I figured that the numbers were bad but I didn’t think they were that bad. It was last September and we were sitting across the table from Paulo in Bélas, Portugal on a warm summer afternoon. We were discussing the state of Christianity in Portugal from the statistical findings of a nation-wide religious study with our director, my wife, and one of Paulo’s colleagues. The numbers they had discovered during their study were far lower than they had originally thought. In fact as I sat listening to Paulo’s translation of the conversation my mind drifted back to the support requests we had sent out to dozens of people and the stats we had posted on our website for thousands to read. Our figures were wrong!

As I’ve learned about myself and seen in others, we missionaries tend to run a bit on the dramatic side. We like stats and numbers, especially when they favor our cause because they make things sound dramatically urgent. However, we also have a bad habit of sweeping those numbers under the rug when things are not as bad as we thought. Admittedly, there have been times in my past when my desire to see ministry happen in certain places caused me to pay less attention to the details than I should have. As Ed Stetzer discovered in his Christianity Today article Curing Christians' Stats Abuse, I am not alone-

“Reports of Christianity's demise in America have been greatly exaggerated. While the main thrust of good research does indicate that the percentage of Americans who self-identify as Christians is declining, these data are not necessarily a bad thing. If three out of four Americans call themselves Christians, we are in big trouble. Three out of four Americans certainly do not live like Christians.”

Looking at the facts and choosing to be honest with the numbers about our ministry fields helps clear the air by getting the information right so that we can plan accordingly,

“In the meantime, bad and misinterpreted data must not convince us that organized Christianity in America is dead and gone. Facts are our friends. The facts tell us that the church in North America is struggling but also, in many places, growing.”

Several years ago, a colleague of mine pulled me aside and pointed out my tendency to be overly-dramatic. Years have passed but I still hear his warning to me: “It’s not simply drama, it’s dishonesty.” In our case, Portugal’s numbers were worse than we thought forcing us to revise our numbers, our materials, and our website down. Sadly, the Portuguese demographical study found that only .08% of the population claimed to be a born-again Christians while only 1/3 of the 84% Roman Catholic population regularly attended mass. Ironically, I’ve felt a weird sense of vindication ever since then... I’ve asked myself since that trip if the numbers had come back better, would I have had the guts to revise my numbers upward possibly threatening support for ministry? I hope so. Readjusting our numbers in order to be honest, not fudging them to provoke drama or coerce money is a hard lesson to learn. But honesty is my (and your) only option. What about you? In your materials, on your blog, on your website, and in your missions presentation, are you honest with your numbers?

Tags: Missions, Portugal, Why Europe