You know that I've been thinking a lot lately about how (or if) we can meaningfully measure church growth. In the not-too-distant old days, the metrics were generally: 1) nickels, and 2) noses-- money and people.

In the last week or so, after throwing out a question about whether and how and if there could be other metrics, a friend called to say that he'd been thinking about it. And here's what he said: Counting nickels and noses to measure church growth is like...

...determining the quality of the wine by counting how many grapes went into making it.
 

Great answer, isn't it? The modern church, it seems to me, spent a lot of time and energy with its many words describing the meal without ever really letting people taste and see the Lord is good. So the wine metaphor is apt, I think.

So, for this Sunday: I want us to examine places in Scripture that describe what we should be counting-- what kinds of things we should measure-- when we want to take stock of our spirituality and the church we're becoming.  

We'll depart from the lectionary for this Sunday, so your task will be to spend a bit of time doing some study on the word "measure". Dive in! I'm anxious to see how the Spirit moves in your prayer and preparation for Sunday.

The Lord be with you!