-churched prefectures in the region. Ofunato had five churches, and the one my family was assigned to happened to be the smallest one in town.
The church met in a converted house the size of a three-car garage in California. There was a kitchen, a bathroom with a shower, and a small closet with a sofa bed that could host one overnight guest. The rest of the house served as the main worship space, with a pulpit, two organs, and folding chairs for up to thirty people. It was quaint, cozy. Some have called it kawaii, or cute, perhaps disparagingly.
However, it wasn’t the facility alone that made it the smallest church in town. It was the size of the congregation.
Our church only had two members.
Not two-thousand. Not two-hundred.
Just two.
I’m talking about official members of the church, not counting missionaries/volunteer base staff, of which there were five of us. If you counted my two kids, the visiting pastor, and the visiting pastor’s wife, the Sunday service attendance averaged 9-12 people.
There used to be around 18 members of the church, but over recent years, the congregation dwindled down to two faithful members who chose to stick it out through tough times. The previous pastor was removed from his post, and with only two members remaining, it was not financially viable to replace him. The church then came under the oversight of the senior pastor of a sister church. Once or twice a month, the pastor would make the two-hour drive each way to minister to the Ofunato congregation. On the weeks that he couldn’t make it, other pastors from the denomination would fill in on a rotation, and once in a while, I would take a spot and preach the message with the help of a translator.
One Sunday, a visiting pastor delivered a message, during which he admonished the volunteer base staff. According to my translator, he said, “Tsunami relief is fine, but that’s just humanitarian aid. God is grieved because you haven’t been preaching the gospel, and therefore, the church has not grown.” Our translator trembled as she relayed the message to me. We had all been working hard, doing relief work together throughout the week, and this proclamation slugged us in the collective gut.
Hadn’t been preaching the gospel? We had been sharing gospel messages at temporary housing units three or four times a week for the preceding year-and-a-half, even though we had initially been cautioned about sharing our faith too directly. People were not only receptive to our messages, some were accepting Christ in their homes and we were discipling new believers in their cramped kasetsu units.
Was this the real issue– that ministry was happening outside the walls of the church?
Does ministry not count unless it takes place on church property? Why is it so important to get bodies through the doors and butts in the seats? We knew people who wanted to go to church but couldn’t because of transportation issues combined with age. Many of the people we were meeting with regularly were in their sixties through their nineties. One of them, Rinko-san, was eighty-five and could barely even walk, much less travel across town to attend Sunday services at the church.
So was the pastor right that God was “grieved” because we did not contribute to an increase in church attendance?
Something had been gnawing at me for years, ever since I took my first job in vocational ministry: that even with the greatest of intentions– to be a place for the broken and the lost to come and be reconciled to God– church ultimately comes down to numbers, whether we like it or not. I saw this as a pastor at a large church in Orange County and as a missionary in rural Japan. Even though our goal is to see the salvation of all people:
More people coming through the doors = more people in the seats = more people contributing financially = more resources to cover overhead = more likely to keep the doors open = more chances for more people to come through the doors. And so on. And so forth. And hopefully, people are being saved in the midst of it all.
I was fully aware that I myself had been personally benefiting from the generosity of donors for years, as both a pastor and a missionary. The Bible does teach that church leaders, especially those who teach God’s word, are worthy of pay for their work (Gal. 6:6; 1 Tim 5:17-18), but the Apostle Paul addressed this in 1 Corinthians 9 and argued that “If I preach voluntarily, I have a reward; if not voluntarily, I am simply discharging the trust committed to me” (1 Cor. 9:17).
I started to wonder. What would church look like if there were no paid staff members? What if churches were run completely by volunteers? Is this even possible?
It’s already being done.
Years ago, I was tasked with researching how much money churches in our area allocated towards benevolence funds, i.e., the money set aside for when people in need come to the church, requesting financial assistance. In the course of my research, I came upon a church in Yorba Linda that allocated a whopping 80% of its entire budget to benevolence, outreach, and missions.
Their line item for staff compensation? Zero. Zero dollars. Zero percent of the budget.
How great is that, I thought. How much freedom would there be in ministry if I were not paid by a church? Because:
Being paid to minister = living up to certain expectations = trying to keep donors happy = not biting the hand that feeds you = toning down what you say or teach so as not to offend anyone = becoming less of a prophet and more of an entertainer, saying and doing only that which keeps your audience coming back to fill the seats every week.
And I thought I left the entertainment industry when I lost my TV show in 2006.
Ministry can get compromised when money is involved. Decisions are made with finances always looming in the back of one’s mind, and donors may feel entitled to make demands of the church staff, like customers paying for a service. So what would church look like if we removed paychecks and overhead from the equation? What if churches only did what they could with what they already had in terms of human resources? There are plenty of talented people in the community, and if each of us did our part, wouldn’t things get done? We might not be able to put on a big fancy stage show every week, but maybe that was never the point of church.
I don’t say all this to criticize big churches or pastors who are paid to do their job. Like I said, I myself have been paid clergy for over a decade, and even though the Apostle Paul wrote about preaching voluntarily rather than for pay in 1 Corinthians 9, Paul is also credited with authoring Galatians and 1 Timothy, both of which contain verses affirming the right of church leaders to receive pay. Was he contradicting himself? No.
Paul’s approach was to teach others to honor God in whatever their circumstances, not necessarily to prescribe one way over another. We see this in 1 Corinthians 7: if you’re married, have your marriage honor God (vv 1-16), but if you’re single, let your singleness honor God (vv.35-38). He doesn’t say you should be this or that, or do this or that. Paul encourages you to honor God in whatever situation you find yourself (vv. 17-24).
“Nevertheless, each person should live as a believer in whatever situation the Lord has assigned to them, just as God has called them.” (1 Cor. 7:17)
If you’re a paid church leader, honor God with your formal role, title, and responsibilities. But if you’re a volunteer, honor God with your willingness, your sacrifice, and your freedom to serve.
I had already been feeling drawn towards tent-making (Christianese for being a volunteer who makes a living outside of a formal church role) since my days on staff at the Orange County church, and being a missionary in Japan only amplified my desire. I prayed, petitioning God to release me from being a paid pastor and allow me to be a tent-maker, so that, like the Apostle Paul, I could be free and belong to no one, making myself a servant to all so that some might be saved (1 Cor. 9:19). I didn’t want to give up ministering in Ofunato, but I started dreaming about what it might look like if I could afford to do this voluntarily. Could we start some kind of business? Maybe get a job that would allow us to live in, or at least travel regularly to, Ofunato?
I believed that God would open doors for us to pursue this. But to my surprise, God would not only call us to leave Japan, He would call me back into a full-time pastoral role.
Where? At the fairly-large church in Orange County that I thought I had left behind.
