Christ doesn’t just call his followers to live differently than the rest of the world, but also to measure success differently. This has serious implications for anyone in vocational ministry.
If we’re not careful, we can let numbers—spreadsheets, dashboards, scorecards, attendance rosters—become the only way we measure success. Numbers are nice because they’re tangible and tidy: up is good, down is bad. It’s an easy way to measure success. But numbers don’t tell the whole story. Attendance only tells you how many people showed up, not if anything of eternal significance happened.
That’s not to say that we should throw numbers out altogether. The book of Acts tracks the growing size of the early church. When attendance drops significantly, it’s worth investigating to try to find the cause. Numbers have value—but they can’t be our only guiding light when it comes to success. We chase them at our peril and the peril of those we lead.
So at the end of a day, season, or event, as you look back and evaluate the success of your efforts, ask yourself the following four questions:
Prayer is the “forgotten power” in the church. We are quick to pay lip service to its importance, but in practice, it can be reduced to a way to transition from one part of the service to the next, or a way to open and close meetings. The truth is, prayer is the work of the ministry (Acts 6:4). If you’re not praying fervently, you are not doing ministry—full stop.
God’s plan includes his people asking him to move, him responding, and us celebrating his response. God sometimes waits to move until we pray, not because he’s manipulative, but because it brings him glory. (James 4:2 says, “You do not have because you do not ask.”)
Unfortunately, we often lose sight of this, spending hours preparing a message or event schedule and then blitzing through a prayer beforehand like we’re cramming for a test. If you find yourself feeling like you’re playing “prayer catch-up,” it’s a sign you’ve forgotten your actual work: glorifying God by asking him to move. What if we reversed this polarity? What if we prayed ourselves prepared—prayed so much that we could no longer think of anything else to ask and then asked again? This is where you can minister out of an overflow, a place where you’ve sought the Lord and spent time with him and can now wait and watch him to move.
Instead of looking at the outcome of your work, focus on how you did at your first responsibility – being “prayed-out.” If you filled a football stadium and you didn’t pray, the effort was unsuccessful. And on the flip side, if only one person showed up, but you fervently asked God to move, it was a success.
The second question piggybacks off the first. Not only should we ask God for what we want, we should also ask him what he wants, putting ourselves in a position to be able to hear his response. Then we need to put his words into action to the best of our ability.
Let’s be honest—ministry can become very strategic and formulaic. If you’re in college ministry, it makes sense to structure your messages around the school calendar, starting with a five-week series that ends right before the first test week and then resetting. If you’re a worship leader who plays guitar, you might order the songs by key so that you don’t have to change your capo as often. But what if God wants you to do something different? Have you asked him?
When we tack on prayer as an afterthought, we miss the opportunity to let God supernaturally direct our work. Strategy is important and necessary, but the Lord wants us to value sensitivity to his leading over strategy. We should ask: Lord, what do you want? What do you want me to say and do? What would be most pleasing to you? Give him the space to direct your thoughts and your creativity. Resist the urge to put pen to paper until you’ve given God ample time and space, multiple days in a row if possible, spending time in his word and journaling.
Even when you’re confident you’ve heard from God, it doesn’t hurt to seek feedback from people you trust. There’s wisdom in an abundance of counselors, and we never want to attribute our own voice to God. But then you have to act—to take the thoughts and the leading and execute them to the highest level of excellence that you can. There’s joy and comforting confidence in hearing from God and following his leading. Even if people don’t respond favorably, you can sleep well knowing you were successful because you followed him.
Being open to what the Lord wants doesn’t mean winging it. It takes intentionality and discipline to plan out time to hear from God as part of the preparation process. Again, it’s shrewd to be strategic in how you reach people for the Gospel. But even when you’re dialed into all the strategy, you need to give God the final word, not processes or formulas.
We have a responsibility to invite people, both believers and non-believers, to come experience what the Lord is doing in our churches and ministries. Yes, prayer is key, and God can and does supernaturally prompt people to show up at spiritual gatherings uninvited, but in general, people come to church because of relationships. We see this in John 1, as people encounter Jesus and immediately invite their loved ones to “come and see.” We have to live with intentionality in the spheres of influence where God has placed us, inviting people to come and see. We are responsible for telling people and casting a vision of what God’s doing, but what happens next is not our responsibility.
Once again, putting the focus on faithfulness instead of on results gives us peace and a right perspective. We can’t control whether or not people show up, or whether or not a ministry grows. We can only control whether or not we invite people. And if you haven’t been faithful with the opportunities God has given you, the answer is not to be overcome by shame, but to recalibrate. Maybe you’ve been too focused on what you’re doing and not enough on looking up and inviting people in.
“Now wait,” you might object at this point. “This whole post has been about focusing on faithfulness instead of outcomes. Isn’t this telling me to do the opposite?”
Well, yes and no. If a ministry bears no fruit at all, there’s reason for concern. It’s worth asking: have I been praying fervently? Have I sat and listened to the Lord? Have I invited people to come meet with God? The Spirit of God lives inside of us—the church, collectively, is the temple of God (1 Corinthians 3). If we believe that, we should live with the expectation that we will see him convict, regenerate, sanctify, and unify.
But often what seems like a lack of fruit is just lack of vision, or lack of large, visible fruit. The missionary who hasn't seen a single conversion in ten years is not necessarily fruitless. We tend to see only dramatic conversions and callings as praiseworthy, not thinking much of the little life changes that mark a believer’s steady growth in the faith. If no one responds to an altar call, but a member tells you later that “I felt like today’s message was for me,” you should recognize and celebrate the Spirit of God illuminating hearts and minds with the truth. We have to have eyes to see God working in both the watermelons and the blueberries of ministry, because all his works are praiseworthy.
The parishioner who left church convicted to speak more tenderly to his wife is an example of God at work. The woman who hasn’t been to church in years and finally agreed to come at her daughter’s urging is an example of God at work. These little evidences of God’s grace are everywhere if we learn to look for them. Reminding yourself of his movement will give you comfort and satisfaction, keeping you off the roller coaster of ministry “wins” and “losses.” You can just partner with God in what he’s doing. And if there truly is no evidence that he’s working, even in small ways, it’s time to reevaluate.
Louie Giglio said that leaders have to rest their heads on pillows of responsibility every night. Too much focus on numbers can flip that pillow around so that it becomes suffocating. Yes, numbers are important, but they’re not everything. Asking these 4 questions or others like them will help you put faithfulness before performance, letting you rest on that pillow instead of being crushed by it.