Churches, like most groups, tend to live Arithmetically or Mathematically, but seldom Exponentially.
Arithmetic Churches: A church that lives Arithmetically is always counting. “How many people at worship?” “How much was the offering?” A church living Arithmetically is always trying to add, “We need to get more people.” They say things like, “What we need is children!” not realizing that nothing scares a visiting parent than someone who tells him or her, “We really need your children.”
Arithmetical churches fear loss. The idea of losing members or losing money can send anxiety through an Arithmetic Church like the presence of a lion sends terror through a group of gazelles. People become tallied and thus objectified. Members become numbers you gain, numbers you lose, or numbers some other group steals from you.
Arithmetic churches equate mission with charity, a subtraction. The goal is 10% ‘for others’. Because it is seen as a pure subtraction of the total, committees function to assure no one tries anything extravagant (like the widow giving her final pennies or the boy willing to see if Jesus can feed five thousand with five loaves and two fish).
Mathematical Churches: A church that lives Mathematically understands the power that a few dedicated people working very hard can make a difference. This is the 30/70 rule, 30% of the people do 70% of the work. In our church, every Wednesday night a small group plans and cooks dinner for the large group to eat. Another small group cleans up while the rest of us study the Bible. When churches become dependent on a person or group of people, they aren’t always appreciated. Often they get used up and then replaced. A small group or individual can’t carry a group without getting used up. Groups living Mathematically seek diligently to find replacements quickly. Underfunctioning people seek overfunctioning people. Each group requires the other to exist, even though it’s clear, even working harder and harder, few reach their potential, at least not for long.
Mission for Mathematic Churches is similar to Arithmetic churches. It is generally a division of the whole and often involves the same members that do the bulk of the greater work of the organization. So often, they live like the servant entrusted with one talent, afraid of losing what little he might have, he only knows a world where people are weeping and gnashing their teeth.
Exponential Churches: More than institutions, Exponential is a way of life, Jesus’ way of life. Exponential living understands, like Jesus, the power of both math and life.
How life works: (Exponentially)
There once was a king who had three daughters. He gathered his daughters together and told them, “My daughters, I am going on a long journey to seek God. While I am away, together you will rule the kingdom. The one who rules the wisest will replace me when I return. To help you rule, I’m going to leave you with a little gift.”
“Gift?” they thought. “How wonderful.”
“Hold out your hands,” the king said.
They did. In each palm the king placed a grain of rice, and left. Each daughter looked at the grain of rice in their hands and wondered what to do with it. The oldest daughter immediately went to her room. She took from her jewelry box a pendant on a gold chain. She opened the pendant, placed the grain of rice in it and placed the necklace around her neck. The second daughter looked at the grain of rice and said, “This grain of rice is like no other, and threw it away.” The youngest daughter was very puzzled by the grain of rice. She looked at it for weeks. She thought about it for months. Then, as if a light had gone on in her head, she said, “I get it!”
Now it was years before the king returned. The three daughters ruled in his absence. Then one day, he walked back into the kingdom. He called his daughters and asked how their time as rulers of the kingdom had been. They told him many stories. Then he asked to see the gift he had given them before he left.
The eldest daughter pulled out the chain, opened the locket and pulled out the grain of rice. Here it is father, I have kept it close to my heart.
“Thank you,” he replied.
The second daughter, who had thrown the rice away, ran to the kitchen and returned. “Here, father, is a grain of rice.”
“Thank you,” he replied.
The third spoke to her father, “I no longer have your grain of rice.”
“No?” the father asked curious.
“No. I thought about the grain of rice for a long time. Then I realized the grain of rice was a seed. Seeds are meant to be planted. So I planted it. Soon it grew, and from it I harvested other seeds. Then I planted those seeds and harvested again and again and again. Come look at the results.”
The king followed his daughter to the window. He looked outside and saw an enormous crop of rice all started from the one grain he had given her.
“You my daughter understand what it means to rule for you had the vision to see what might be.” The king took the crown from his head and placed it on hers.
The eldest daughter understood arithmetic. She avoided subtraction and made sure she didn’t lose her father’s gift.
The second daughter understood mathematics. One grain multiplied to many in the kitchen.
The third daughter understood the power of life, that rice as a seed planted would grow exponentially.
Jesus spoke in terms of exponential life growth. Consider Jesus’ parable of the sower (Matthew 13, Mark 4, Luke 8). The sower scatters seed everywhere. Some falls upon the road eaten by the birds. Some falls upon rocks and never takes root. Some falls upon thorns and are choked out. Some falls upon the good soil and brings forth a healthy crop.
The sower is not concerned for seed that is lost. He does not worry about seed that is eaten by birds, that takes no root upon rocks, or is choked out by thorns. The sower understands life. Life grows exponentially. Life always wins over roads, rocks, and thorns. No worries.
Jesus understood how life works.
How math works:
One Grain of Rice a mathematical folktale by Demi.
Long ago in India, there lived a king whose people prospered under his reign. They stored rice in case there was a famine. When a famine did come, he kept taking more and more rice from the people until they were starving.
One day, as a servant was leading an elephant from a royal storehouse to the palace, one of the bags was torn a little leaving a trickle of rice. A girl followed along trickle of rice was falling from one of the baskets, quickly catching it in her skirt.
A soldier caught her and accused her of stealing. “I was catching it for the king,” she said. She was taken to the king who was so delighted at her loyalty, he offered a gift. “I’d like a simple grain of rice,” she replied.
“Wouldn’t you like something else?” the king asked, “Surely you deserve better.”
“Well,” she said, “today, you will give me a single grain of rice. Then, each day for thirty days you will give me double the rice you gave me the day before. Thus, tomorrow you will give me two grains of rice, the next day four grains of rice, and so on for thirty day.”
“This seems to be a modest reward,” said the king. “But you shall have it.”
And the girl was given a grain of rice.
The next day, she was presented with two grains of rice.
And the following day, she was presented with four grains of rice.
On the ninth day, she was presented with two hundred fifty-six grains of rice. She had received in all five hundred and eleven grains of rice, enough for only a small handful.
On the twelfth day, she received two thousand and forty-eight grains of rice, about four handfuls.
On the thirteenth day, she received four thousand and ninety-six grains of rice, enough to fill a bowl.
On the sixteenth day, she was presented with a bag containing thirty-two thousand, seven hundred and sixty-eight grains of rice. All together she had enough rice for two bags.
On the twenty-first day, she received one million, forty-eight thousand, five hundred and seventy-six grains of rice, enough to fill a basket.
On the twenty-fourth day, she was presented with eight million, three hundred and eighty-eight thousand, six hundred and eight grains of rice–enough to fill eight baskets, which were carried to her by eight royal deer.
On the twenty-seventh day, thirty-two bulls were needed to deliver sixty-four baskets of rice. The king was deeply troubled. “One grain of rice has grown very great indeed,” he thought. “But I shall fulfill the reward to the end, as a good king should.”
On the thirtieth and last day, two hundred and fifty-six elephants crossed the province, carrying the contents of the last four royal storehouses–Five hundred and thirty-six million, eight hundred and seventy thousand, nine hundred and twelve grains of rice.
All together, she had received more than one billion grains of rice. The king had no more rice to give. “And what will you do with this rice,” the king asked, “now that I have none?”
“I shall give it to all the hungry people,” said the girl, “and I shall leave a basket of rice for you, too, if you promise from now on to take only as much rice as you need.”
“I promise,” said the king. For the rest of his days, the king was wise and fair, as a king should be.
The king understood addition and subtraction, abundance and scarcity.
He thought the girl might be working in multiplication, but she understood the power of Exponentiation… That’s how life works. That’s how math works. And, that’s…
How Jesus works:
Mark 4:26 Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, 27 and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. 28 The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. 29 But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.”
30 Jesus also said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? 31 It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; 32 yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”
Besides being tiny, mustard seeds grow like weeds. They can take over a field and be almost impossible to eradicate. Think of kudzu. “The kingdom of heaven is like kudzu…”
Exponential Churches tap into the power of life and living exponentially. Mission is not a component of the church but the driving purpose for the church’s existence. If the church were to face subtraction, like the loss of its building or corporate staffing structure, as long as the connections found within its mission are available, the energy still grows exponentially. Leaders serve the greater mission. Leadership is a role, not a responsibility for the whole. As a wise sage says, “There is no sacrifice in love.” Mission is where you find who you are, what you can and can’t do, and where you enter every moment with an advent of anticipation of just what new thing God might do next. There is no fear of subtraction or loss, as proven in the beginning when God created the world from nothing or in the emptiness of a tomb at Easter, zero is just another number God can use.
Where do you live?
If you’re constantly worried about what you might lose? If you count continually and compare? Then you’re living arithmetically.
If you are always working to exhaustion, or live dependent on someone you can’t do without, then you’re living mathematically.
But if you understand the power of life, mathematics, and God so well that all you want to do is participate in life that grows exponentially – then you get it!
For more on Exponentiation, check out this sermon podcast on John 12: Let Go or Get Dragged
Want to see exponential living in action? Go to www.haitifortheworld.org
