In today’s fast paced world, we often want lots of things, right here right now. Starting with Henry Ford and his revolutionary assembly line, manufacturing as we know it has never been the same. Traditionally manufacturing was done by skilled tradesman who is involved in every step of the way, to ensure that his products are of the highest quality. While Henry Ford has improved the standard of living for many people in the world through his revolutionary way of manufacturing, the consequence of this type of manufacturing is an overall devaluation of skills.
In order to lower cost and improve production yield (and therefore numbers), manufacturers in the late 1800′s and the early 1900′s divided all the tasks required for the manufacturing of an item (let’s say a car) into small tasks that can be performed quickly and with a minimum of skill. As such companies would hire a large number of unskilled laborers who work in these factories for 10-12 hours a day for low pay, and conditions were so horrible that later on the government had to step in to improve things. Today, manufacturing is a very efficient operation, and while workers today are given more respect, the bottom line is that manufacturing is all about efficiency, while quality generally takes a back seat (I will however point out that many companies in the US strive to maximize both quality and efficiency, in order to meet demands).
You might wonder why I would give a lesson on the history of manufacturing. Well, the simple truth is, having seen many missionaries work in Taiwan I see that the whole idea of missions work has turned into a manufacturing operation. A missionary would aggressively preach the gospel, and then leads a few people to Christ, and ultimately plants a church. This all seems very impressive to supporters and are often used as ammunition to get supporters back home to commit more support. Things like “10,000 people accepted Christ this year/month/week” sounds very impressive, and if done by an eloquent person, I’d be inclined to donate to the cause since I’d think I was doing my part in building the kingdom of God. While I wouldn’t doubt the numbers, since it is entirely possible to save that many people (if not more!) in a given year using the correct marketing technique, being organized, and having a very charismatic attitude. My only question is, is it possible for one man to care for the spiritual needs of 10-50 thousand people without resorting to some kind of a corporate management style? After all, Christians have been brought up with the idea that “we have got to save them all, because too many people are unsaved” which is true, but what we should do is raise up workers who will diligently tend to each and every person they minister to (and I would recommend no more than 5 people at a time) where they are involved in every step of their spiritual growth. In contrast an “assembly line mentality” would basically turn a church into a factory, where unsaved person is lured to the church by whatever means, and bombarded with all sorts of generic questions and statements which would get a decent yield. Then perhaps a congregation is formed (after enough people follows) and a generic “spiritual growth” is given that may (or may not) leave people spiritually bewildered. Those who don’t understand are often left behind, since it’s too much work for one man to look after more than 5 people at a time anyways. The end result of this is a church that grows like wildfire, but those churches ends up being lukewarm because they see no reason to be anymore than lukewarm, as being “saved” doesn’t automatically erase any past curses resulting from a fallen world!
Unsaved people are not products or commodity are to be processed in an assembly line. Remember when God made us he did not create a factory that stamped out generic people that looks exactly the same. In fact he worked like a master craftsman, paying attention to every detail and not giving up until we are exactly as God intended us to be. Leading people to Christ should be the same too, since God has specifically tasked us to “make disciples of all people, baptizing them in the name of the holy spirit”. While it will be slow and unimpressive to only save 5 or 10 people in a 10 year period, I guarantee that those Christians will much less likely to be lukewarm than Christians that came out of an assembly line! Furthermore, should we ever worry about support and finances since God promised that he will take care of all of our needs? Should we ever compromise our principles because some supporters demanded result, or that the 1-5 people that you have been working on is taking several years? A custom made guitar sells for millions of dollars, because the buyers knows that the builder has taken great care in building the instrument and therefore it’s worth the cost. People should be built up like a custom made instrument, not cheap mass-produced clones.
