measuring mustaches

In a previous lifetime I worked for a large corporation that measured everything. No really, I mean everything. Honestly, EVERYTHING. If an auditor came in to your operation, one of the things that would be evaluated was the length of the mustache hair of your employees. Seriously, demerits for excessive length of mustache hair. IF you bite on this note card and your mustache hair touches the card, THEN your employee, and you, are out of compliance.

In the church we have a whole lot of mustache hair measuring going on. The problem is, we rarely mark it down and review it with our brother or sister for their growth and benefit [I would question if their actually is a benefit, and further argue that such review is defeating for those involved]. In most churches we are too polite and too ‘Christian’ to honestly address our brother’s and sister’s shortcomings so we tend to just store our evaluations up for future use and reference. Sorry for the cynicism so early in the morning, but this is a real problem for us as those who are called to action in the world for the sake of Jesus Christ. We mustache hair measure worship style, music, sermons, staff hours, the behavior of our leaders and colleagues, worship attendance (or lack thereof), positions on 16th century theological arguments, and an assortment of other self determined important elements of community faith life. To what end?

Do any of these indices have anything to do with our primary calling as Jesus following communities or do they reflect our personal histories within faith communities and our own personal preferences?

What would it look like if the two elements that we measured as the church were transformation (of ourselves, of our faith communities, and of our larger communities) and our impact in engaging the world in areas of life-giving and life-sustaining focus?

Transformation and life-giving impact in the world.

Beats measuring mustache hair.