MEASURING SUCCESS
While my head knows the “right answer” for measuring ministry success, my leadership is plagued with a driven dysfunction. The opening day of the church (in the rented 440-seat theater) we welcomed 371 empty seats. Yes, that meant there were 69 people filling seats, and something of fear gripped me that day. I had failed, and the empty seats were the measurable evidence. In the words of Job, “The thing that I feared has come upon me” (Job 3:25). We were going to struggle breaking small church growth barriers.
Over the next four years, all I could see each weekend where the empty seats. Over those years God seemed to be arduously chipping away at how I measure success in ministry. By the end of those four years I conceded, “OK Lord, my first measure of success is how I walk with you.” This was the bottom cookie of the Oreo for ministry success. The top cookie would be changed lives. When one person’s life changes for eternity, then that is successful ministry. When one hard heart fills one empty seat and in time receives the seed of the gospel, grows through the shallow soil season, breaks through the weedy season and produces 30-, 60-, 100-fold, we celebrate kingdom success. The battle of empty and filled seats or ministry methods is the white stuff in the middle of the cookie; it’s what we do!
GETTING DOWN TO WORK
Probably the most important is that I disconnect to connect:
- Disconnect daily from the world to connect with God, the Lord and leader of our work. Remaining in the vine (John 15:5) is how I pray like a boy so I can lead like a man. Since the church must be led by spiritual leadership, I’ll need to attend to the supernatural for God to invade the natural.
- Disconnect from the agenda others would set for me to connect with MY job’s agenda. Everyone matters, but everyone’s demands cannot be my agenda, or I’ll never accomplish the important things for the next few months, the next series or the next Sunday.
- Disconnect from home and family issues for the day so I can connect with focused work. If my wife calls, I answer the phone, but she rarely calls when I’m working. We have learned that our hearts are connected while our work takes priority for those hours. I’m fairly intense, and 12Stone benefits when I’m consumed with work rather than casual with work. I see people who are casual with their work, skimming the surface as they rarely deepen their impact. (Of course, this No. 3 only works because of No. 4.)
- Disconnect from work when it’s time so I can connect with my wife Marcia, the kids and family life! When it’s a night off, a day off or time off, then I’m off. I’m as slow to attend to work when I’m at home as I am home issues when I’m at work. I know we live in a much more fluid world with technology and the like, but for me, there’s a strength zone for work and for relationships, and neither one is reached when you live casual with constant distractions.
Is it ever this clean or easy? Of course not. Life is interactive and happens all at once. But this commitment to disconnect and connect is a “thinking and behaving” habit that makes work and life more productive for me.
12STONE CHURCH Lawrenceville, Ga.
Website: 12Stone.com
Twitter: @KevinMyersPK
Founded: 1987
Affiliation: Wesleyan
Locations: 4
Attendance: 13,563
Largest: 27
Read more about Myers’ story in his recently released book, Home Run: Learn God’s Game Plan for Life and Leadership, co-authored with John C. Maxwell.