God's Success Stories

Thabiti Anyabwile post:  Numbers, Faithfulness, or People

Perhaps one of the most important things to settle in ministry and as a church is how to define “success.”  Without question, we all have some notion of what constitutes “success.”  And whether it’s explicit or implicit, whether it’s written down or unspoken, our notion of success drives our behavior and our self evaluation.

Very often churches and church leaders define their “success” in terms of numbers.  Some defend measurement as an acceptable approach to gauging progress and effectiveness.  They speak of the number of baptisms or converts, church attendance and budgets, and other numerical assessments as shorthand for “success.”  Others reduce “success” to one factor: faithfulness.  ”Whether the numbers change or not,” this group tells us, “is not the issue.  The issue is whether a leader and church have been true to God’s design and intent.”

Here’s what both points of view can sometimes miss: persons and their stories.  We can miss that behind every number are tons of persons.  And a “faithful” man may in his own way miss persons by making persons into an abstract mass of “people.”  I know that numbers tell us something about people, but only at aggregate levels, levels that become useless with individuals.  And I know that a faithful pastor will love and care for people.  But he can begin to think that people get in the way of being faithful.  What we need are ways of defining and talking about the church and the work of the ministry that tells the stories of God’s work in, with and through persons.  Isn’t the church and leadership about God’s design and will for persons?  Isn’t the best measurement of “success” what happens in, to, and with persons in all of their beauty and ugly?

When I worked in policy advocacy world, we used to spend a lot of time and money trying to tell stories.  Every set of stats needed a person’s story to lead it or illustrate it.  Policymakers and advocates do it all the time.  Journalists employ personal story.  Even businesses are getting much better at it.  Consider this commercial from Chick-fil-A (HT: Tim Peters):



Powerful, isn’t it?

As powerful as this is, the greatest stories to tell are the stories of God’s work in the persons that make up our church families. One wonders why that’s not how we view “success” and “faithfulness” more often. We have a lot to tell!

So, I suppose this post is an encouragement and challenge to all us pastors and churches to talk much more about God’s work in personal stories as a way of defining “success” and “effectiveness.”  It will also be a much more personal and intimate way of helping others to see the Lord Jesus at work in all the beauty and ugly.

For instance, instead of saying “We had 400 baptisms last year,” which only says one thing: “We’re big.”

Instead, how about saying something like, “The Lord blessed us with 400 baptisms last year.  Let me tell you about one of those.  Sarah is 17.  Her mom died during child birth.  Her father blamed Sarah.  Can you imagine being a little girl raised without her mom by a father who every day blamed you for your mom’s death?  By the time she was 17, she hated men, even though she had become sexually promiscuous.  She also hated God.  She cursed God, wondering why he brought her into the world and took her mom at the same time.  Why did he leave her with a father that hated her.  And why did God call himself a “Father” if that was what fathers were like?  She was hopeless, until Jesus invaded her life.  Another teenager at our church, Jenny, met Sarah during physics class.  They became lab partners, and one day Jenny spoke to Sarah about Jesus.  A miracle happened.  God gave Sarah a new heart and she put her faith in Jesus.  Sarah still has a lot of struggles, but we can see the new life emerging and the fruit of repentance beginning to blossom.  She confessed to her father her years of hatred and rebellion, and asked his forgiveness.  He didn’t forgive her.  He said he still blamed her.  But Sarah has committed herself to honoring her father and loving him in every way she can.” And so on.  You get the picture.

Our churches are full of persons radically impacted by the Lord Jesus.  Each and every Christian is a trophy of God’s grace, God’s success stories.  We should tell them more often and move away from numbers and claims to faithfulness that really keep the story focused on us.  After all, whose success are we really talking about?  Ours or God’s?