{"id":155,"date":"2012-06-24T21:21:15","date_gmt":"2012-06-24T20:21:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pbthomas.com\/blog\/?p=155"},"modified":"2012-06-24T21:21:15","modified_gmt":"2012-06-24T20:21:15","slug":"the-age-of-measurement-isaiah-55","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/pbthomas.com\/blog\/?p=155","title":{"rendered":"The Age of Measurement – Isaiah 55"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tony Little \u2013 Headmaster, Eton College, Boarding Schools\u2019 Association annual conference in Torquay 6th May 2010.
\nMr Little said: \u201cOur national obsession with data tends to segment and fragment and risks undermining the subtlety and complexity of (boarding) school life.
\n\u201cThere are real threats to the all-embracing way we operate. Some of these threats come from well intentioned legislation that has consequences dreamt not of.\u201d
\nHe added: \u201cIt is a sad thing, it seems to me, that where once men were able to speak of sweeps of history such as the Age of Enlightenment or the Age of Reason, we now seem to inhabit the Age of Measurement.
\n\u201cOnly that which can be measured has worth, if it cannot be measured it can have no worth. This kind of thinking cuts to the heart of everything I believe in as the head of a (boarding) school.\u201d
\nWe now inhabit the age of measurement \u2013 only that which can be measured has worth \u2013 if it cannot be measured, it can have no worth.
\nErnest Rutherford was the father of nuclear physics. He gave us the planetary model of the atom with a tiny nucleus and electrons orbiting around it and made all kinds of discoveries about radioactivity. In a saying much loved by physicists and chemists like me, it was Rutherford who once most memorably said that that \u2018All science is either physics or stamp-collecting\u2019. Either you measure stuff and model it mathematically, or you are just collecting facts to stick in your fact-album. So Rutherford any the physical sciences and so much of the empirical thinking of the age of Enlightenment has brought us to the Age of Measurement.
\nWe now inhabit the age of measurement \u2013 only that which can be measured has worth \u2013 if it cannot be measured, it can have no worth.
\nSome people think this is true in Education
\nPeople measure schools by all kinds of criteria \u2013 and overlook much if not most of what schools at their best are there to accomplish.
\nEDUCATION \u2013 \u201cA child is not a vase to be filled but a lamp to be lit\u201d
\nPassion for the subjects \u2013 pupils who kindly said they chose to study my subject so they could be taught by me.
\nand for other things \u2013 passion for sport \/ music
\nTeam spirit \u2013 working together \u2013 can\u2019t be measured but so important.
\nCompassion for other pupils, charities around the world etc
\nIt is absolutely true that so many of the important things in education are those things which cannot be measured. But nevertheless, Tony Little is right. In the eyes of politicians obsessed with budgets and parents obsessed with Ofsted reports, so many people make the same mistake,
\n\u201cWe now inhabit the age of measurement \u2013 only that which can be measured has worth \u2013 if it cannot be measured, it can have no worth.\u201d
\nMeeting with other ministers we were reflecting on how this Age of Measurement has crept into church life as well. How especially where we are so close to London, the American obsession with setting goals and budgets and creating policies and procedures can so easily distort church life.
\nChristians can be obsessed by statistics. Again people like me are entirely to blame for this because I have spent a long time studying church growth patterns and statistics. For a while I was a postgraduate student at Spurgeons College studying church growth, and wrote some reports for the Baptist Union analysing church growth statistics for them. But statistics are a very dangerous tool in the hands of people who don\u2019t know how to interpret them properly.
\nChurch life
\nMembership statistics
\n\tChurches declining,
\nchildrens work in decline.
\nIt was very encouraging at the Christian Resources Exhibition to talk to Christian Research about their research into faith journeys. www.faithjourneys.com
\n\tChurch life isn\u2019t about numbers \u2013 it\u2019s about the journeys
\nNSBC \u2013 our numbers have been very encouraging. More folk at morning service and at evening service. More folk at Toddlers. We can be encouraged by this \u2013 but we mustn\u2019t forget that every single individual is precious in God\u2019s eyes.
\nI know I have told you before and I will probably tell you again the story of the starfish. It was early morning and an elderly man was on the beach. He walked with a cane, carefully surveying the beach that the receding tide had left exposed. A young man was looking on, fascinated as every now and then the old man bent down to pick something up and toss it into the ocean. He realised that the old man was looking for starfish. It was then that I realized he was looking for starfish. Every time he saw one lying helpless in the sand, unable to get back to the ocean on his own, he would lovingly pick it up and toss it gently back into the sea. \u201cWhy are you doing this?\u201d the young man asked. “The starfish are left behind after the tide goes out,\u201d he said. \u201cIf they don’t get back into the ocean they will dry up and die beneath the hot summer sun.”
\n “But there are endless miles of beach and there must be millions of starfish,” the young man said. “Surely you don’t think you can save them all. What difference can your efforts possibly make?” Slowly the old man bent over and picked up another starfish. As he tossed it into ocean he turned and replied, “It made a difference to that one\u201d
\nOur task is to take the gospel to North Springfield one by one!
\nChurch life is about SO MUCH MORE than numbers. God DOES care about numbers \u2013 every hair on our heads is numbered, but God cares much more about other things.
\nLet\u2019s remember we serve the Living God who is way beyond our measuring!!
\nGod Himself
\nPsalm 145: 3Great is the LORD and most worthy of praise; his greatness no one can fathom.
\nIsa 40:12\tWho has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens?
\nWho has held the dust of the earth in a basket, or weighed the mountains on the scales
\nand the hills in a balance?
\n15\tSurely the nations are like a drop in a bucket; they are regarded as dust on the scales;
\nhe weighs the islands as though they were fine dust.
\n18\tTo whom, then, will you compare God? What image will you compare him to?
\n21\tDo you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning?
\nHave you not understood since the earth was founded?
\n22\tHe sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers.
\nHe stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in.
\n25\t\u201cTo whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?\u201d says the Holy One.
\n26\tLift your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these?
\nHe who brings out the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name.
\nBecause of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing. <\/p>\n

Children\u2019s talk on how big is God?
\nGalaxy is 200 billion stars.
\nEstimated 30,000 trillion stars in the universe! God is big! His greatness no-one can fathom.<\/p>\n

JOB 9 8He alone stretches out the heavens and treads on the waves of the sea. 9 He is the Maker of the Bear and Orion, the Pleiades and the constellations of the south. 10 He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed, miracles that cannot be counted. <\/p>\n

Isaiah 40: 28\tDo you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God,
\nthe Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary,
\nand his understanding no one can fathom. <\/p>\n

Isa 55:8 \u201cFor my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,\u201d declares the LORD.
\n9\t\u201cAs the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways
\nand my thoughts than your thoughts. <\/p>\n

God is beyond our measuring. But more than that we can so easily forget that most of the things which matter in the Christian Life are things which cannot be measured.<\/p>\n

LOVE \u2013 sacrifice
\nEphesians 3: 17 And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge\u2014that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
\n20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
\nOBEDIENCE
\nHOLINESS
\n2 Corinthians 3: 18 And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord\u2019s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
\nPRAYER
\nOur generation likes intercessory prayer, because it has an obvious measurable outcome in yes\/no answers. But we struggle with other forms of prayer like adoration and praise and confession and contemplation because they don\u2019t have predictable outcomes or goals.
\nPASSION FOR GOD
\nMessage when I preached with a view – Eternal life is our relationship with God \u2013 not to be measured but to be enjoyed!
\n\tBlessings of Love, Joy, Peace, Victory, Freedom \u2013 come through our relationship with God.
\n\tThrough prayer, worship, Bible Study, Fellowship, Communion with God<\/p>\n

\u201cWe now inhabit the age of measurement \u2013 only that which can be measured has worth \u2013 if it cannot be measured, it can have no worth.\u201d
\nOn the contrary \u2013 the things which really matter in life, and the things which really matter in the church, are things which cannot be measured!<\/p>\n

Teach us Good Lord, to serve you as you deserve
\nTo give and not to count the cost
\nTo fight and not to heed the wounds
\nTo toil and not to seek for rest;
\nTo labour and not to ask for any reward
\nSave that of knowing that we do your will.
\nSt Ignatius of Loyola<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tony Little \u2013 Headmaster, Eton College, Boarding Schools\u2019 Association annual conference in Torquay 6th May 2010. Mr Little said: \u201cOur national obsession with data…<\/span><\/p>\n

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