What is “success” in following Christ?
“Americans are a great people; there is no doubt about that. They are great in building cities and railroads … Americans have a wonderful genius for improving the breeds of horses, cattle, sheep, swine … Americans too are great inventors. They invented or perfected telegraphs, telephone …. automobiles … They are great in democracy … Needless to say they are great in money … They first make money before they undertake any serious work .. to start and carry on any work without money is in the eyes of the Americans madness … Americans themselves are great in all these things and much else; but not in Religion … Americans must count religion in order to see or show its value … To them big churches are successful churches … To win the greatest number of converts with the least expense is their constant endeavor. Statistics is their way of showing success or failure in their religion as in their commerce and politics. Numbers, numbers, oh how they value numbers! … Mankind goes … to America to learn how to live the earthly life; but to live the heavenly life, they go to some other people. It is no special fault of the Americans to be this-worldly; it is their national characteristic; and they in their self-knowledge ought to serve mankind in other fields than religion.”Kanzo Uchimura
Can Americans Teach Japanese in Religion?
from The Japanese Christian Intelligencer, pages 357 – 361 – published in 1926
Wow! A friend sent me this quote a while ago. It sums up a lot of what I’ve thought over the years. I don’t agree totally with the author’s assertions, but there is a lot of food for thought there. As an “MK” or “third culture kid” it has been my lot in life to never wholly fit in anywhere. There is too much of my parents’ thinking in me to fit in locally and too much latin thinking to fit in in the US. It really drives home the Apostles reminder that we are but pilgrims in this world. Having been raised in different parts of the world has allowed me a different perspective on life. And the author’s assertion that folks in the US count success in religion by the numbers is very accurate. And this thinking has invaded much of the western hemisphere. Success is too often measured in terms of people attending, decisions made, offerings and tithes received and baptisms.
But is this what the Lord wants? Is He really interested in “success by the numbers”? Now, I’m not saying that big churches are sinful nor that little churches are more holy or pleasing to God. It is not that cut and dried. Rather, I believe that the Lord measures success by lives changed, minds purified, spirits submitted to His will, willingness to think of the next life as more important than the current one.
Right now in Latin America there is a huge “health and wealth” movement amongst the churches. They definitely measure their success by the amount of money received and the lavish lifestyle lived by the preacher and the numbers of people who throng to them seeking some kind of miracle. And it has been my lot to talk with a lot of folks who have been through these churches and find that they are spiritually starving. The same attitudes of the world are evident everywhere. So of what benefit is the Gospel if all it does is produce people like the world who have no savor of the Savior?
Last night we sat with a young couple and I laid it out on the table for them. The worse thing you have done is drag the Lord’s name into the slime and the gutter and shown people that He has done nothing in your lives. And the reason? Because they are so focused on each other’s errors that the can’t see their own need of repentance and restoration.
So, what does success look like? To my eyes, it looks like disciples being made, baptized in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and taught to live according to all of the Christ’s commandments – including the commandment to go and make disciples etc, etc, etc.
Numbers? Yes, they are important, but they do not tell the final story. 10 years ago I sat in a seminar that was supposed to tell us how to have a “successful church”. And then I went and talked with lay leaders in that very church. “Leaders” who did not know how to live their own life according to God’s will and yet were supposed to help others to do so. Leaders who, contrary to I Timothy 3, were recent converts – and yet expected to escape the snare of the devil. That church had relatively large numbers of people attending – and yet where was their true success? It was lacking.
Every day I hear from folks who want to change the world by magic. It simply does not work that way. It takes time and effort and dedication to God’s Word. If you feed sheep they naturally reproduce. They naturally produce wool and milk and cheese. IF you properly feed them and tend to them and fight the wolves that would devour them. This is not a glamorous life – but it is the life of the shepherd. If you want a harvest you must till the soil, plant the seed, cultivate the crop and in God’s time the harvest will be ready.
How do you count success? Simply by how many people show up each week? Or by how many lives have been truly changed by obedience to God’s word?
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