Many men smarter than me have made this point before, but after a year of coaching Junior Varsity sports it really makes sense to me. On the football field all of my receivers wanted to try to catch the ball with one hand and shout Odell, in reference to the Giants receiver that made this catch last year. Meanwhile their ability to catch probably doesn’t exceed that of Adele, the musician who sings this.
On the basketball court every single player thinks they’re a shot blocker ignoring the fact that you couldn’t slide a quarter under their feet when they jump. Blocked shots get the crowd excited. You know what they also get? Players fouled out because they are awful at blocking shots. Whatever happened to beating your man to the spot and taking a charge?
What’s crazy is I can yell, scream, teach, instruct about the right way of doing things, but my voice is drowned out by the crowd or the pride that comes with doing something really cool. The players replicate what is celebrated and it seems like we’re celebrating all of the wrong things. I’m afraid we do this in our churches and denominations as well. We pay lip service to the fact that God values faithfulness over success, but I haven’t been to one conference headlined by a pastor that wasn’t far more “successful” than I could dream of being. I have nothing against pastors of large churches, the ones i’ve met are genuinely Godly men. I just end up not being able to relate to them. Don’t get me started on the pastor at the conference that took his church from 10 to 1000. That’s a ticket for a bout of depression for me. Also, how come all of those guys are the only ones in leadership?
Once again my problem is not with them it’s with how prone I am to wander. If numbers are king then I’m tempted to bow to the idol of pragmatism to get numbers. My flesh would love to do some shameless selfpromotion to hang out with the big wigs. If baptisms are celebrated over actually making disciples then I’ll be tempted to just get some people wet. We’ve got to learn in SBC life and local church life to celebrate what God would celebrate. If we’re not careful our faulty metrics and measures become our source of identity and fulfillment. We start to believe that our identity is in our performance. With this we vacillate between pride and despair. We give in to idol worship.
Ronda Rousey admitted to Ellen Degeneres the other day that after her fight with Holly Holm she had suicidal thoughts. She said, “Honestly, I was sitting in the corner and was like, ‘What am I anymore if I’m not this?’ “I was literally sitting there thinking about killing myself. She goes on, “In that exact second I’m like I’m nothing. What do I do anymore? No one gives a st about me anymore without this.”
As I read that I realized how easy it is to fall into that trap. The world tells us that we are what we do and if we can’t do anymore or don’t do well enough then we’re nothing. We’re only as good as our last performance. As pastors, we feel like if we’re not growing, or writing books, or doing the conference circuit then we’re inferior to all those guys. Christ says that we are more than our performance, we are more than our success, we are chosen, loved, adopted, justified, forgiven, and called. We are so much more than what we do. We are radically loved by God. What if that’s what we chose to celebrate? If God called you to the “fruitless” ministry of Isaiah, could you be faithful? Would He be enough for you?
Are you suggesting we not celebrate churches who have been effective in reaching people for Jesus? I have no desire to make pastors feel bad whose churches are in decline. But if we indeed replicate what we celebrate, why would we not celebrate churches who are reaching the lost using reproducible methods.
We should celebrate the faithfulness of those men who serve in places that are difficult and where explosive growth is not possible. But should we not even more celebrate conversion growth and desire to replicate it?
I don’t mean to suggest that at all. We shouldn’t hesitate to celebrate conversions at all. I also know of small church pastors that are jealous and suspicious of other churches’ conversion claims. That’s a problem. I just want to make it clear that our job is to be faithful not create results.
“I just want to make it clear that our job is to be faithful not create results.”
I agree. Faithful gospel proclamation is what God expects of us.
The ‘good and faithful servant’ commendation that God Himself shall award will not have a threshold requirement of “numbers converted” – instead God’s servants will be commended just as the scripture says – because the recipient has been a faithful.
The question that always arises for me is, how does one define faithfulness? and is there no tie whatsoever to numerical results? The question was so important to me (and I found no suitable answer) that I wrote my dissertation on the relationship between faithfulness and fruitfulness. I do not want to give people a false guilt when they are being faithful in the face of little or no growth. At the same time, I do believe that much fruitlessness in ministry is due to factors that can be corrected. If changes can indeed be made that can increase effectiveness,… Read more »
Todd,
Why do you [or so it seems] measure fruitfulness by numerical numbers?
“Facing a lack of numerical results, and certainly before deeming oneself faithful in evangelism, individuals, churches, and mission agencies should ask a variety of questions:”
That’s too much for a blog comment — I have a couple hundred pages of exegesis that brought me to this conclusion that though numbers per se are not equal to faithfulness, that the normative pattern is that faithfulness in evangelism, over time, leads to fruitfulness in terms conversion growth. That is NOT the same thing as saying that if a pastor is faithful, his church will grow. What I AM saying, is that God’s design and intention is for the gospel message to bear fruit. When it does not, we need to carefully examine the reasons for that. While… Read more »
Todd, I agree that anyone that dispenses the gospel should be aware of those things you mention. There are barriers that we can artificially erect that can certainly lead the hearer away from the gospel. And we should be aware of those…and others should help us lest we have a blind spot to what message we are telling. There is evidence of a certain couple in the new testament pulling someone aside to give them a bit of clarification. On the other hand, slick eloquence and psychological skill can have the same ill effect, and can emote to false conversion… Read more »
Dustin, Thank you for this post,… I believe you are steering us toward the same goal as Jesus proclaimed and the goal he allowed John to see for all the churches as he penned the book of the Revelation. “We are radically loved by God. What if that’s what we chose to celebrate? If God called you to the “fruitless” ministry of Isaiah, could you be faithful? Would He be enough for you?” It is no debate that when we chose to celebrate what only God can do,…we then are returning to our first love, to do the things we… Read more »
meant to write…”when we choose to celebrate”