Sometimes I feel like there’s a lot of confusion in the charismatic revival scene.
How do you measure success in life & ministry?
How do we measure the success of our churches, ministries and individual lives?
Is it the number of sermons we’ve preached or listened to?
Is it the level of God’s presence felt during worship, the revelation released in a teaching, or the amount of souls saved at an outreach?
How about at attendance of our worship gatherings? That should count, right?
Throughout my past as worship artist, evangelist, school of ministry student, conference speaker & house church planter I have discovered that much of what I considered “success” is completely irrelevant in God’s eyes. Let me explain.
HOW JESUS’ PRIORITIES WERE DIFFERENT FROM MOST CHURCHES & MINISTRIES TODAY:
Just as we are today, Jesus was pretty busy ministering to a multitude of people in a variety of settings and gifts. He would preach to thousands, perform mighty miracles and heal the sick wherever he went. But what was the actual core focus of His ministry in the midst of all this busyness? What was the one thing he’s been consistently investing himself into throughout the entire time?
How Jesus would spend his time today?
At the end what He was really after was to build up 12 men. Yes, that’s it. I’m telling you that 12 average guys deserved the full attention and priority of the only 3 years of ministry the incarnated, eternal son of God spent on planet earth. The reason is simple, but profound: Jesus was after covenant relationships, not multitudes, because he understood that only deep, loving relationship was able to mirror the reality of His kingdom in a quality that does justice to the beauty of the Gospel. (it’s okay to take a moment to read that sentence again)
That’s why he was never impressed by multitudes. Quite contrarily he did a great job at offending many to find the few, who were in for more but their personal benefit. [Tweet this!]
By replacing our pursuit of quality relationships with the longing for “international ministries” and “global impact”, we have lost the one thing that truly marks us as “not of this world”:
“Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.” (John 13:35, NLT)“When you minister to someone they might get loved, but when you love someone, they always get ministered to.” – Joey LeTourneau
FAMILY – THE ULTIMATE MANIFESTATION OF THE KINGDOM
Instead of trying to communicate the power of true covenant relationships expressed in unconditional love myself, I ask you to watch this incredibly touching 6min video by ILikeGiving.com:
My favorite quote from this stunning video is when the young boy says at the end:
“family are people you can be a fool around and they still love you.”
Could it be that the real measure of success in God’s eyes is to what degree we are building exactly these relationships?
To what degree is your life/ ministry/ church creating an atmosphere in which such true heart to heart connections flourish and blossom?
I think we’ve been way too concerned about creating “disciples”, who say & wear the right things and show up to the right meetings, instead of giving people an encounter with God’s unconditional love that will leave them with no choice, but to love Him back. If we focused on only this one thing, I believe we would see the greatest revival of all times. Loving people into a relationship with the Father causes the most radical transformations of lives.
“What can you do to promote world peace? Go home and love your family.” – Mother Teresa [Tweet this!]“The essence of the kingdom is family.” – Bill Johnson
“Your success is measured by how well you can equip others to be successful.” - Kris Vallotton
2 JESUS-PROOFED STRATEGIES TO KEEP THE FOCUS ON QUALITY
Let me set this right: I’m certainly not saying that large worship services and church gatherings are wrong. Even Jesus preached to multitudes at times. What I’m saying is that as soon as events and numbers take over our desire and ability to invest in the one, we’ve got a problem. If you are a leader yourself, you’re probably asking yourself at this point how you can make sure to not get distracted. These two strategies will help you to keep the focus in your life and ministry on what it’s really all about.
1. Separate fans from true followers
We can clearly see this strategy in action when in John 6 Jesus is being followed by thousands of people after his popular multiplication of food. To our surprise his natural reaction is not to make them sign a church-membership form. Instead he confronts them with this (intentionally misleading) statement: “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.” (John 6:56 NIV)
He knew this statement was going to be offensive to almost everyone, so why didn’t he choose a more appealing way to communicate whats’ on his heart? Simple: Jesus regularly applied filters to his ministry to separate the spectators from the partakers.
2. Spend more time with the right people
We could go into detail on how much time Jesus spent simply eating, celebrating and being with people. One of the clearest biblical examples for this strategy however can be found when Jesus sends out the seventy and advises them to:
“Stay with the same family, eating and drinking whatever they provide, because the worker deserves his pay. Don’t move from house to house.” (Luke 10:7 ISV)
If you remember one thing from this blog post, let it be this:
“True leaders seek quality above quantity.” [Tweet this!]
You see, quality will always attract quantity. The real challenge therefore is to build a culture in which quality prevails in the midst of growth, but that is a topic for an other time. Make sure to subscribe if you’d like to get notified about future posts!
If you’re feeling pumped up already and would like to look at this topic in a more practical manner, I highly recommend you to check out my video on the “5 Ways to be More Intentional With Your Closest Relationships“.
YOUR TURN
Do you agree with the statement that family is the core of God’s kingdom on earth?
Do you have any additional thoughts on how we can practically & intentionally build quality relationships through our lives and ministries?
