The Number You Should Be Counting

 
Have you ever seen a church attendance board?  Back in the day, churches would put these at the front of the church.  Everybody would watch to see what number would be posted each week.

I believe the number we should focus on is not how many people are attending our church.  Instead, we should be focusing on the number of people who are not attending our church. 

The point is not how many people are currently attending your church.  Rather it's how many people in your community are still lost and need Jesus.  That's the number that matters!  It doesn't matter if you have 50, 500, or 5,000 people attending...take a look outside the walls of your church.  You are surrounded by people who need Jesus!
 
The current world population is over 7 billion.  That's over 7 billion people who will die in the next 100 years.  Jesus sees them. They are His focus. He is not willing that any should perish, but that everyone should come to Him.  He wants to have a life-changing relationship with every single one of those 7 billion people.
 
Let's keep our focus outward instead of inward.  Our motivation should not be to see how large our church can get.  Our motivation should be the people in our community who have no clue about Jesus.