Numbers Game.

I am a pastor of teen age students. We have around ___ students in our database and we average around ___ students in attendance combined in our three environments. One of the easy things for pastors to do is fudge the numbers. You do this of course, to impress people, to make you feel good or you may just be delusional. Why can't we just be honest about who comes out? Why does it matter so much that we have to lie? Heck, why does it matter that we have to ask fellow pastors "how many do you have?" It was a couple of weeks ago another pastor (at a mega-church) asked me "how many do you have?" I answered with "I don't know around __ or so". A bold faced lie. I thought to myself, "I'm not going to fall prey to this crap so I'll low ball him", but I lied. After thinking about this I felt convicted and resolved in my heart to avoid the question at all cost and when it is asked to answer honestly. That was a real eye-opener for me. I must be honest.