God isn’t worried about the size of your church. So you shouldn’t be, either. But how do we set aside those expectations in our success saturated culture?
In this guest article, Dave Beckwith relates an episode from his ministry life about a time when a massively numerically successful church got turned inside out so God could do what needed to be done.
This is an excerpt from Dave and Joanne Beckwith’s book, God Meetings: An Awakening in the Board Room. You can also check out my interview with Dave in, How to Turn Board Meetings Into God Meetings, with Dave Beckwith (Ep 057) on the Church Lobby podcast.
—Karl Vaters
A sense of panic settled in among the leadership of this once-flourishing movement. The ministry was tanking, going down fast. The boat was leaking and in danger of sinking. What was wrong? Had the leader lost his appeal and charisma? Why did he keep saying things that irritated the crowd? Some thought he had lost his mind, and people were leaving in droves.
From its small beginning of a dozen, the crowd had soared to over ten thousand enthusiastic followers. It was quite a sensation, a mega success. The popularity of the movement was capturing the attention of religious and political leaders alike. Some were curious; others were jealous. But then the tide turned, and the numbers began to plummet. Disillusioned crowds exited at an alarming rate. There was grumbling in the ranks and disagreements. When the leader asked the crowd to stop complaining, it did little good.
With the crowds abandoning the cause and folks scurrying for their homes, Jesus turned to his disciples and asked, “Are you also going to leave?” (John 6:67 NLT). It was a pivotal moment in the numerical collapse of a once successful ministry. Most leaders would be fired from their jobs at this low point. Not Jesus—he was crucified.
A Success-Saturated Culture
Diminishing numbers hardly fit with our concept of success. Worldly success and godly success are often confused. A person may be successful in the eyes of the world and a failure before God. There is also a difference between public and private success. Some achieve great things that win applause in the public arena, while their personal and family life is in shambles. New York Post columnist Cindy Adams said, “Success has made failures of many men.” Writing more than a century ago, William James called the worship of the “goddess of success” our “national disease.” How insightful. Blind ambition has ruined health, marriages, careers, and churches.
When the world’s criteria for success—numbers, notoriety, appearance, possessions, money, and other measurements—are applied to the work of God, they create unrealistic success. It is success ill-defined. This pressure to appear successful elevates status and statistics as the primary indicators of a successful ministry. The approval of people is addictive. The applause of the crowd is misleading. Adulation is confused with authenticity, charisma with godly character.
During my decades as a senior pastor, I too often equated success with surging numbers. When this happened, I felt like a success, and I became driven to push for more. On the other hand, when people left and the numbers went down, I felt like a failure.
When people leave, those who remain tend toward hand wringing and blame casting—usually giving the pastor the brunt of the criticism. A decline in numbers may be cause for concern but never for panic. Leadership’s knee-jerk reactions occur too often—making radical changes or firing someone just because numbers dip. Churches should expect some yearly fluctuation. Indeed, if cantankerous people leave, it may prove a “blessed subtraction” for your congregation.
While a decline in numbers can be disappointing, a far greater danger lurks in the shadows, and few realize it. Attitudes change. Fear and worry take over as a gloomy pessimism settles in. The pastor seems a little downcast, and people bark at one another instead of blessing each other. There may be an atmosphere of suspicion in leadership meetings. When there is a loss of people, and income suffers, leaders and people tend to get “owly and growly.” This attitude of pessimism, accusation, and fear boomerangs and kills joy and love, the very fruit of the Spirit that attracts people to your fellowship. It’s a double whammy. This decline of joy and caring relationships hurts a church more than the loss of a few people. It takes maturity to deal with losses while maintaining a spirit of love and rejoicing. “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!” (Phil. 4:4 NASB).
When God Uses A Downturn
God may use a drop in numbers to redirect your efforts. Christianity Today ran a feature article a number of years ago describing the Sunday evening service at Peninsula Bible Church in Palo Alto, California. “It happens every Sunday night. Eight hundred or more people pack into a church auditorium designed to seat comfortably only 750. … The gathering is called a Body Life Service, a time for members of the body of Christ to fulfill the function of edifying one another in love.” (Ray C. Stedman, Body Life). I attended one of these services in Palo Alto, and the church was alive—joyous singing, spontaneous sharing, praying for each other, and practical Bible teaching.
During this time, I served as a pastor with John Wimber, who later led the Vineyard. Our Sunday evening service at Yorba Linda Friends Church was similar to Body Life at Peninsula Bible Church. For two hours, there was singing, testimonies from the audience, praying for one another, Bible teaching—and no one seemed concerned about the length of the service. It topped out at about five hundred in attendance but then began an alarming decline. It dropped to four hundred, then three hundred, and finally two fifty in attendance. We prayed and agonized over what we were doing wrong, and we tweaked various elements attempting to revitalize what was lost. I took the decline personally and felt like a dismal failure. When it reached about a hundred twenty-five people, we moved the service into the social hall, and it never regained its spark.
Years later, I invited Bob Smith, an Associate Pastor at Peninsula Bible Church, to speak at an adult retreat at Mt. Gilead Bible Conference Center. At lunch, I asked Bob how things were going. He sighed, “There were the days when the Body Life Service was eight hundred, and then it began to decline. Ray Stedman and I agonized over what was happening. We changed things, but despite our efforts, it plummeted from eight hundred to about a hundred fifty people. Finally, we moved the service into the fellowship hall. This was very discouraging for us. After all, we were known nationally for the Body Life Service.”
I’m sure my jaw hung slack as I asked, “What did you discover through the process?” Bob replied, “It finally became clear to us that Body Life—people sharing their lives, praying for one another, and being taught the Word— never stopped. It just changed locations. Rather than Body Life happening in a large audience, God moved it into small groups, which continue. It took us a long time to see the hand of God in declining numbers.”
It took me a decade, but I finally realized God directed the numerical decline in our Sunday evening service so that our small group ministry could increase.
The Fallout from the Pressure to Appear Successful
In the scientific world, fallout refers to the airborne particles from a nuclear explosion, industrial accident, or volcanic eruption. It’s dangerous stuff. The fallout from an unrealistic success mentality is hazardous and toxic. Ruined careers, families, and churches are strewn across the landscape of Christianity.
Several times a month, Joanne and I come alongside a pastor or spouse among the walking wounded. Either they have been discarded because they didn’t measure up or have imploded from their own drivenness. The pressure to appear successful may include one or more of these dangers.
The Danger of Celebrity Status
There are a growing number of young, ambitious, multi-gifted pastors who achieve rapid numerical success. They are usually non-traditionalists meeting in schools, theaters, and shopping centers. Some of these leaders have little formal training, but they make up for it with passion and drive combined with an exceptional ability to communicate with a younger generation. “Trading traditional suits and clerical robes for skinny jeans and untucked shirts, using plugged-in musicians in place of choirs, and displaying virtuoso homiletic skills, these pastors began rapidly adding new members even as large traditional churches were losing them.” Their message resonates, the crowds grow, and many come to Christ, which brings me nothing but joy. But I am grieved and heartbroken when I see too many of these young leaders unravel—failed marriages, moral failure, burnout, and sometimes suicide. A closer look reveals many of them are adept at developing quasi-celebrity status with their fans but have few intimate friends. Their followers speak of them like celebrities or rock stars.
What happened? “One of the dangers in today’s leadership culture is that leaders who achieve ‘success’ quickly can become intoxicated by their own egos. They can develop an overinflated idea about who they are and what they can do.” Pride is an elusive sin, noticed by others but rarely apparent to the person carrying the virus. There is a subtle danger of ministry slippage with expanding influence and unchecked power. However, there are many faithful, God-honoring, humble leaders with a high profile in the public arena. Not all who become well-known pastors or evangelists fall prey to the pride trap. I pray for them and thank God for them.
The Danger of Neglected Families
The pressure to perform and appear successful makes it difficult to have a healthy relationship with the family. Marriages grow cold, children become distant or angry. Tears of regret grip me when I realize when I’ve not been there for my family due to ministry drivenness. This verse pierced me like a dagger, causing me to change my ways: “The fool who provokes his family to anger and resentment will finally have nothing worthwhile left” (Prov. 11:29 tlb).
Weekly, Joanne and I meet with couples struggling with the marriage-ministry balance. One pastor’s wife was deeply hurt and harshly criticized (even in public) by her success-driven husband. Ironically, he was striving to make the church grow but highly frustrated over the low attendance. Over several months, I talked with him about what it means to love your wife, but he was resistant. Finally, I asked, “Why would God give you more sheep to care for if you can’t be a loving pastor to the beautiful lamb who lives behind your front door?” He changed his priorities, and God has blessed the church with new people.
The Danger of Power and Greed
Early in my ministry, I was trained by a high-flying corporate consultant whose résumé included some of the largest corporations in America. He was a Christian who could quote reams of Scripture, and I received some valuable training from him, things I still use today. However, along the way, I found my thinking skewed by his pompous love of wealth and power. A short time after my training with him, he was convicted on eleven counts of securities fraud with the church he served. The Lord used this event to open my eyes to the danger of his love for money. Later, he and his wife were divorced, and ten years after that, he and the secretary he was living with were indicted as the masterminds behind a real estate investment scheme that stole investors’ funds. He was charged with twenty-two counts, including racketeering, securities fraud, perjury, and theft—a sad story and a solemn warning.
In many cases today, pastors and leaders learn theology in Bible schools and seminaries but turn to the corporate world to learn to lead. This trend is not all bad since there is much we can learn from business leaders. Some corporations have committed believers at the helm who lead from a servant’s heart, but these leaders are rare. What about learning from a corporate leader who has no use for God and lives an immoral lifestyle? I’m concerned that in too many cases, they’re teaching pastors how to lead … and how to behave. Often, they’re living an opulent lifestyle of yachts and private jets, sexual affairs and mistresses, and financial fraud. It’s a slippery slope to learn leadership principles from a godless corporate leader without falling prey to their lifestyle of greed and power. When this happens, ministry leaders are more like CEOs than shepherds, board meetings mimic the corporate model, and business meetings mirror stockholder meetings. Where is the biblically faithful shepherd burdened with the well-being of every one of the sheep, caring and compassionate for the wounded, laying their life down to protect the flock from danger, and often receiving minimal compensation?
As we step back from the fallout and toxicity of unrealistic success, let’s examine this crucial question.
What Matters Most?
What defines success and failure in the ministry? I often pose this question to pastors who feel like they have failed. Do you think Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the other prophets were successful in God’s eyes? Absolutely! They endured horrific persecution while delivering an unpopular message. They served without visible success or statistics to report. The prophet with the greatest numerical success— Jonah—was defiant, rebellious, and an emotional mess.
Some pastors and missionaries serve in relative obscurity, working long hours for little or no pay. Many are bi-vocational because their flock is small. They faithfully proclaim the gospel and love people but have minimal visible results. No one identifies their work as heroic, though God knows it is. They receive little, if any, public applause as the enemy subtly whispers, “You haven’t accomplished much with your life.” One of the pastors I care for shared his inner turmoil. “I’ve led the church from a hundred twenty in attendance to less than a hundred. I guess I’m a failure.” Really? He has faithfully cared for the people, taught the Word of God, and championed caring for the persecuted church worldwide. Considering the community’s changing demographics, I think he has done well to keep the church steady.
Bottom line: Success and failure aren’t always what we think.
Failure is an affair with the church secretary. Failure is embezzling funds. Failure is plagiarizing sermons off the internet rather than doing the hard work of study and preparation. Failure is abusing people and the power of the pastoral position. Failure is berating the sheep rather than lovingly leading them.
When the applause ends, the lights are turned down, and the crowd has gone their way, what really counts? Is it having a church of fifty, five hundred, or five thousand that really matters? How do you measure success?
Success is having an eternal impact on people … one person at a time. Success is a cup of cold water or a warm blanket to a needy person in the name of Jesus. Success is a faithful witness to your community and world. Success is hard work and perseverance. Success is lifting up Jesus. Faithful shepherds receive an “unfading crown of glory” (1 Pt. 5:4). In Paul’s time, victorious athletes received a crown of flowers that wilted quickly. Applause, notoriety, and earthly recognition are earthly crowns that wilt like yesterday’s flowers. The crown for a faithful shepherd is eternal.
Ultimately, success comes down to one word: faithfulness. Faithfulness to God, faithfulness to the Word of God, faithfulness to your calling, faithfulness to love people, faithfulness to your family, and faithfulness to share the faith—this is what matters.
Did Jesus say, “Well done, my good and successful servant”? No.
“The master said, ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in handling this small amount, so now I will give you many more responsibilities. Let’s celebrate together!’” (Mt. 25:23 nlt).
Be successful—be faithful!
This article is an excerpt from God Meetings: Build Healthy Leadership and Prevent Ministry Shipwreck, by Dave and Joanne Beckwith.
(Photo by Jereme Rauckman | Flickr)
