What is success?
I have been thinking for a while about how we define success in the church world.
When I worked at a fish market a successful day was cutting a ton of fish (a literal ton)…
When I was in college an A was a sign of success (didn’t see many of those… maybe that is why it took ten years)…
As a car salesman a successful day is selling a car (or three)…
But how do we define success in the church world?
Many times in youth ministry, it is defined by having students that don’t smoke, drink, do drugs, or have sex (guess we are not doing so hot on that one)…
Many times churches will say that numbers define success…
Probably the most universally recognized sign of success in the church world is the “conversion”.
We are all about Conversions…
But is that really what defines success in the church world? In my time in ministry I have seen many things deemed successful that were anything but. Because one person later said that they became a Christian, bad behavior and poor stewardship are excused.
We as Christ followers are called to love others, and a part of that (in my mind) is to introduce Christ to the world around us, so don’t see me as railing against evangelism… What I am wondering is whether there isn’t a better way to determine the success of a church…
I am quite taken with all the discussion of bringing the Kingdom of God to earth…
I am wondering if we shouldn’t be basing our idea of success off of this…
If we are making our communities better places, feeding the hungry, caring for the needy, and loving the unloved… that to me is success.
A dear friend of mine used to talk about whether the community would miss our church were it to burn to the ground. Are we having enough of an impact that the sudden disappearance of the church would cause people to mourn the loss of it?
Last week I walked out in the middle of a church service. I started to write a separate post on that whole experience, but decided against finishing it because it sounded far more cynical than I intended it.
I left because I looked around the room and saw no one in my generation at the service.
I left because I felt like I was supposed to sing, instead of worship.
I left because I had no idea how this gathering was supposed to bring the Kingdom of God to earth.
The church in this country has a well documented lack of people in my generation, and the generations behind me. A huge reason for this, in my mind, is that the church is seen in many people’s mind as a social club… A place to go on Sunday mornings because that is what you do.
My generation has never been all that big on doing stuff because that is what you do…
My generation though is big on being connected to something bigger than ourselves…
Something like bringing the Kingdom of God to earth…
Feeding the hungry…
Clothing the naked…
Bringing justice to an unjust world…
Sounds surprisingly like what a guy named Jesus called us too…
I fully believe that if we, as the church, begin to pursue such things the stories of people connecting with Christ will be overwhelming…
We begin to bring the Kingdom to earth and the conversions will take care of themselves…
Filed under: church, leadership, ministry, reflection, religion
What a thoughtful and passionate post. My mom always told me that God gave a very clear formula for success in Josh 1:8-9 and, I think these verses give the best way to measure success as well. Because at some point, just like in business the more success we achieve, the more we need to achieve to measure true success.
Isnt it great how God takes the worry out of things? Be strong, of good courage, meditate on his word and obey. Apply that to any task and we dont just have success. We have Good Success
[...] a long time, I have felt that too many of our churches in this country have specialized. I wrote earlier on how they have focused on conversion, and how they miss the point of the gospel by focusing on [...]