A Thought For The Week Of August 19

"Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel." (1 Chronicles 21:1) In some reading I was doing this morning I discovered that the United Methodist Church in the United States has gone a little bit statistics crazy - not unlike baseball. Apparently it was started by Will Willimon, a former bishop and now professor. In the Conference in which he was bishop, congregations now make weekly reports about attendance, baptisms, offerings, etc., etc., so that different churches can be compared. Apparently, Willimon's argument is that it's a sign of the "vitality" of the churches. Having received my most recent degree from a United Methodist seminary, I'm going to claim the right to reflect on this. And so I wonder. I've always been intrigued by the fact that David's census of Israel was motivated by Satan and that God was angry - very angry - that he had done it. Why? Taking a census sounds reasonable enough. But consider David's motives. He probably wanted to know how many fighting men he had - so he was trying to determine Israel's strength by numbers. But real strength doesn't come from numbers; real strength comes from faithfulness to and trust in God. The story in 1 Chronicles is one of those stories we don't really like. It depicts an angry, vengeful, punishing God. But the real point of the story - as unpleasant as it is - is that we must always trust God rather than using worldly ways of measuring our success or failure. In times when the church is, indeed, suffering from declining attendance and increasing deficits, we would do well to remember that. Otherwise, we'll start trusting in other things, and we might well lose hope - which those of us who believe in a resurrected Saviour should never do, regardless of how insignificant we might seem from a worldly point of view Have a great week!