Apparently, Blogger has had server difficulties of late—hence the reason I’m so late in posting.

Today is another free day of sorts… I actually do a fair amount of other work on my free day, but I don’t have anything scheduled formally. For a confessional moment, I will say that not having schools to visit is a bit discouraging. It can be kind of lonely out here, visiting schools where you only see a few people and even those people don’t seem particularly excited about being in NNPCW—if those schools even let you come, that is. Because yeah, at its core this is a recruiting trip. We want to gain new members, or we wouldn’t be spending this kind of money to send me out here. I’m halfway through the tour, and I still only have a few names on my NNPCW signup sheet.

You see, our materialistic, product-driven society is very focused on quantifiable results. One person I know has asked me several times about NNPCW’s goals and results—what are we doing and is it effective? It is a valid question, of course, particularly when budget issues are involved. I want to tell him that, yes, based on this and that, we’ve seen membership jump by 25% in the last quarter and registrations for the Leadership Event are up by 50 over last year. I don’t want to say that I travel for two weeks to only get a handful of memberships, and that we have to work our tails off to get the forty people that come to a national leadership event every year.

Yet to use a term from my good ol’ Pentecostal days, God has been “dealing with my heart” on this trip. Yesterday when I visited Pacific, one student and I were commiserating about how few of our peers saw the inequities that still exist in our society, and how many of them thought we were obnoxious harpies because we see them and we care. And a wise woman interjected to say, “They will see it, too, someday. And when they do, what you’ve said to them now will come back to them and be more meaningful than you could possibly imagine.”

Whenever I visit a college, I hand out our discussion resource as if it were candy. I make all the women take one, even if they have no expressed interest in the Network. Why? Because the truth is that the realm of God is indeed like a mustard seed. I don’t know what those women will do with that resource, or what they will ultimately take away from my presentation at their college. But when they do finally run into those inequities in society (and they will), if they’re compelled to turn their back on their faith, I have hope that some encounter they’ve had with NNPCW will change their minds.

Because ultimately, our ministry is not about numbers or statistics, not about memberships or programs. This is about people—about extending God’s love and showing people a faith of liberation for the captives and justice for the downtrodden. I can’t measure that, but Jesus didn’t measure numbers in his ministry either. All I can do is plant the mustard seed, and have faith that it will spring to life down the road.

"Again he said, 'What shall we say the realm of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest seed you plant in the ground. Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds of the air can perch in its shade." --Mark 4:30-32

Kelsey

Hi Kelsey --

What you say is true: the Network is more than numbers and stats. It's about reaching people where they are on the road of faith/life/whatever, just as Jesus did, and supporting them in whatever way they need to be.

This pushing and pulling of quality vs. quantity has been a constant struggle for as long as I've been involved with the Network (nearly 10 years ago, I attended my first leadership event). It will continue to be a struggle as long as people focus on the dollars and not on the lives that have been touched.

You're doing good work, Kelsey, CoCo members, campus groups, and individuals. Keep your chin up, raise the issues, say what needs to be said. People will come around eventually.

Rebecca