What is Success?
As pastors and church leaders, we hear about “successful ministries”. How do we define what is successful? In the corporate world, there are the number of products manufactured or shipped and of course the net and gross profit can be easily measured to see if a company is successful or not. In the church world, looking at a bank account is no sign of success. If we look at the vast sums of cash that Jesus had in order to quantify the success of His ministry, we would say that He wasn’t even a real pastor. He filled the pulpit occasionally at the local church/synagogue, and He had a ragtag bunch of men that followed him around. He never built a building or presided over a board meeting. We would be ludicrous to say that His ministry was unsuccessful though. HE changed the whole world! HE established a way for us to have communion with God! HE gave us forgiveness of sins! …so where does that leave us?
Traditionally, pastors and church leaders have looked at two numbers to establish if a church is successful. The first is: How many members/attenders/Sunday worshipers do you have in “your” church? The second is: How much did you take up in the offering? I would like to propose a new way to define success! Are you making a difference in someone’s life in regards to their coming to Jesus or growing in their relationship with Christ? Yes/No? If the answer is “No” then it doesn’t matter how many butts are planted in a pew on Sunday or how many millions are in the building fund, then that entity isn’t really a church at all and would be unsuccessful using this new definition. If the answer is “Yes” then it doesn’t matter if your ministry is to only that one person, if that is what God has called you to do, then you are successfully carrying out that ministry! Great work! I applaud you! If you can say “Yes, I/we are leading people to a relationship with Jesus Christ and we are helping them grow in that relationship AND we have lots of people attending AND there are big offerings being used to help more people come to know Christ, then fret not, you are still successful if that is the ministry God has given you. I don’t want anyone mistaking my words to say that big churches aren’t successful ministries. They may or may not be…just like small churches and medium size churches. Have an awesome day! I wish you great success in the ministry God has given you!
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