What would you say is the purpose of children’s ministry, or any type of ministry? Two decades in ministry has taught me that leading is difficult. At times you’re on top of the world. Other times, the world seems to be collapsing around you. The challenge is to not give in when the going gets tough and to not blow up when things are going your way.
In life and ministry, success is an amazing byproduct but a terrible goal. It’s an even worse master. Church workers must measure our lives and ministries by the correct yardstick. It’s very easy to get sucked into the traps that more is better and that leadership fixes everything.
Success Is Not the Purpose of Children’s Ministry
The modern leadership movement has done much to help pastors and churches. But it also has done (and continues to do) damage. The idea spread of a post-modern, secular identity. It promised that we can rise from obscurity to be the congregation everyone is talking about.
If we allow success to be our goal, business strategies to be our mantra, and CEOs to be our heroes? Then we’ll be swallowed up by the success we think will earn God’s favor and man’s respect.
In “Making Sense of God,” Timothy Keller says secular identity brings a crushing burden:
In former times, when our self-regard was more rooted in social roles, there was much less value placed on competitive achievement. Rising from rags to riches was nice but rare and optional. It was quite sufficient to be a good father or mother, son or daughter, and to be conscientious and diligent in all your work and duties. Today, as Alain de Botton has written, we believe in the meritocracy, that anyone who is of humble means is so only because of a lack of ambition and savvy. It is an embarrassment now to be merely faithful and not successful.
That last line is so powerful. In life and, sadly, in the church, we are tempted to think that our success, rather than our faithfulness, measures our worth.
I can’t remember a time in modern church history when more well-known pastors are quitting because of burnout and disillusionment. We must find our identity in weakness over our projected strengths. We must flee the gospel of meritocracy that preaches success as the goal.
