Numbers may not be everything, but someone was spiritual enough to count the new believers on the Day of Pentecost!

I'm not a great numbers guy. In fact, one of the reasons that there is nothing to "join" in House2House is that Felicity and I feel very clear that the Lord does not want us building something that people belong to. Now don't get me wrong! I think there is great value in belonging. We all like belonging to things, identifying with others that we are similar to. But for us we know that the Lord is asking us to keep away from anything that might look like something that we "control" or get the credit for. God does not like to share his glory.

But I love hearing of the incredible numbers that God is bringing into certain networks and groups around the world. We have just heard from a good friend in India that their network (a large and diverse network of house churches across Central and Northern India) tracked all of the baptisms through their network on the day of Pentecost 2009. So far the numbers coming in from far flung villages is in excess of 280,000 baptised in one day. Wow. Now that is a wonderful birthday present for the King on the birthday of His church.

Then some new friends have approached us about the impact that the websites they are working through are having on the world wide web (www). On a daily basis now they are seeing around 200,000 hits, with about 35,000 people indicating that they are interested to follow Christ and with around 7,000 (per day) asking for help to understand more of what it means to follow Jesus. Requests are coming from all over the world. And because English has become almost the universal language on the web, most of the requests come in English. Imagine thinking through the follow up of that number of people.

It reminds me of a question that has haunted Neil Cole for many years, that was put to him by the Holy Spirit. "What would you do if 10 people came to the Lord today in your church . . . What would you do if 100 come to the Lord this week . . . What about if 1000 come to the Lord this month in your church. . . Well, will you be ready if 1,000,000 (yes, that's right, one million) come to the Lord this year through your church."

These numbers are now actually happening around the world, and through the world wide web. It is past the time for asking what will you do. Action needs to come now. Simple, duplicatible, organic solutions appear to hold the greatest promise in discipling the nations who are coming to us.