Last night The University of South Carolina mens basketball team won the National Invitational Tournament (NIT) for the 2nd year in a row. The joke on talk radio and ESPN is that they are the 66th best team in America. I do believe they deserved to be in the NCAA Tourney more than others but that is another discussion. The point is how many people outside of Columbia and Ann Arbor watched the game last night. I don't even remember who the Gamecocks beat last year. How many times in church life do we "win" and no one cares? Think about how we measure success. We publish how many members a church has or how many people have been baptised. The problem is half of the members don't attend and can we find 3/4's of the people who have been baptised? The average church member doesn't care about those stats. In fact, I don't think God is concerned about them. The mega church pastors are idolized because they have 1000's of people attending. Are they really developing disciples? Some do, some don't. Jesus said in Matthew 28:18-20

Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

I think God is more concerned with the number of people we have discipled than the number of members, attendees or baptisms. Now some churches membership only includes those who have been baptised and discipled. That is a good win! My prayer for my ministry is that when we win it matters to God more than it matters to those who measure wins!