Killing Fish

throwback Thursday post about becoming fishers of men

(This post was first published on-line about 16 years ago or so. I’m posting it again today because it popped up in a document search I was doing and as I read it again, I realized how much more acutely I feel it in 2026. Maybe you will too.)

When the elusive Donna and I moved into our fourth place to live in 2 years of being married, I felt the need for a pet. The cockroaches that visited us by night, and sometimes by day, weren’t the kind of pet I was looking for so I persuaded the elusive one that we needed an aquarium. She kindly indulged my impulse, and we hit Wal-Mart for a 10-gallon kit with everything in the world you’d ever need for keeping pet fish except for the water and the fish themselves.

We took the box home, settled on where it would go and I began the process of setting up the tank. Under-gravel filter, gravel, fake plants, ceramic log, water, heater, lid with light and thermometer bar stuck to the outside of the glass. Then I “conditioned” the water. That meant waiting for the fish. I’m not good at waiting. When my oldest was born I went out and bought an electric racetrack and a Nintendo game system. By the time he was old enough to play, you couldn’t give a Nintendo game system away.

But for the fish I waited.

Finally, the day came when we could put in some fish and have confidence they’d survive in water that had bad stuff subtracted and good stuff added. I searched from store to store for just the right kind of fish. I decided I’d start with angel fish and build my little aquatic world around them. I chose one that was black with white stripes, one white with black stripes. Ying and Yang. Plop. Plop. I have to say they took to their new world right away and seemed deliriously happy. I can only imagine the relief a fish might feel when he gets to escape the invisible walls of a plastic bag that made the future seem very limited. I also assume that, based on brain size, by the time they pass the full length of the aquarium they’ve already forgotten where they came from and the return trip is a fresh discovery for them.

Once in their new world I turned on and cranked the heater to make sure the temperature was just right. The thermometer on the side didn’t register a temp yet in its’ limited range. I came back a little later to see how the heating process was going.

Still nothing registering on the thermometer.

Crank.

A little later I check in and the fish are doing laps. They appeared to be delirious with joy and deep appreciation for their benevolent god (me) who supplied them with every good thing. I looked at the thermometer and the temp still hasn’t started to register yet.

Crank.

The next morning, I woke up and went to say good morning to Ying and Yang and bestow upon them some food flakes by the almighty hand from above. My two angel fish had ceased swimming and were, well, bobbing. I opened the lid and gently reached in to lift their bodies from the water.

And burned my hand.

I had cooked my fish.

“Stupid Wal-Mart heater!” I yelled. I unplugged the heater and then carried the wee bodies of Ying and Yang to the bathroom, spoke a short but heartfelt eulogy, dumped and then flushed. Then I headed back to Wal-Mart, defective thermometer in hand.

I explained to the girl at the customer counter what had happened. She could tell I was still emotionally traumatized by discovering the two dead bodies of former worshippers and she acted quickly. Mere moments later a new aquarium box had been opened and another thermometer pulled from the box and given to me with their apologies.

I hurried home and put the new thermometer on the tank and waited for the water to cool down.

A day later I was adding two more angel fish to my new, cooler aquarium. I plugged in and turned up the heater and waited for the temp to go up to the correct level. I’d already decided not to name these two until they’d made it a week – no use setting myself up for the emotional pain.

A little while later I checked again and still nothing was registering on the thermometer. “No problem,” I thought, “you can’t get two defective thermometers in a row!” And I waited. A few hours later I checked in on my little angels and discovered, again to my horror, their little bodies bobbing on the surface. I ranted and raved, I called Wal-Mart and all their suppliers all sorts of names and made all sort of accusations and threats of legal action. Then the elusive Donna interrupted me with a simple thought.

“Brian, maybe it’s not the thermometer. Maybe you’re cranking it up so high that it heats up past its’ range before it can even register the temperature.”

“You’re saying it’s my fault my fish are dead?”

“Well, that’s not how I put it but yes, that’s what I’m saying.”

I pulled the thermometer off the aquarium and tested her theory. Turns out she was right. Their bloated bodies and boiled blood were on my hands.

I’ve been thinking about that experience lately as I’ve been considering metrics. Not the metric system but the system, any system – formal or informal, conscious or un-conscious that we use to measure our success. I’m particularly interested in how we measure how we’re doing at this thing we call church.

Over the next few posts, I’m going to think out loud and run the risk of boring you but I think it’s an important question in a time where we have churches that count thousands or tens of thousands while the church down the street only has to count tens (or to ten). Is it numbers in the seats and in the offering that matter most? Is it the number of people who have “made a decision” this year?

Ultimately, it’s a question for all of us, in or out of church, interested or bored by it. What is the measure of your success?

One of the few teachers that made a lasting impression on me was my band teacher, Tony Mazzara. He was one of those teachers that give you lessons on the “assigned subject” as well as even more important lessons about life. When he was going through a difficult time in his family with one of his own adult children he shared some of the struggle with us. At the time I caught a lesson about how teachers are human too, years later I remembered the story and caught the deeper lesson on the persistent, unconditional love of a parent.

I remember a lesson he gave us one morning during band class. He asked a simple question about an old proverb. “Does practice really make perfect?” We all felt pretty sure we knew this one but intimidated to speak up. Finally, someone (probably from the clarinet section) said, “Yes!”

“No!” Maz yelled back, “If you practice imperfectly, you’ll only reinforce your bad habits!” Doing it wrong repeatedly doesn’t make it right.

I’m trying to apply that truth to the system of “doing church”.

There’s a website that collects stories of mis-heard lyrics. The thing I find with lyrics that I’ve mangled is that when I’ve been singing them the wrong way long enough the right way sometimes doesn’t seem right. I watch sometimes as people latch on to the way someone else “does church” and they make a copy, their own copy, and plug it into where they are and who they’re with. I’ve watched some of those attempts crash and burn and I’ve seen others take off and become a growing congregation. Willow Creek, Hillsong, Purpose Driven, Renewal, whatever, copy it and they will come. Or not. My question isn’t whether it works. My question is whether we’re making copies of something that’s already flawed to begin with? I’m not suggesting that copying is wrong, I’m wondering out loud if the original is reliable.

I read today a report from a church in the States that had over 1,000 people make a decision to follow Jesus in the last 365 days. Pretty cool! I mean it would be very cool if they were down line links in my multi-level marketing business. It would be totally awesome if they were loyal customers to my new brand of whatever. And it is definitely cool if they are all people who’ve met Jesus and are going to trust him with their lives – all of their ambitions, hopes, all they are, all they hope to be - for the rest of ever. My limited knowledge of the first church tells me they didn’t count “decisions” or keep a scorecard. Sure, Luke records approximate numbers on a couple occasions but either that’s it for “decisions” or frankly they didn’t keep such good records. Paul didn’t keep an accurate tally on his baptisms if we’re to believe his letter to the Corinthian church. Again, I’m not saying that numbers don’t matter, they do if they represent real people, real lives becoming a real part of the Jesus community. I’m just wondering out loud if we’re majoring on the minors, using a system of measurement that affirms that how we get the numbers must be o.k. because we’ve got the numbers.

I’m afraid that we’ve somehow become this company that’s been mandated to crank out widgets and, by God, widgets we’ll crank out. We’ll find the most effective method and we’ll reproduce it and keep counting the numbers and eventually we’ll complete our quota, the boss will come back and we either get a raise or the golden-est golden parachute we’ve ever seen. But what we won’t do, what me must not ever do, is wonder if were really in the widget business.

Jesus once “commended” the Pharisees on their ability to make converts. He said something like, “”You’re hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You go halfway around the world to make a convert, but once you get him you make him into a replica of yourselves, double-damned.” It wasn’t wrong to make a convert, it was great, the problem was the model they were basing the copy on.

Today I heard about a pastor type that’s telling the church that as he is “blessed” so will the church be blessed. As his “level” rises, theirs will rise. It’s a sort of Reaganomics for the Church, a heavenly trickledown effect. And it’s a lie. I don’t mean it’s questionable theology or a unique interpretation of scripture, I mean it’s not true. It’s a lie. But it works. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen people give thousands and thousands of dollars away to “bless the man of God” and increase God’s blessing in their own lives. I’ve seen people give it away for 10 years with no pay-off in sight and still be willing to give lest their “lack of faith” cancel out that blessing that was almost in their bank account. It works. I’ve seen offerings go up and up and up in churches or at conferences where promises were made and we repeat it because it works. Well, it works in the sense that some people give and some get but it never works in the sense that everyone becomes wealthy. And it was never a metric used by the Church until the 20^th century.

A while ago I was hanging out with a “big fish in a little pond” ministry guy. He’s been on T.V., you might know his name. He was moving into new digs as his ministry took off thanks to a recent appearance on a “big fish/big pond” guy’s T.V. show. He was explaining principles of leadership to me and a couple other friends. “You serve the kingdom by exercising your gifts.” He said. Then he pointed to a young guy who was doing some seriously heavy lifting. “He serves me and the kingdom by carrying in the boxes for me. I serve him and the kingdom by letting him do that for me. Leadership is about letting other do things you could do but it’s better if they do it for you.”

And I thought, “Psycho.”

Jesus made these crazy statements about how un-like the kingdoms of this world His kingdom is. Clearly, he could not see into the future. We are so like the kingdoms of this world, how they use people and love money, that’s it’s hard to tell where one starts and the other ends. I’m fearful that we’ve adopted our cultures metrics to measure whether or not what we are and what we do has significance and value. I’m not saying money is wrong or giving is wrong or numbers are wrong – I’m wondering out loud if we’ve fallen into a carefully laid trap where a revolutionary movement has defined success by metrics that are cooking us in our own juice.