Taking A Head Count
Thought about the phrase head count recently. I hadn’t seen Leroy since he took the job of foreman of the Slash H Ranch on the other side of the Salmon River. At Christmas I found him picking out presents at the feed store for his wife. Now, before you laugh, I myself bought several pretty dresses at a feed store for Janet.
I asked Leroy, “How many head you running on the Joseph Plains?” “About a thousand head, if we can find them all in those canyons,” he reported.
One Thousand Head
Of course, cattle also have feet, tails, and ears too, but you head count animals out on the ranch. No matter how big the outfit, every critter is counted. That way you know not only how many you can sell, but how many still out there you’ve got to find. The tally man at a big ranch owns the sharpest, shortest pencil around. He keeps pretty busy counting each bovine that comes through the shoot.
Spiritual Head Count
You know, most churches count heads too. Maybe it’s the ushers or a quick thinking preacher or someone appointed to the task of taking attendance figures. For some, this doesn’t seem a very spiritual thing to do. They protest, “Numbers don’t matter.”
It’s true if we’re gathering those stats merely for the purpose of impressing other people, then it’s a vanity count. It only distracts from
ministry. But there’s other reasons for counting each head. Jesus said, “If a man owns one hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and look for that one?” (Matthew 18:12)
You count sheep, not to see who’s there, but to know who’s missing. The Jewish shepherd and the modern cowboy want to know how many head get lost. That way, they can comb the canyons and draws and find the strays. So, we should count heads at worship services. If some are lost or straggling or hurt, we ought to know and go look for them.
Reason To Count Heads
If we don’t do a head count, how will we be able to follow Paul’s admonition when he said, “Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock for which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God which he bought with his own blood” (Acts 20:28).
Stephen Bly
Circa 1995
Cattle image by Heri Santoso from Pixabay
Sheep image by TF2 from Pixabay
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