A New Way to Measure Success in the Church and School
By Jeff Keaton was privileged to be a senior pastor for
I more than eighteen years . I was driven by a passion to see people come into a relationship with Christ and develop into fully devoted followers of Jesus . These passions and a strong sense of calling were the driving forces behind my reason for entering the ministry . Thankfully , we were blessed to see many come to Christ who are still serving Him today . However , I wasn ’ t a pastor very long before I realized that the way my success was going to be measured by my denomination and peers was through numbers . I quickly learned I would be rewarded if our Sunday morning attendance and overall income were increasing , and we were paying our share of the denominational budget . I was blessed to have continuous growth in all of these areas for eighteen years , but what about the pastors who could not see this kind of growth ? Were they failures ?
Now , please don ’ t misunderstand me . These measurements should be a part of the overall picture , but they should not be the ultimate measurements determining whether a church or school is successful . Rather than passing out certificates to pastors and headmasters based on numerical increases in attendance and finances , what if we took a different approach ? Let ’ s measure success by the number of eighteenyear-olds we release into the world each year who are devoted to Jesus and equipped to defend their faith and live it out in the culture . With this system of measurements , we would be closer to determining who is really successful , even if the church or school is small in size and income .
What if a church of fifty people had such a tremendous program to disciple children that they produced one or two eighteenyear-olds each year who were prepared to change the world for Christ ? What if over ten years that small church produced fifteen of these young men and women ? The church would be building long-term sustainability by retaining many of these young people and having a significant impact on the world by sending others beyond their community .
What if Christian schools stopped measuring success by the number of scholarship dollars their graduates received or the number of students accepted into prestigious colleges , and began measuring ultimate success by how many of their graduates deeply loved Christ and could stand for truth in our truthless culture ? Large and small schools , including homeschools , would be measured by the same standard and could be genuinely successful no matter their size .
2 Timothy 3:16-17 says , “ All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching , for reproof , for correction , and for training in righteousness , that the man of God may be complete , equipped for every good work .” I ’ m proposing we change the measurement paradigm by focusing our efforts on producing young people equipped to carry on the Christian faith to future generations . If we make this shift , God ’ s blessings will fall , and our stress levels will decrease . We will stop trying to be seen as successful and will actually become eternally successful . If you desire to refocus your church or school ministry toward this goal , we have excellent people and tools at Renewanation to help you with this effort . Please reach out to us at renewanation . org to learn more . ■
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