The odd tension we face in serving our Lord within the sphere of pastoral ministry is the paradoxical nature of public ministry and our human state. You know the reality that while we seek to draw people’s attention to Jesus we do so by being visible, receiving attention ourselves. God seeks to display the wonder of His Son through human vessels. Complicating this paradoxical tension is the unfortunate reality that the mystery of the Kingdom is often lost within the confines of our understanding what makes a man or woman of God successful in ministry.
It is quite apparent that no matter how we slice it, what we score (attendance, buildings and cash) determines how we really define success and what we ultimately say “yes” to. The tension is that those who are called to this incredible privilege of shepherding God’s people struggle to make ends meet trying to obey the voice of their Father (saying “yes” to God) while trying to measure up to the human standards that tend to dominate our church world.
It’s that odd curiosity that surfaces when you are attending a pastor’s gathering - curiosity that wants to know just how big the other pastor’s church is. Of course we like people asking us how our church is doing when large numbers are getting saved, attendance is increasing, disciples are being made, and money is flowing in – ask away. However, when numbers are not increasing we tend to shy away from the question and when asked we oddly default to a biblical description. It might sound something like this, “Mike how’s your church doing?” Translated means how many are you running?
If my church is not growing numerically, I might answer with, “Well, we are growing deep in our love for God and each other, people’s lives are really changing and our hearts are breaking for the lost.” Isn’t that strange, we tend to default to a biblical response in the midst of perceived failure. Maybe that should be the response in every case?
A good friend of mine who pastors a great church once said to me, “It will be rather embarrassing when I get to heaven and talk with the apostle Paul and have to tell him that I could not grow the church or do what the Father wanted because I did not have an adequate parking lot.” Now please know that I am all for speaking our culture’s language and providing adequate parking and the like for people. However, my friend caught the essence of his struggle in ministry. He realized he was looking to external realities and the humanistic definition of success to drive him rather than what the Father had called him to do.
As the Church we tend to over-react to our problems and swing the pendulum to the opposite extreme. We often react by dealing with the wineskin (our form and structure) rather than taking a hard look at the wine. Is the life, love and grace of Jesus manifested in our lives, our families, our leadership community, our church, etc? Reaction is not the issue here but response, more specifically our response to God.
In my pastoral experience I have met many leaders who have dreams and aspirations that are from God Himself and yet are not living out that dream. Instead they find themselves caught in the machinery of church, serving the demands of the form and structure while seeking (often well intentioned) to bring people to Christ. Our scorecards only make this more difficult as the core matrix of success still hovers around attendance, buildings and cash. As my pastor said years ago, “Just because you have a lot of people does not mean you have a church. It just means you have a lot of people.”
And so, just say yes to the voice of our Father who called you and still desires to pour His life, love and grace in you and through you for the expressed purpose of extending His Kingdom in your life and the lives of those you are privileged to lead. Say yes to God!
Success and failure is not the issue in the Kingdom of God. God is not interested in how many we have or how effective we are as He is how obedient we have been, how faithful we have been as sons/daughters, servants, and stewards of the Kingdom. The issue for us as sons and daughters of the King is obedience and only doing what we see the Father doing. Success is best defined as obedience.
- Are you doing what the Father is asking of you?
- Are you waking up each day feeling like its Christmas because you get to partner with the King of Kings?
- Are you more in love with Jesus today?
- Are people pressing you and asking you about the hope that is within you? (1 Peter 3:15)
Just say yes to God, submit to His call and purpose in your life and be the son/daughter He has made you to be and seek out a mentor or coach to help you grow in your spirituality as well as grow in your ministry skill sets.
2 comments:
Earlier today I was reading Joseph Myer's "Organic Community." In the chapter on measurement he talks about church leader's obsession with numbers. Instead of using numbers like worship attendance, offering totals, etc. he suggests that we use stories to tell and measure our progress as communities of Christ.
I shared this idea of using stories to measure progress with my wife at supper this evening and we had a great discussion.
What if our church implemented a section of the website for folks in our community to share their stores with others. I'd love to read and/or listen to the stories of others no matter how short and simple. I'd love to see how God is at work in their lives and the lives of those around them. I would love to learn how God is at work in , through and around our community.
Something tells me that if we began to share our stories the collectiveness of our stories shared together would begin to build us up as healthier communities. As we told our stories or community leaders might be more interested in listening to our stories, learning from them and using them to better do the ministry that they do with our communities. And as we/they begin to spend more time listening to and sharing stores we/they'd have less time to worry about numbers.
But I'm also guessing that that in turn might just cause our communities to grow. After all, people are drawn to healthy communities.
That also reminds me of something we learned in business school some years ago that the Japanese taught us, the more you focus on doing what you are suppose to be doing in your organization and the less you spend on focusing on the numbers (in American's case quarterly profits) the more your number improve.
Maybe if we spent more time being community, for example sharing our stories, and less worrying about the numbers we obsess over to measure our community's progress, everything would take care of itself the way Jesus intends.
Great idea -- stories arise from life happenings and where Christ is present stories abound.
Love the idea.
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