I really enjoy cooking. Many of you probably know that. I have so many cookbooks and recipes to choose from that it’s hard to pick sometimes. Most people when they go on trips to new places like to buy shirts or other such memorabilia. My brother is one of those people. Everywhere we go, he has to buy a shirt. Personally, I can’t bring myself to pay over $20 for a shirt. So I buy cookbooks. Yeah, that’s right. My go to for a new place is a unique cookbook for that area. When I was in Arizona 2 years ago, I bought a cookbook. My brother and I took a trip to the Iowa 80 truck stop a few years ago. It’s the biggest truck stop in the nation, if not the world. And I bought a cookbook there too. I was somewhat upset that I couldn't get a cookbook from Mexico, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. That’s just who I am. I love cooking and trying new recipes.
A lot of people want success at what they do. They want to be the best of the best, be it at running a business, being a parent, supporting a family, or something else. And there are many ways at being successful at those things. There isn’t a set recipe for being a great parent or great businessman or leader. There are definite steps to take, but not one unique route on how to get there. The same goes for the church. What makes one church successful won’t work at another church. And sometimes, churches, and people, define success in different ways.
Let’s take the church for example. Some people believe that a successful church means one that has a full parking lot on Sunday mornings and brings in a big crowd each week. They seek to be the biggest church around because, let’s face it, numbers matter. So everything they do is to bring in more people each week. They do outreaches out the ying yang to bring in people not going to church. And most of the time, it probably works. That’s a really tempting avenue to go down, especially as a small church. We want to grow. We want big numbers. I’d love to have a church of several hundred. And I’m sure there are ways we can do that which focus merely on getting people through the door, be it the west or north one.
That may be what comes to mind when you think of success as a church. After all, last month I used this space to communicate how important having multiple doors is to gain new people. And while that is important, I don’t think that is what success as a church is. You may disagree with me, and I can live with that. But Jesus didn’t command us to get people in the door. He commanded us to make disciples.
In my first year here, I held a lock-in, which is an overnight party of sorts for teens to come to the church. We hosted around 30 kids, which shocked a lot of you. We had games and snacks and I even shared the gospel. But ultimately, it was a failure. Yeah, we had a lot of kids walk through those doors. But you know what? When they left, they didn’t come back. They don’t attend youth group here or come on Sunday mornings. Yeah, some of them do, but those are the ones that were coming before. Now, I hope that they attend church somewhere else and they came to the lock-in because they had friends here who also were Christians, or at least church-goers. That’s my prayer. But as much as I loved having 30 kids here, it didn’t matter if it wasn’t part of their journey to become disciples.
When I was in college, I took all kinds of Youth Ministry classes to learn how to teach students and how to relate to students and understand the culture a lot of kids grow up in nowadays. But my Youth Ministry Professor, Rondel, continuously reminded us that our most important classes are the theology classes. You see, it doesn’t matter if I can relate to my students if I don’t know what to teach them. Because, at the end of the day, if I’m just someone they relate to and not someone they learn from, I’m no better than a friend who listens, and that’s not my job. So success to me isn’t getting more students or even getting along with my students. Success to me in youth ministry, and in the church as a whole, is to make lifelong disciples of Christ. Everything we do in the youth ministry is geared toward that goal. Sometimes it falls short of expectation, and so I need to make corrections and grow and get back at it again. So as we move into October with Kenny’s evangelism class going and RCC Kids starting up, let’s not neglect the true measure of success. It’s not just about getting people in that door. It’s gotta be all about what we do once they’re here. What are we doing to make disciples? What are we doing to draw people closer to God? Let’s let that be our measuring stick and our focus, and I believe God will bless us.
11 So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. -Ephesians 4:11-13 (NIV)
