The Litmus Test for Successful Ministry: always Up and to the Right?
What defines ministry success? How do you know if your ministry or church is really successful?
I’ve served five churches, three in associate leadership positions and two as the senior pastor. In my first senior pastor position I started a church in a suburb of Atlanta. I envisioned myself as the south’s Rick Warren, a future mega-church pastor what would soon lead his own church growth conferences. 51 attended our first service. I was so successful that in six months I was able to bring that number down to 17, which included five members of my own family.
I was devastated. I didn’t quit though and after 14 years our church grew to about 500, certainly not a candidate for Outreach Magazine’s fastest growing churches.
For probably three quarters of my 30 years in ministry, Monday would be the best day of the week or the worst day. It depended on the attendance report. Good attendance and I felt valued. Low attendance (or attendance less than the previous year’s) and my day didn’t go so well
Now, 24 years after that heart crushing day when only 17 showed up at my church, I believe God is finally freeing me from the “success in numbers” mentality.
But, we still live in a culture that determines success if the numbers are up and to the right.
As I’ve dialogued with lay leaders in the churches I’ve served, I’ve often felt a not-so-subltle message that our church was doing poorly if the attendance and giving were not significantly up and to the right. I’ve discovered that often businessmen who have experienced success in their vocations (ie, their numbers went up and to the right) bring that same expectation into the church.
Unfortunately, this view often overshadows other very important ministry success measures such as spiritual health and the percentage of people who serve.
- Have you experienced this pressure from your leaders?
- If so, how have you managed it?
I’d love to hear from you.
Related post: 5 Reasons Churches Should often Celebrate Wins
When I planted my first church, we had around 100 attend our first two services (Palm Sunday and Easter), 17 on our third Sunday, 300 on our third Easter, and about 150 when I resigned four years later. We went from one service to two and back to one. We saw many people come to Christ and many lives changed but it felt like failure. I realize now that many who saw our work as a failure got that impression from me; I was my own worse press. I was also quite arrogant in my assumption that what God was doing in that place was somehow not good enough for me. Although our decision to resign was ultimately the right one for our family and for the church, I still miss those days and often wish I had had someone to ‘talk me off the ledge’ back then. Blessings, Charles; thanks for the post.
John, thanks for sharing. I think what you have felt, many pastors have felt as well.
John, I appreciate your heart and transparency. I think far to often, we base successful ministry on numbers, rather than the spiritual growth and maturity that is being produced in a Christians life. I often meet pastors who are looking for whatever the next fad in Christianity might be in order to get people to come into their church. Sadly, Gods presence often takes a back seat to ministry that keeps people entertained, rather than true Spirit led transformation. Keep up the good work!!
Josh, totally agree with your sentiment!
Hi Charles, Your blog is a breath of fresh air. Our church’s purpose statement is “to keep winning one more for Jesus”. Faulty theology aside, the net effect of this statement is every service/ministry event/course/outreach is reduced to numbers – every measure of ‘success’ is reported in numbers attending/responding/saved. We have sacrificed quality in our drive for quantity and as a result our church’s back door is opening ever wider (and good faithful servants are amongst those departing). It is heart breaking to watch but our Senior Pastor is adamantly opposed to reviewing the mission and purpose statements. We continue to pray that God will heal his insecurity and significance issues. we don’t know what else to do. Patricia
Thanks for commenting Patricia. so sorry for your current ministry challenge. cs