Back to the drawing board
21 February 2008Redefining success
I once was asked a question that at first seemed to have an obvious answer, but I was soon to discover that the actual answer to that question would radically shape my whole view of church and its mandate. So what was that question I hear you ask well here goes don’t say I didn’t warn you. The question was what’s the fruit of an apple tree? I know the answer that is going around your head; it’s an apple of course! Well is it? I also declared that answer confidently. The key to answering that question I guess is in the defining of the word fruit. You see the correct answer to that question as told to me was ‘another apple tree’. The success of the tree was not in the amount of apples it could produce but in the amount of apple trees that it was able to reproduce.
This question had the effect of challenging my paradigm of ‘what is success’ It led me to start to think about what I saw as success in the church that I was leading at the time. What was the measuring stick that I was using? What ‘fruit’ was I looking to produce? The mechanism for reproducing another apple tree is apples. They look great even taste great but its real purpose was to ensure that the world always had a bountiful supply of apple trees.
I was reading one day in Genesis and was quite struck by a passage that I had read many times before but this time it jumped out at me. Gen 1:28…God blessed them and made them fruitful and multiply, filling the earth and subduing it. Did you see it? There it was again, fruit and reproduction (filling the earth). I had to ask myself a question, was my measuring stick to short? Up until now my paradigm for success had been how many apples I had on the tree (names on the membership list). Could it possible be that the real measure of success was how many churches could we plant? I mean if the fruit of a disciple is another disciple then surly the fruit of a church family is another church family? You see it requires that change from produce to reproduce.
That leads me to another thought. That word family. I had called our church a family for years but to be honest it was one of those words that conjured up a warm emotion rather than a strategic word. I started to think again about that word family. Again I was drawn to Genesis. It occurred to me that the first thing God blessed was a marriage. In fact it was very plain to see the whole plan of creation was based around the concept of a family. 2 people covenanting together and the result being reproduction. By now my mind was spinning, firstly my whole paradigm for success was being challenged and now the method for attaining that goal was under the spotlight.
Then came another question, equal to the first. What is the goal of a family? Was it to see how many children you can have living in your house? I mean was a successful family really measured by the amount of children produced? If it were many of us would have to confess to failure. The real answer to that question which by now I know you have is that the goal of a family is to raise up mature inter-dependant adults who go on to start families of their own. Obvious really! So back to that phrase ‘church family’. I mean none of us would go along with ‘church business’ or ‘church corporation’. If that phrase of ‘church family’ is more than a letter head then it must demand of us a new set of questions.
Is the goal of your church to equip your ‘spiritual children’ to be ready to leave your church family and start a new one? Do we really have the goal in mind to train, equip and mature our congregation from dependants (babies) through to spiritual adults who can feed themselves, develop their own values and be able to reproduce a whole new inter-dependant family? These are tough questions. (I think the next time someone asks me a question I shall plug in my ipod and dutifully ignore them!).
Can you imagine for a moment what would happen if the goal for success was actually measured by the number of church families one could plant out. If every church in this nation planted out 1 church every 2 years, and those churches planted out 1 every 2 years this nation would again have a church on every street, in every community and in every village and town. Does this sound a little like a strategy for ‘filling the earth’? This kind of thinking messes with your head but also gets into your heart. I have to admit that for many years my goal was to fill the church not fill the earth. In order to change my paradigm of success I was going to have to change the whole way I go about church.
The biggest change I had to make was in the way I saw the people who turned up every Sunday to hear the message and worship together. I would find myself saying things like ‘if this is put right, or when this happens they might be a leader one day’. Is that how we think about our natural children? The fact is we know that they are going to be adults, the question is what kind of adults are they going to be? That changes my whole view on discipleship. If I don’t prepare them to stand on their own 2 feet, 1 of 2 things are likely to happen. Either they are going to never want to leave, (they will be 45 and still living at home expecting dinner on the table and washing done) or they are going to be out the door at the very first chance and quickly become disconnected to the family. This unfortunately can also been seen in some of our churches today.
If we are going to recapture the pioneering roots that every movement starts out with we are going to have to get back to some very basic questions. What is your measuring stick for success? Are we really looking to fill the earth or are we still counting the apples on the branch. The deeper we explore this the more challenges arise but I know that if we pursue His agenda and His mandate He will give us wisdom to over come every obstacle and see this nation and indeed the world filled
