{"id":30977,"date":"2023-02-09T23:59:27","date_gmt":"2023-02-10T07:59:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=30977"},"modified":"2024-10-20T04:14:47","modified_gmt":"2024-10-20T11:14:47","slug":"numbers-mean-success-and-blessings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/numbers-mean-success-and-blessings\/","title":{"rendered":"Numbers Mean Success and Blessings?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhen a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2013 Goodhart\u2019s Law \u2013<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Living in a Swirl of Measure and Target<\/strong><\/p>\n

Human life is filled with the process of “measuring”. Measuring the extent of achievement, how much income, how smart thinking. The greater and higher the achievement of man and what he achieves or has, the greater the respect he gets. Everywhere we hear jargon everyone has to achieve as much as possible, as high as possible. Those who are unable to achieve it will lose the respect of their fellows. The more a person gets results or amounts far from the highest standards and goals created by humans, the less respect he gets. From this understanding, many people try hard, vying to meet these measures and targets. Not a few are then tempted to do everything possible to achieve it. Therefore, we are no longer surprised when we hear news about acts of tripping and bringing down each other in tough competition, people committing fraud and corruption, and even people who have the heart to hurt fellow human beings and fellow creatures of God (exploiting the earth) just because of measure and target. Measures and targets in my view are needed to carry out the process of self-evaluation and improvement. We can be amazed and inspired by the achievements of someone who is done with hard work and honesty. We also have to work hard and be honest in our endeavors, but there is no need to feel guilty when we may not have achieved our best so we avoid the attitude of making achieving measurements and targets the only goal in life. It is true the meaning of Goodhart’s words quoted by Chivers above (Chivers, Chapter 22) when life is only a measure and a target, then it can no longer be said to be a good thing, or what is more extreme, it will bring bad things.<\/p>\n

Measures and Targets in Christianity<\/strong><\/p>\n

Christianity and the church are communities that are not free from the influence of ideas about measure and targets. The question of what measure to say a church is “successful” or “blessed” is often associated only with numbers such as the increase in the number of church members, the number of offerings and church finances, and the number of assets owned by the church. A church is also called successful when it has all the classification numbers above with the highest number compared to other churches. If only numbers are used as a measure of success and blessings in a church, it can make church servants, pastors only focus on numbers (quantity) but very likely ignore the quality (quality) such as spirituality, love, witnessing, and sharing life. The church can be trapped to only pay attention to those who are rich and have positions but ignore the teachings of Jesus to also reach out to those who are poor and suffering. Therefore, when we are in a Christian community that emphasizes target, measure and then makes every effort to achieve it (including ignoring the teachings of Christ), it is appropriate for us to ask reflective questions such as those raised by Chivers: is this a big number? (Chivers, Chapter 9). Or you can reflect even more deeply, is the large number in the church God’s will? Or we can also ask, is God only pleased with large numbers?<\/p>\n

Life and Ministry Are Not Just Numbers<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reading Chivers’ writings brings us to enlightenment to think that our lives and ministry as Christians are not just numbers, measurements, targets, rankings, and so on. That doesn’t mean we can’t use numbers. But now we are invited to read numbers from a different perspective. Putting numbers in their proper context will help us understand why some numbers were written and presented (Chivers, Conclusion Chapter).<\/p>\n

Bible Stories and Numbers<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the Bible, numbers are also mentioned. For example, in the book of Numbers, numbers are used to determine the number of Israelites. But the stories in the Bible also show clearly that even though God uses numbers, we are invited to realize that the main point is not the number but the divine love and power that He has and He shares and expresses concerning humans. The story of the Israelites against the Midianites under Gideon’s leadership in the book of Judges 7:1-25 shows clearly that God chose only three hundred people out of thousands who were with Gideon at that time. With far fewer people than before, God gave victory to His people against a great and powerful nation. Then, another story is found in Matthew 18:12-14, namely the parable of the lost sheep. Even if only one sheep is lost, the shepherd will leave the other ninety-nine to search for and save that one lost sheep.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reading and understanding numbers differently will lead us to an attitude of respect for humans and all of creation because our perspective will no longer see and judge them only as numbers, measures, and targets. Reading and understanding numbers with a new perspective open up opportunities for an atmosphere of life where mutual respect, embracing diversity, and compassion for those who suffer, liberate all creation that is oppressed and exploited.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhen a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure\u201d \u2013 Goodhart\u2019s Law \u2013   Living in a Swirl of Measure and Target Human life is filled with the process of “measuring”. Measuring the extent of achievement, how much income, how smart thinking. The greater and higher the achievement of man and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":173,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2310],"tags":[2601],"class_list":["post-30977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-doctor-of-leadership-3","tag-dlgp02-chivers","cohort-dlgp02"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/173"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30977"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30977\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38956,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30977\/revisions\/38956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}