Health of a fellowship

I was speaking with my fellowship leader earlier this week.

We were talking about the health of the fellowship. The question is how do you define if your fellowship is successful? By numbers? By committed people? By how many people show up? By the growth of the fellowship?

As often as it sounds, I do not think this gives a full detail of the health of a fellowship (or church). Perhaps we should be looking for those who are missing and instead of those who are there.

In response to my fellowship leader, I asked him, how many people that have stopped coming to the fellowship? Perhaps we should be defining as to those who are lost and who are on the fringe of fellowship. Or even perhaps we should visit them and see how they are doing :O.

You know, those who stop coming to fellowship. Those who come once in a while. Those haven't come for the past month.

The question should be...for those who stop coming to our fellowship, why did they stop and what happen to them? (Note: this will take real work. Not just a self pride injection of a good job and pat on the back).

This is a hard question because it confront us to face the reality of the situation. Perhaps our fellowship is not as healthy as we thought.

Then again. Jesus did not come to seek the found. He came to seek the lost. Lost son, lost coin, lost sheep. He cared not for the 99 but for the one who had gone astray.

This is a less intrinsic thinking and a better measure of the 'success' of a church or a fellowship. Granted there are others factors (spiritual health, eagerness to hear the gospel, the heart for those who are lost etc). But if we are looking at the numbers game, then we should count on those who really matters. Or very least what matters in His' eyes.