People in ministry today count everything. They count members, they count small group attendance, they count worship attendance, baptisms, and offerings.
If you get a group of preachers together it will not take long before talk will turn to how many people attend their particular congregation, how many are getting baptized, and how large the offerings are.
There are scores of books written on church growth and church growth gurus host conferences with the latest techniques and strategies to add more people. For many success is all in the numbers.
If that is the true measure of success in ministry Jesus failed miserably. He assembled a great following. His popularity swelled. But if we were to measure His success at the end did He succeed by the world's standards. He had 12 disciples. One betrayed Him and committed suicide. The other 11 scattered like cowards. By the numbers it was not a growing ministry. In the end He only had a few women left at the tomb.
Nobody has the guts to say Jesus failed. The measure of success has to be different than numbers . Isn't the true measure of ministry success that you followed and obeyed God's will. Isn't true success that you love the unlovely, you preach the gospel to all kinds of people, you help the poor, and endure to the end.
Ministry success is not about numbers. It is about more than how many people will assemble and how much money they give. Yet go into a lot of old churches and you will see an attendance board hanging. On that board they will post attendance numbers as well as offering totals. Usually they will be measured against the same numbers from a week before and the previous year.
Jesus obeyed going to the cross to fulfill the will of God. From the human vantage point it didn't look successful. From God's perspective Jesus did exactly what He was sent to earth to do. To pay the penalty for the sins of humanity so people could be reconciled to God. Ministry success is about a whole lot more than numbers.
No comments:
Post a Comment