The metric of success

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Faithfulness and fruitfulness

Several years ago, I was teaching at a leadership conference in North Eastern India. High up in the cloudy valleys of Meghalaya, I was working my way through the life of Nehemiah as we looked at the kind of qualities and integrity which are required of a leader amongst God’s people.  At the morning break over sweet tea, a young Pastor sought me out and confessed with a long face that he was doing everything I was describing, but still his church wasn’t growing. I encouraged him that  God requires faithfulness, rather then fruitfulness, from us – and he went away somewhat reassured.

I was reminded of that conversation again today when my  attention was drawn to an article by Pastor Tim Suttle in the Huffington Post. In his provocative post Pastor Suttle argues that churches who pursue sentimentality (making people feel good) or pragmatism (here perceived as savvy marketing of the church) are seeking growth in the wrong way. So far so reasonable.

However, he goes on to make a virtue out of rejecting these things which exalts the shrinking over the growing church. A church which is shrinking in numbers appears to be a touchstone of spiritual authenticity for him.  ‘Nowadays’ he writes ‘faithfulness, not success, is our only metric’. Must we really choose between these things?

I applaud the rejection of sentimentality and marketing for their own sake, but I reject the suggestion that a faithful church will automatically shrink in numbers. If we live faithful lives and preach faithful sermons, engage in authentic worship and conduct relationships of integrity with our communities – why ever would we expect the church not to grow?

5 thoughts on “The metric of success”

  1. Bang on, Richard. Getting the church right leads to sustainable growth and replication. Just look at the biblical models and all the really good stuff out there in the cell church movement. Surely we shouldn’t be priding ourselves on declining numbers – would the best result for the church to go out of business. However I do think we need to speak ecclesialliy rather than in terms of management speak or marketing speak – in other words, what does success mean not in worldly terms but in terms of God’s ways. As such faithfulness sits up there at the top. But then faithfulness cannot mean decline because that would mean we wouldn’t have a church still! Baby.bath.water.!!!

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  2. Hi,

    Struggle to work through the logical implications of a shrinking church, if, taken ad extremis, the natural outcome would be church leaders hearing their own voice rebound off empty hall walls. Yes, we live in a output-orientated, performance-based society, where success is largely regarded as commensurate with monetary/materialistic/wealthy status, but Christ can only be regarded as ‘successful’ in consistently pulling large crowds (often into cramped, out-of-the-way places) to hear him speak. I suspect, head bowed under regular reporting, monitoring, key performance indicators and targets, Tim Suttle might be ‘fudging’ the issue. Success, if such a term is deemed appropriate, in such a context, might reflect spiritual growth, in so far as, in my limited understanding, the Christian relies on God/JC/HS to shape a Christ-like character in us, so that the spiritual fruits, most of us so desire, ripen, mature and are increasingly evident to those we encounter on a daily basis in our lives.

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  4. The bottom line in this debate has to whether we are being the kind of people we believe God is calling us to be, are we loving God and our neighbour as ourself. “God requires faithfulness, rather then fruitfulness, from us.”

    However, we can’t ignore trying to use the best the world has to offer. If God has revealed insights into his creation to sociologists, psychologists, educationists and others then we should use them as we are able.

    For example, if “Mike’s Moving Motors” advertises its presence using neon signs, why does the Church display its presence on a noticeboard with pealing paint?

    We have a good product, let’s market it well, through faithfulness, authenticity and integrity.

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