Too often progress in churches, non-profits, and short-term trips is measured in numbers...
How many homeless people were served?
How many people were in attendance?
How much work did you get done?
What is the return on our investment in this church or trip?
And those questions are normally well intentioned.
What those questions fail to address, however, is whether or not there has been true transformation of a person or of a place. But that is an intangible, nebulous goal for our Western minds that want to quantify and calculate how to reproduce the "results" as cost-effectively as possible.
I am learning, however, that when Jesus said that a tree is judged by its fruit he didn't mean how many apples or figs it produced. What he meant is: has the tree been transformed from a seed into a sapling into a tree into a fruit producing organism? Is the tree healthy?
I know that at FAC and on this trip we are making a conscious effort to measure the intangible: true transformation. And I let this team know that as we return home and well-intentioned supporters ask us "what did you accomplish" that we need to be sure we look at both the tangible and the intangible; what jobs did we get done AND what has been transformed.
Last night I think the transformation was in us. The seven of us sat around for over two hours at the end of the day hashing out our thoughts on culture > the current state of the U.S. > God's relationship to the U.S. > our role or responsibility in culture > the Biblical support (or non-support) for revolution > the purpose of prayer > and on and on.
At the end of the intense discussion we were able to stand around, break bread, and verbalize what each one of us had learned and how we would apply it in our lives (the fruit).
I had entered the conversation with the group expecting to "achieve" a devotional time. Instead we transformed each other.
