Saturday, October 7th, 2023.
Next weekend is our Ministry of the Church seminar where a theme of every session will be how to measure a successful ministry.
The standard metric of success is size and rate of increase. This can be useful for things like bank accounts, stocks, or gardens.
It would be natural to assume a larger ministry with more people is a success. Small or shrinking ministries must be failing.
Would it surprise you to know that this is not the right way to measure success in ministry? It shouldn’t.
The church is not a bank account or business. Even with gardens, more growth would be bad if the garden was overgrown with weeds. More increase would be bad if the gardener sacrificed quality for the sake of quantity or size.
Likewise, the largest ministries are commonly compromised doctrinally, spiritually shallow, or teach false gospels.
It is possible, if not common, that a church is small because they are doctrinally rigorous and faithful to the truth. Think of it like a smaller but well-kept garden with higher quality fruit.
The truth is you cannot tell which churches are successfully ministering for the Lord by the size, membership, or balance sheet. It requires a different metric.
- Better every joint trying to supply something, than only some joints trying to supply everything.
- Better five words that increase understanding, than ten thousand sermons that leave men ignorant.
- Better a few spiritual, than a carnal crowd.
- Better a small group likeminded in truth, than a large group that agrees to disagree.
- Better to preach the truth even if it hurts than to itch ears with lies.
- Better to warn about an error sooner, than to clean up its mess later.
- Better than a talented man is a faithful man.
These are Biblical measures of successful ministry, and each of them will be part of next weekend’s seminar.
www.graceambassadors.com/seminar23
We will be live streaming and recording the entire seminar next weekend, but we would love to meet you there to minister together! If you are coming, sign up below to let us know to save you a seat.
For Truth,
Justin Curtis Johnson