What's your number?

What's your number? So often, within various sectors of Christian life, whether it be church ministry, bible college, or small groups, all of us have a tendency to loose sight of what's actually important. Numbers have been on my heart recently, but in a very different way than normal. Let's just be honest, Christians LOVE numbers. Whether it's the growth of our small group, church plant, or youth choir...we are all about the numbers. Numbers, in and of themselves, are not a bad thing. Numbers help engage us with the growth of our community. Numbers estimate the amount of unreached in our world. Numbers help us regulate health within the body. However, often times the emphasis on numbers can be grossly out of proportion with what Christ would rather us focus on.
Remember the Ashton Kutcher/Kevin Costner movie "The Guardian". All the new recruits are trying to figure out Costner's 'number' of people he saved. Here's the convo when Costner retires:
“What’s the number” Kutcher asks Costner point-blank
“22″ says Costner.
“Well that’s pretty good, but it’s no 300,” says Kutcher,
As Costner finishes packing his bags, he says…
“That’s not how many I saved; it’s how many I lost. That’s the only number I’ve kept track of.”

Instead of bragging about the number we had in service last Sunday, or the number of people we've 'saved' in the last year, why don't we focus our sights more on the number of people we've lost?
- The people we've lost through missed opportunities to witness
- The people we didn't minister to because we were too wrapped up in ourselves.
- The people who needed an invite to church, but didn't get one because we were in a hurry
- The people who we may not see in eternity because of our self-centered Christianity

So...what's your number?