Albert Einstein once said: “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted, counts.”  I think I might agree.

Back in 2008 Linda and I were called by the Philadelphia District Church of the Nazarene to become missionaries to Philadelphia—The fifth largest city in the United States with a metro area that was six-and-a-half million people strong.  That fall we packed our belongings and made our home in North East Philly—just across the street from the most diverse high school in the United States.  We were told that the student body was comprised of students who spoke over 110 different languages in their homes.  

Our goal?  Win Philadelphia for Christ.  Our measure of success…or so we thought…was our Sunday morning attendance.  What we didn’t realize at the time was that not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.

We conducted countless social experiments in an effort to win people to Christ…and increase our Sunday morning worship of course.  Most of them failed. Or so we thought.  

Over the years we developed great relationships with the neighborhood basketball lovers.  Malik was the natural leader in the group.  I’ll never forget the day Malik gave his heart to the Lord.  There were the Rupnarains and their extended family. Seena and Raj became dear friends and great leaders.  Sandra Lopez, Roney Castro, Lynn, the list goes on and on.  

As time went on, we saw closely knit clusters of people who were living out their faith within their own cultural context.  They were doing life on life with their groups, but bringing them all together on Sunday morning was a daunting task.  There were the folks from Russia, and a group from Brazil, the ones from Guyanna and India, and Syria, and Puerto Rico, and Chili, and Costa Rica.  The list goes on and on.  There were the basketball lovers and the little kids from the neighborhood and the summer interns.  And even some good old fashioned Rocky Balboa Philadelphians.   

Oh how I wished we could get them all together on a Sunday morning, so we could count them in our annual report.  But you know, not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted, counts.  Our methods were working…the problem was our matrix was messed up.

Nevertheless—the biblical principle of cell and celebration still applied.  We needed to bring the kindling embers together fan the flame create a roaring bonfire.  We needed to gather in a place rub shoulders with one another, spur one another on in the faith, celebrate the goodness of God—and make him famous.  Corporate worship is edifying and unifying.  And frankly a whole lot of fun.

To this day the memories of our celebrations bring a smile to my face and cause my heart to skip a beat.  One gathering in particular sticks in my mind.  Lynn—a former intern--came back with her worship team and led us in forty-five minutes of praise.  Netalia sang a beautiful song in Russian while her husband played the accordion.  I didn’t understand a word of their song, but the other Russians in the audience sure did.  And it brought glory to God.  One person led us in prayer using the language of her heart.  Scripture was read.  (Try doing that in multiple languages).  And the sermon.  Well the sermon was different…but boy was it fun.

Cells—or micro churches—are agile. They are contextualized.  They are missional and highly relational.  But left to themselves they are vulnerable and volatile.  But bring those embers close to the flame and it will burn hotter and longer.  

Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted, counts.  Hmmm…let me think about that one for a while.