As I have spent the last eight years working in sales for some of America’s largest fortune 500 companies, I have learned a great deal that I would not have, if I had stayed in full-time ministry. Most lessons have been good. Not all, but most.
Of all the things that I have learned, the most primary point that has been spoken, habitually out of sheer conviction or mere survival, from all the leaders that I have worked for and all the teams that I have worked with, is, in order to be considered successful you need to “grow your business profitably!” In sales, there is no other principle objective. Here’s how it goes….in order to grow your business profitably you have to perform, and in order to know if you are performing you have to be measured on your performance, and you are measured on your performance through your profitable growth. And what is this measurement that is used?
Math! The bigger the numbers the better (except for your costs of course, you have to lower those, because that only makes your operating income and profit margins bigger)! The natural assumption….if you’re growing numerically…. You Are Successful! And that message is validated through rewards and recognition; as expected you are not rewarded for flat sales or the reduction of sales. No, for that you are put on a performance plan and ultimately fired if your results do not change!
Now there is a secondary measurement that takes place in this pursuit of growth. It’s called activity, or, your faithfulness to do the right thing. Ways of measuring this are to ask, “Are you doing the right things in order to accomplish your objectives? What things are you doing? Are they the right things to be doing?”
I call this type of measurement secondary because activity is not examined as critically until the market is soft, growth is not as easy, or you are not producing the desired results. Then your activity is scrutinized to make certain you are doing the right things. Because reality is when the numbers are there, seldom do leaders take the time to second guess whether or not they, or you, are being faithful enough to do the right things. Again, the natural assumption is, if you’re growing, you’re successful, and if you’re successful then you must be doing the right things. Right!?! Maybe.
Disappointingly, I see this same model of measuring success accepted in a lot of evangelical churches in our western culture today. It becomes far too easy for “relevant, meaningful and powerful” churches, which are growing numerically, to mistake Success for Faithfulness. And why wouldn’t they fall into this trap!?! Like any good business in our country we measure success based on growth. However, it is misleading to assume that if a church is growing numerically then they must be doing the right activity faithfully, and without doubt, “God is up to something big in that church!” After all they are growing so quickly and getting so big, “why would God bless something by adding people if it wasn’t in His will and they weren’t being faithful!?!” But what about all those small irrelevant churches that aren’t growing numerically? If you follow the reason that God is up to something in that church because it is getting larger, then equally you have to follow through with that same logic to conclude that God is NOT up to something in that other church because it is not growing numerically.
However, even these small churches can succumb to this model of measuring success. I just got an e-mail today from a pastor friend of mine who planted a church 3 years ago. In his e-mail he gave me his attendance statistics for this last Sunday (just over 300) and tied it to God’s goodness and faithfulness. I know this guy and I know his heart is good, but it makes me sad to see his heart burdened with a false sense of success and a limited perspective of God’s faithfulness.
Listen, I know that people matter to God. I’ve read the scriptures. What I don’t see throughout the New Testament is the focus on growing a community so large that we can have record attendance, state of the art buildings equipped with escalators and slides and coffee shops and a baptistery with the church logo tiled in the bottom so it shows up clearly on the website and marketing brochures. What I read about God advocating more than any other topic is the poor, the disenfranchised, the elderly, the widow, the orphan, the sick, the lost, etc. Why have most evangelicals missed this? Why are these issues secondary programs in our church business for people to sign up for on a Saturday?
While churches are keeping score of their attendance like box scores, in order to measure their success, chew on a few of these math statistics borrowed from Out On A Limb, and see if it redefines success for you:
Statistics gleaned from the World Evangelization Research Center (World Christian Trends AD 30 - AD 2200. Interpreting the annual Christian mega census. David Barrett and Todd Johnson. Pasadena: William Carey Library, 2001. 934p). So, if we are truly leading people to be Christ followers and give up their own life for the sake of carrying out Christ’s command, shouldn’t our churches be getting smaller? Shouldn’t people be busy doing instead of sitting? I believe we are meant to be in community as believers, but why do evangelicals insist on doing church the way we do it in our country? I don’t see our evangelical western civilization model of doing church anywhere in the Bible. Maybe I’m off here, but I don’t think so. So next time you send your child off down the tube slide to Sunday School and you slip off to be entertained by the well programmed service while sipping on your latte from the ‘Jesus Rocks Café’ in the lobby (or at least dream about having these things), think about this math…..there are 30,000,000 orphans who are infected with Aids in Africa, 20,000 people in the world will die of curable diseases today and 55,000 in Africa will die of hunger. How can we justify our measurement of success with this kind of math? Frankly with this kind of performance, most evangelical, Christ following believers should be put on a performance plan until the results improve. Just think about it! I know I do. I see more non-evangelical organizations in our country addressing these issues than the ones that call themselves evangelical Christians. This is why I am wrestling with my own faithfulness tonight, and my own identity as an evangelical. Because I know that I am far from being successful as God has defined it. I have measured my success on a lie. Shame on me!
