Measuring Success
I dread going to conferences. It’s not that I don’t like learning new things, discovering new ideas or meeting new people. No…it’s that one really stupid question that always gets asked…over and over again…that makes me dread conferences. The question is…”how many are you running in your service now?” It’s usually asked by some young bonehead that hasn’t planted yet…or is less than two years into the church plant. It’s takes all my strength not to respond back with, “Gee…I don’t know…how big is YOUR penis?” The “how many are you running in your service” thing is such a shallow, insecure and inexperienced question!!!
How can I make such a statement when I pastor a small church? Because I hang out with mega-church pastors…and I know how they define success. You wanna know what it is? They measure success…one person at a time!!! No joke…they still get totally jacked up about one soul coming to know Jesus Christ for the first time!!! That’s what it’s about….reaching one for the Kingdom…then reaching another…then reaching another…and so on and so on.
I remember the very first conversation I had with Perry Noble. He told me, “Chris, I never set out for NewSpring to be a mega-church…I just set out to reach one person for Christ”. That floored me!!! Since then I’ve heard everyone from Rick Warren to Tim Keller to Andy Stanley say that exact same phrase in private conversations. Those guys are great leaders…and God’s hand is on them and their churches…because they are Kingdom-minded. They still get as excited about one person coming to Christ…whether it’s in their church or someone else’s…as they did when they first started pastoring. They understand that…in the 21st Century…a person going from being far from God to accepting Christ as their Lord and Savior…is a miracle unto itself. It’s difficult…it’s something we have no control over…but it is something to be celebrated…not used to puff ourselves up or bash some other pastor in the head with at a conference!!!
At the ripe old age of 42-years-old I’ve learned the hard way that success for a Christian leader HAS to be measured one person at a time. Trust me when I say…if we don’t get excited when one person comes to Christ for the first time…God will never give us the dozens…hundreds…or even thousands that our hearts long for. Church growth is not something to be used to boost our ego or get us past the fact we weren’t breast-fed as children. It is something supernatural…it’s is something special…it is something that God…and God alone…gives us…and can take away if we become arrogant in it.
