What is "Success" in Church Planting?
Man it feels good to be back in Canada.
The above title was the convo @ the church planters gathering in Bellingham (Hothouse). Some of the attention was turned on me as those gathered knew about my recent heartache of closing down a church. And so I was queried about how I felt and if it was a loss or waste. It was therapeutic to be a bit narcissistic and talk about my angst but at the end the question was on the table and still stands:
What defines success in the kingdom? Numbers? Movement? Discipleship? Baptisms? Failure?
I think the next few will be a therapeutic set of ponderings, mostly for myself – and while I am not practicing a public form of “talking cure” – some thoughts should be kept to oneself and a few private acquaintances – I am willing to open up a dialogue in the hopes that it will facilitate restoration and also some contemplative healing for myself as I get back up after shutting down the doors of missio. Here are some musings that every thoughtful minister should ask, whether successful in the eyes of the world or not:
- What makes us “ministers”? Is it calling or character? Are we ministers even when we’re not vocationally ministering?
- When we embrace institution are we sacrificing the “downward mobility” of the gospel?
- As one asked in a previous post, how much do numbers really reflect success in church planting?
- What are some of your successes in pastoring / church planting?
Like
Are you going back to Regent, Wayne? That would be pretty exciting. I’m pondering your blog. I’m not inclined to think there is any success in ministry, but rather day by day doing what we feel God asks us to do that day. Sounds sort of trite, but I believe it.
i think we all enter into ministry not knowing how much we want our name to be known until we are tested and refined. times like this, i think we will look back and thank God for refining us and fine tuning our utmost motivation for why we serve him and why we want to be part of his kingdom building. i know one thing for certain that we have not “failed” rather we have obeyed God and remained steadfast to his calling. So, as long as we know that we have followed him each step of the way even though we didn’t get the “result” that we were hoping for, i know that he is proud of you and us!!
i don’t know the answser(s) to your questions in any absolute way, but I believe that ministry is always vocational — it is always rooted in call – whether we’re paid to do it or not, or if its our full time gig or not. For most people in the world, it isn’t possible for it to be anything else.
Embracing institution is not antithetical to downward mobility, or at least doesn’t have to be. Structures create opportunity to do things and live in a way that would not otherwise be possible, even as they restrict possibilities.
Numbers matter because people matter,but I don’t know if numbers measure success. They are one measure of success, but there are other metrics as well… conversion, life transformation, deepened relationships.
I’ve never pastored a church, but I’ve planted a couple of ministry groups along the way. The greatest pain is not that they succeed or fail by numeric measurement, but when people I’ve invested in walk away from the Lord, or miss out on all he has for them. Great numbers never really compensate for that feeling of loss.
Wayne,
You raise great questions. I think every church planter has to wrestle with binaries/extremes and the constant shift in language we face in modern day Christianity. Words like missional, organic, incarnational, institutional, etc.
The thing is I find that we often make them mutually exclusive to eachother. Some how institutional has become shunned or ignored in more progressive circles. As a church planter, I came into this maybe a little too idealistic, and now find myself asking questions about sustainability for a church plant. Resourcing these endeavors will constantly loom over us, especially when we speak of serving the underserved.
These have been some of my questions for emergent circles….
@elderJ – I like your thoughts on “institution”: Embracing institution is not antithetical to downward mobility, or at least doesn’t have to be. Structures create opportunity to do things and live in a way that would not otherwise be possible, even as they restrict possibilities.
At this stage in my life I am seeing this more and more clearly. Some are able to start from ground up and build institutions from scratch. Others need institutions in order to build in the first place. I feel myself in the latter.
@Jose “I find that we often make them mutually exclusive to each other.” precisely. I find a polemic tone coming from the “organic church” crowd and have found myself surprisingly the target of anti-institutional criticism. I just don’t get that at all.
Resourcing, sustainability, all these things are so important and cannot be addressed w/o succumbing to the institutional side of things. I think it is at times idealism gone awry. And on that note re: idealism – I feel you on that 100% Jose.