Successful Ministry

Measuring success in church has become a professional business. George Barna in his book ‘Marketing the Church’ states that the purpose of his book is to ‘more effectively reach people with the good news (Barna 1988: 13).’

Furthermore he states that ‘the average pastor has been trained in religious matters. Yet upon assuming church leadership, he is asked to run a business…The church is in the business of ministry…in essence he is judged as a businessman (Barna 1988:14).’ This is one of the characteristics of the western modern church.

The essence of church has become about what services the church provides for its members. ‘The Greek word for church is ‘ecclesia’ which means ‘the called out community, the ecclesia is local, made up of real people, with real names… who gather (Edwards. 1993:111).’ So these called out ones should gather to tell stories, remember Christ, practice disciplines and liturgy, teach and equip others to do mission, care for the poor and the widow and share life deeply as life long friends. However Pastors and church leaders are often pulled away from this to run the business of church. There are several forces that do this.

Consumerism

‘Pastors have metamorphoses into a company of shopkeepers, and the shops they keep are churches. They are preoccupied with shopkeepers concerns -how to keep the customer happy, how to lure customers away from competitors down the street, how to package the goods so that the customers will lay out more money (Peterson. 1987:2)’

In the western world we are the products of consumerism and capitalism. We are obsessed by growth and get our self worth and significance from numerical increases of attendance, buildings, recognition and larger staff.

‘Everyone is a customer. We have been trained to think of ourselves and then to behave as consumers. We are known by what we buy. We measure the success of our nation and the success of our lives in terms of per capita income and gross national product…No pastor is exempt from this conditioning (Peterson. 1987: 97).’

One of the growing problems in the church is increasing consumerism. Brought about by the effort to ‘consume things in order to meet ones real and perceived needs and wants…One of consumerism’s driving principles is rights over responsibility… (Frazee. 2001:177).’ In our western church our actions of loving God and our neighbour ‘are usually subservient to our own needs and wants. Many even find themselves looking to God to serve and sanctify their consumerism. (Frazee. 2001:177).’ ‘Today’s church is not a community but a collection of individuals (Frazee. 2001:45).’ We seek to have our needs meet in fact we believe strongly in Gods desire to make us happy and grant all our wishes. ‘What about my needs, becomes our most important question. (Frazee. 2001:42).’

Size

The emphasis on buildings and asserts started when the church moved from the fringes of society to the centre. Since the time of Constantine the church has been at the centre of society. This was reflected in the churches buildings, which were given great importance in the centre of town and its overwhelming structure was intimidating in height and design. The steeple was the highest point in any town. ‘It was only three centuries after the death of Christ that Constantine gave official recognition to the importance of Christianity in the State by calling and presiding over the Council of Nicaea (Cairns 1954: 85)’. Constantine legitimized Christianity and so the state now funded its practices. Up until this point they had met in homes but now they had land in the centre of town, a large building to conduct services in and paid clergy to facilitate them.

Numbers

Once Christianity became the state religion the church had numbers on its side. It had tremendous weight and power in society. It influenced Governors and Kings and led the people in more than the sacraments; it shaped society. The more people who came under the leadership of the church the more power it held.

Today the same premise exists in the western church. The bigger the crowd the bigger the profile of that church among Churches. The bigger crowd the more influence they have nationally or internationally. The church is focussed on the Sunday meeting. The attendance of the meetings is the measuring stick of success. Regardless of whether people are from another church or not the focus is on filling the building and not on discipleship.

Sunday service

The Sunday service has become the modern churches ‘Holy of Holies.’ It is the place the paid clergy enters the presence of God and leads the people in corporate worship. Consumerism is rampart here, where Christians judge how much they receive from the service. This affects their attendance. The better the service the more people come. The curtain in the temple was torn from the top to the bottom so that God could dwell again amongst His people (Matthew 27: 51). That symbolized that there was no longer a sacred place where God dwelt. However the church today treats the building and Sunday service with almost the same reverence as the Jews treated the temple.

Plato has influenced the church. He believed that there was a sacred and a secular, and that distinction still lives in the church today. The building and the church Sunday services are the sacred things of life. The Sunday service is the sacred time and the building is the sacred space and so anything else of life is secular. This dualism of thinking allows for the great divide between the world and the church.

‘As we know, the early church commenced in a Hebrew setting and soon became predominately Gentile in its make up. The Gentile world view of the time drew heavily from the Greek philosophical systems of Plato…It was this world view that over time came to dominate the thinking of the church (Thwaites 1999:15)’.

The church can be anywhere at anytime and should hold closely to the scripture that says; ‘for where two or three gather together because they are mine I am there among them (Matthew 18:20. NLT).’ The goal is not one large weekly gathering in an appointed building but rather the growing of relationships through people. People are the church. Take out the people and the church ceases to exist. Not so in the Western modern church. The people fill the building and the church is known for its location and facility.

‘After the Civil War, the nature of revival changed. With Dwight L. Moody’s successful meetings… revival developed into urban, professional, organized, mass evangelism in great public halls…from the time of the early church, seekers were encouraged in some way to confess Christ publicly…Finney popularized the public response to Christ by having seekers stand and then go to an enquiry room…Billy Graham invited seekers to walk to the front to be counseled (Cairns. 1954: 432).’

This is the standard by which the church measures success, and tries to emulate this kind of service and result. There is an overemphasise on the meeting and the preaching that draws crowds and results in numbers. We attend conferences and read books by successful pastors all on how to do deliver this type of service better.

Paid Clergy

The paid clergy has been elevated to the same position as the priest of the Old Testament. People still outsource their spirituality to a professional. The professional pastor is a fairly new phenomenon. The paid clergy has been around for thousands of years, however in the Western world in the last fifty years it has taken on a new perspective. People now want goods and services, and travel around the Christian circuit looking for the best product. Pastors are paid friends, spiritual advisers and are mostly paid to assimilate people into the programs of the local church and provide a package to cater for mainly middle-aged families. From professional crèche to Sunday school to youth group, families will visit several churches until they find one that meets their needs. Some will look for a slick teaching platform or a vibrant music ministry. Whatever the case the paid staffs cater to these people’s needs. The paid staffs are the dispensers of goods and services and the ones doing the real ministry.

The bible speaks of “the priesthood of all believers” (1 Peter. 2: 9) and empowers people to fulfil their God given call. It’s about empowering all people wherever they are. The Western Church has portrayed that paid full time ministry is the best and highest calling in the kingdom of God, by their language and behavior.

However Jesus seemed to value very different things. He was intentional with a very small group of people. He left Jerusalem and the religious, after his baptism and headed to the Desert, Mark 1.

‘This was Jesus model and plan. His concern was not with programs to reach the multitudes, but with men…He taught them, He fed them when they were hungry. He healed their sick and blessed their children. He actually spent more time with his disciples than with everybody else in the world put together (Coleman.1963: 27,45).’

‘Postmodern preachers don’t populate the pews; they connect people to the living Christ. Postmodern evangelism doesn’t say to the world,” Come to church.” Rather, it says to the church, “Go to the world.” It recognizes that ‘God is already at work in peoples lives before we arrived on the scene, and that our role is to help people see how God is present and active in their lives, calling them home. It is not I have Jesus and you don’t. How can I get you here so that I can give you my Jesus? But rather you already know Jesus… how can I help you see and know what you already know so I can meet and know your Jesus? (Sweet. 1999: 54).’

Conclusion

If successful ministry is more about who we are than what we do then we must reflect on ones personhood. How we relate to God and how we get our significance from the Bible, God and others. What does God value and how is that evidence in scripture? The life of Jesus gives us a lifestyle that did not build a building, start a service or maximize the use of the crowds that surrounded him. He seemed to value other things.

The life of a disciple of Jesus is spent discipling a small group of people who worship and share life with like-minded friends. This is what God would consider successful, to cherish and love people and not limit Him to a service, building or the clergy.