Articles Youth Ministry Articles Success Matters
| Success Matters |
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 By Adam McLane That title might turn a lot of people off. So, let me state the hypothesis of this right away: God cares greatly that you and your ministry are succesful. He wants to see you be great. He wants you to succeed in the position in which He has placed you.Where many of us will disagree is not with my hypothesis, but in my definition of success in youth ministry. It's not just about numbers. It's not just about programs. It's not just about relationships. It's not just about your annual review. Success can be all of those things, but your defining your success is a lot simpler than that. Success is doing your absolute best; working in a way that grows that works impact; and depending deeply on the Grace of Christ for everything. It's been interesting to see people struggle with the death of the programmatic model. It isn't dying in every context, but we all agree that it isn't the best model for every church in the same way that we may have thought it to be 10 years ago. It's been interesting to see people wrestle with the reality that they are still called to reach a community of lost teenagers -- thousands of them -- but desire to label success as the 10-15 relationships they can maintain. Flashback to Genesis 39. Remember Joseph? Check out verse 2 in context of your ministry. Over and over again Joseph ended up in no win situations. Yet, no matter where God put him Joseph's desire to succeed lifted him out of the pit of his life circumstances -- and he prospered. Listen, God wants you to prosper in your ministry. He really does want you to try to grow your ministry's impact. That might not play out in a way that results in thousands of kids coming to your church, a book deal, and speaking at conferences. But it does mean that God wants you to dream big! There is nothing wrong with desiring to grow your youth group's impact. What is wrong is intentionally limiting your impact so people won't accuse you of doing it for the wrong reasons. There will always be haters (see Job's relationship with his best friends). Dream big, change your world, and chase success like Joseph. | |||||||
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