Have you ever noted the curious
superstitions of athletes? “I wore this particular hat last
Saturday night, and on Sunday we beat New England. I’m going to
wear that same hat this Saturday.” Or, “these are my lucky
socks. I wear ‘em for every game!”
Sounds silly, right? Except, that’s
exactly what many of us do as pastors. Pastor XYZ’s ministry is
blessed by God, and so he assumes it has something to do with him. He
analyzes and then packages “his success,” writes a book about it,
and before long his clones are running around, wearing his “lucky
socks,” thinking that God will bless them, too, because they’ve
adopted Pastor XYZ’s secrets.
Now it’s pretty easy to sit back and
throw rocks at Pastor XYZ (and his clones). But what about me? What
about those of us who are pastoring little churches that will never
grow up and become big churches? What about those of us who don’t
have the exegetical or pulpit skills, or the administrative
abilities, or the charisma, or the social skills to sustain a large
ministry? We often have precisely the same problem as Pastor XYZ. Our
self-pitying attitude, our secret jealousy of Pastor XYZ, our
disappointments in our ministries reveal that we think about success
in exactly the same terms that Pastor XYZ does. We just haven’t
found our lucky socks. [Full Disclosure: This post is written from
me to me, in case you’re wondering. I’m just letting you
listen in. Shhh!]
I’m sixty-one years old, and it’s
only recently that I realize how wrong I have been about this
preaching business. I bought the numbers racket hook-line-and-sinker
when I was a young Bible college student, because it was heavily
pushed in those days in the Pastoral Theology department of the
college I attended—something I’ve come to see as grotesque
theological malpractice.
What a far cry from our modern expert
mentality is what we see in Scripture. There really aren’t that
many highly skilled, highly successful people headlined in Scripture.
There are a few—but not many. We don’t see success mavens selling
their formulas, their lucky socks. But on the other hand, nor do we
see Andrew sulking because he doesn’t get the good press that Peter
does. (Upon further review, we do see the disciples asking,
“who is the greatest?” I guess some things don’t change.)
In God’s book we see broken, timid,
frequently ill Timothys, to whom are entrusted the crucial task of
shepherding churches. He’d have not passed anyone’s personality
profile for a successful pastor. But he is the one Paul hands the
torch to in 2 Timothy: “I solemnly charge you
in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the
living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom:
preach the word; be ready in season and out of
season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and
instruction.” (2 Timothy 4:1–2,
NASB95)
Success in ministry is not measured by any
standard employed by business. It’s not measured by attendance, or
conversions, or how many books you’ve written, or how many
conferences you’re invited to speak at. Success in ministry looks
like this: a love of Christ, long-term faithfulness, brokenness, a
humility that promotes and serves others rather than self, a
passionate loyalty to Scripture, a servant’s heart. A truly
successful ministry seeks to reproduce that attitude in others—even
if it winds up being just one or two others. It’s not a success
susceptible to elaborate formulas or methodologies.
This kind of success won’t produce
“the fastest growing church in the state.” No one will write an
article about you. No one will be calling you to consult your opinion
on the news. On the other hand, guard your heart, because this kind
of success won’t nourish a heart that frets about those things,
either.
We can (and should) learn to do what we
do, better. We need to continue sharpening the axe with training,
education, reading. We need to think creatively about ministry. But
at the end of the day, God and God alone gives the increase.
Ain’t no such thing as lucky
socks.
