The Wounded Healer, Henri J. M. Nouwen
Question: Are
numbers a good way to measure success in ministry, and if not, what is?
Henri Nouwen emphasizes hope as
being a critical characteristic of any Christian leader, primarily because it
allows him to offer vision to people that looks beyond human suffering and
death. For him, this hope is based on a
promise that has been given to us and made tangible in Christ. However, that
same hope should prevent a Christian minister from trying to measure his
success in tangible ways. He writes,
Every attempt to attach this hope
to visible symptoms in our surroundings becomes a temptation when it prevents
us from the realization that promises, not concrete successes, are the basis of
Christian leadership. Many ministers, priests and Christian laymen have become
disillusioned, bitter and even hostile when years of hard work bear no fruit,
when little change is accomplished. Building a vocation on the expectation of
concrete results, however conceived, is like building a house on sand instead
of on solid rock, and even takes away the ability to accept successes as free
gifts.
In other words God does not promise any Christian that life
will be easy, that virtue will appear overnight or vice will be magically
purged, that he will get his dream job, that marriage will be easy and fun, or
that all sickness, pain and loss will be prevented. God’s promise is that we
are now seated in the heavenly places with Christ,
given authority and wisdom through the mind of Christ,
given an eternal inheritance with Christ,
and our names are written in the book of life.
Is Nouwen guilty of ignoring the tangible,
earthly, immediate ramifications of these promises by warning against expecting
success in ministry, or is he asking us to redefine success by looking at
ministry through a different lens?
Obviously we shouldn’t believe or
preach a gospel of prosperity, because Jesus never taught that the Kingdom of God would come and make our lives easy
and our wallets fat. However, as God’s
ruling power and authority infiltrates our lives and the world, we will
undoubtedly see the effects of His love, mercy, healing power and justice
occurring in tangible, earthly, immediate ways.
We live in a physical world, but it also directly affects and is
affected by the unseen spiritual world.
So if my ministry is bringing God’s Kingdom, shouldn’t there be a way to
physically measure it?
I think we need to find a balance
between defining success in terms of numbers while simultaneously investing our
lives in the places and people God has called us to without regard to
results. Both extremes are mistakes,
because while the former is faithless and short-sighted, the latter is naïve
and spiritually insensitive.
One of the dangers of looking for
numbers to define success is a purely programmatic, institutional approach to
ministry. Humans, and especially
Christians, tend to want a formula for success that has clearly defined steps
and easily implemented strategies, as well as lots of workbooks, media, catchphrases
and famous endorsements. Unfortunately
for us, the kingdom
of God is made up of
people, and relationships. In my
opinion, a huge and famous ministry with best-selling books, charismatic
leaders, and great music that lacks true discipleship—no matter how much money
is being donated or how many people are being miraculous healed—is a failed
ministry.
On the other hand, a willingness to
labor tirelessly and indefinitely in a neighborhood or church—investing our
time, energy, money and spiritual assets regardless of any return—based on
God’s call to that place or the needs of that place, has its own dangers. Complacency or burnout are probably
inevitable in the face of difficult obstacles like addictions, spiritual
strongholds, generational poverty or racism.
We can easily become blind to the truth of a ministry situation when we
avoid asking hard questions about effectiveness, strategic approaches to
ministry, or the possibility that God has called us to do something else or go
somewhere else.
Maybe one of the ways we hold these
things in tension is through relying on the diversity of the body of
Christ. We need faithful people who are
willing to work tirelessly, to pray constantly, and to invest themselves regardless
of the outcome. We need visionaries who
have an idea of where a neighborhood, church or other community could be in 5,
10 or 20 years, and who can keep reminding the workhorses of the kind of change
that is possible. We need conscientious,
detail-oriented people who will keep picking apart the nuts and bolt of a
ministry, trying to make it better in every way and trying to customize it to
the vision and purpose that God has for it.
We need prophetic people who can feel the movement of the Spirit and
speak it into the hearts of everyone involved, so that when God begins to do a
new thing or wants to redirect an existing thing, there is sensitivity and
willingness to obey.
Perhaps the best way to measure the
success of a ministry is to see what kind of leaders it attracts and what roles
they are filling within that ministry.
