Measuring Success

How do you measure success? Well, of course, it varies, based on what you're doing. If you're in business, success is more income. A decrease in income is a failure. If you're in politics, it would be something like getting elected. If your opponent is elected, you failed. For the military, it would likely be something like winning the battle. Losing the battle is a failure. For a lot of pastors, success is "more people" and failure is "less people". These are not intended as absolutes; they're examples.

There is something in all of them that is common, but I think my question of measuring success gets in the way. The American Heritage Dictionary defines "success" as "The achievement of something desired, planned, or attempted". That definition, then, would actually be required to explain how success is measured. You see, in business, for instance, the goal is primarily to increase profitability, so if you meet that goal, you are ... successful. In every case, success is measured by achieving the goal.

The question, then, becomes a question of goals. Is it a good goal or a bad one? We wouldn't, for instance, consider a "successful thief" a good thing. His goal was to steal as much as he could without getting caught. We don't want that kind of success in our society. And the real question is what is a good goal or bad goal for Christians, since we are to be "in the world but not of it". If, as I claimed in my recent post, the Creator's purpose for His creation is to glorify God, then the only "good goal" would be a goal that achieves that purpose and a "bad goal" would be one that is counter to that purpose.

Now, perhaps, we can begin to see some light when it comes to a Christian evaluation of success. "More income" isn't in line with "glorify God" unless it is intended as "more to give away" -- a step in the ultimate aim. Conversely, "less people" for a church is not necessarily "failure" if the goal is "glorify God". How can I say that? Well, if you, like me, would classify the Crucifixion as success, how many people did Christ have with Him at the time? His disciples left Him, if you recall. So in what would have been classified by many pastors today as a mind-numbing failure based on numbers, Jesus was successful. The goal of the church isn't numbers; it is to bring glory to God primarily by equipping the saints. So a biblical measurement of success for a church is "equipped saints" as opposed to "lots of people".

Well, I'll leave you to start realigning goals and how to measure the success of those goals. Clearly for a Christian the goal is different so the measure of success will look radically different. In this scenario, Isaiah succeeded by faithfully telling the people what God said even when he was promised no one would listen (Isa 6:9-13). Jeremiah succeeded by faithfully warning Israel even when they were all carried off in captivity, failing to repent. Peter considered it success when we share in the sufferings of Christ (1 Peter 4:12-13). What looks like "failure" to the world may not be failure to God and His people. Keep that in mind as you look at the goals and measures of success in reaching them.