Is God in Numbers?

I hate televangelists. Show me a humble one, and I’ll send you a check to match my tithe.
Somehow, though, I can swallow the concept and some of the content of several radio preachers. I even like the free-for-all of message podcasting. As a general rule, though, something rubs me wrong when the local church tries to be more than a local church. I don’t have a problem with big churches, even mega churches. In fact, if built upon the cell system of small groups, I think large churches can have a greater impact on their immediate culture than the equivalent sum of smaller ones.
But I hate how numbers are inconsistently used to prove God’s approval.
The small-assembly, brimstone backers of my youth pointed to large churches as the “broad way to destruction.” Sour grapes pulpit-pounders have accused them of diluting the Gospel, discarding [artificial] standards, and even devaluing doctrine. I wonder how they defend the thousands who followed Jesus through Galilean hills or the 3,000 converts from Peter’s famous sermon.
I have heard them contradict this line of thought multiple times by giving credence to fundamentalist institutions because of their attendance, infrastructure, and/or media. “Well, it’s hard to argue with their growth. God’s hand is obviously upon them.”
Is it? Using this litmus test, God must stamp his approval on NASCAR, Apple, and Hooters. I wonder if he handicaps using Fortune 500 or Inc. 500 criteria.
Sometimes, the people who successfully run ministries simply prove equal to their for-profit counterparts. That doesn’t make them prophets or wolves; it doesn’t brand them omniscient or Satanic. Any extra credibility proves man-added, not God-added.
The evidence of God’s presence is not numbers—small or large. It’s Spirit-led life change. The problem is, this is ambiguous. It’s abstract. It’s often messy or at least unconventional. It’s difficult to measure. It’s micro, even when multiplied times the number of constituents.
So, churches, colleges, and ministries that mostly just multiply their well-dressed, amen-ing tithers are simply cloning. Ministries expanding the Kingdom—winning red rover sprinters from Satan’s kingdom—those demonstrate God’s work.
In the end, the only number that matters to God is how many spend eternity at his banquet table(s), not how many sit in your fellowship hall.
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