Commercial chicken farming has shifted focus from QUALITY TO QUANTITY in today’s food industry. The overwhelming pressure placed on poultry farms to succeed has caused many to prioritize any means legally necessary to produce as many birds as possible in the shortest time. This push to accelerate production has caused many farms to embrace genetically modified breeds that grow unnaturally fast, often resulting in weak bone structures, heart failure, and underdeveloped organs. In other words, production trumps health.
I have a question: Is this quantity-first mentality seen in the chicken industry also becoming realized in much of the modern church culture? Let me explain.
EVANGELISM
The number one marketed idea of evangelism that I see today is outreach. Everything is centered on large-scale events geared toward mass exposure. Don’t get me wrong; this is a vital element of the church community and a feature of outreach that needs to continue. My concern with this is that we often focus on the GO but little on the MAKING DISCIPLES aspect of evangelism.
Evangelism without discipleship factored into the process is NOT evangelism. Think of gathering a ton of fish in a net, dumping them into a boat, taking pictures of some good ones, and then simply moving on to another fishing spot to do it all over again. I have long said that, IF we were to feature a large-scale evangelism event, we MUST have a discipleship-oriented culture to capitalize on the efforts.
All too often, and I say this with all due respect, ministries that have never pastored or are REACH oriented and not TEACH oriented sometimes get frustrated with pastors or churches connected to their large-scale evangelistic events. They often seize on the number of “yes, I want a bible study” answers gathered on a net-fishing expedition, dump those sheets onto the desk of a local church, but are never present to listen to the “I’m sorry, you got the wrong number” responses, inactive number dial-tones, and the obvious “I gave you my number but I’m not really interested right now” responses from those who answer. Instead, and this does happen, it can be broadcast that “we went on outreach and got 62 bible studies, but obviously the local pastor and church dropped the ball.”
Another scenario would involve large-scale community crusade-oriented efforts. I like these and believe in them, but having been a part of many of them, one typical result is that we focus on the upfront number of baptisms and those receiving the Holy Ghost and NEVER (in almost every case) follow up with “and these are currently in discipleship classes, growing, and becoming members of the local church.”
GOING AND STAYING
I am not disparaging large-scale collective evangelistic efforts where a few hundred like-minded, radical Christians come together with dynamic music and high-octane efforts. Thank God for these events, but even the Apostle Paul stayed in Ephesus for THREE YEARS after large-scale opportunities opened up following evangelistic efforts. Herein is a KEY REVELATION: success wasn’t simply in the GOING but in the STAYING.
Suppose you stayed with me this far, whew! Let’s revisit the beginning. This is where the chicken farm mentality can bleed into the church community. Going receives more accolades than staying, or to state it more precisely, QUANTITY gets more attention than QUALITY.
This is why, over time, many men whose ministries were known for filling church vans, packing out auditoriums, and hosting Super Sundays that led to mass baptisms and outpourings of the Holy Ghost, often struggled to gain true momentum when they transitioned to pastoring — even though they never lacked a crowd.
One can become addicted to the attention that mass baptisms bring, but fail to understand that hunger and discipleship are critical features of soul-winning. The STAY is just as crucial as the GO. This is why the Great Commission tells us to “go…make disciples.”
We must be careful not to fall prey to the chicken farm church culture, where attendance efforts trump growth efforts, where proclamation receives far more accolades than discipleship. Discipleship is a process (Romans 12:2; II Cor. 3:18; Phil. 1:6), but it doesn’t market very well on social media because it doesn’t cater to attention spans or number-oriented cultures.
I celebrate 500 receiving the Holy Ghost at a rally, but the true metric will always be the number who are obedient, submit to the Word of God, and develop as disciples because they are hungry for the things of God.
