What a Church Tends to Grow

There's a kind of fear I recognize, because I've felt it: the quiet decision not to look. Not to open the report, not to count, not to ask how a ministry is really doing — because what if the answer disappoints, and then I'd have to do something about it. So we look the other way. We leave it in the ground.

Jesus told a story about a man who did exactly that. A master entrusted three servants with talents, "to each according to his own ability," and went away. Two of them put what they were given to work and doubled it. The third was afraid, and "went off and hid" his in the ground. When the master came back and settled accounts, the faithful servants heard the words every steward longs for: "Well done, good and faithful servant! ... Share your master's joy" (Matthew 25:21, CSB). The one who played it safe kept his gift untouched. And lost it anyway.

I've come to believe that parable is about attention. The faithful servants didn't bury what they were given; they tended it, worked it, kept their eyes on it — and the increase followed. What we tend, grows. What we look away from, we slowly lose.

The Psalms paint it as a picture. The one who delights in the Lord and "meditates on it day and night" becomes "like a tree planted beside flowing streams that bears its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither" (Psalm 1:2–3, CSB). That tree isn't striving. It's planted where the water is, and it keeps its attention there — so the fruit comes in season. What we are mindful of, what we return to day and night, is what grows.

That's the quiet idea behind Sunday Tally — long before anyone called it Pearson's Law. We don't measure a church to judge it. We measure because you cannot tend what you refuse to look at, and the things a church pays honest, regular attention to are the things that flourish. Not numbers for ambition — attention for the sake of the people behind them: the family quietly drifting, the volunteer carrying too much, the ministry thriving where no one was looking.

But here is the most important turn: the deepest thing this is ever true of isn't attendance, or giving, or volunteers. It's Him. "Ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find" (Matthew 7:7, CSB). "Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you" (James 4:8, CSB). "You will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart" (Jeremiah 29:13, CSB). The relationship we give our first attention to is the one that grows. God meets the seeking.

So if there's something you've been avoiding out of fear — a ministry you stopped looking at, a number you'd rather not know, or a quiet that's crept into your own walk with God — consider this the gentle nudge to bring it back into the light. Not to grind. To tend.

This week, pick one thing you've been avoiding — one ministry, one number, one corner of your own life with God — and look at it honestly. Write down where it actually stands. That's the whole first step. Attention is how tending begins. What we tend in faith, God has a way of multiplying.

Scripture quotations marked CSB are taken from the Christian Standard Bible®, copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission.