Tough Questions
I recently was asked these two questions by men I greatly respect:
1.) If God would allow you to build the largest, most effective church in your city but no one outside of your city would ever hear of you, would that be enough?
2.) If you planted and remained faithful to what God called you to do but God chose to never grow your church to what you thought it should be, would you be fine with that, knowing that God was in control?
I wish I could tell you that instantly I said yes to both questions but to be honest, I couldn’t. I wanted to say yes. But I had to really stop and be honest.
It is so easy as pastors to put our self-worth in our latest attendance. If the attendance was high, we feel good. If it was low, we feel like failures.
I am a church growth guy. I DO NOT apologize for that but if your happiness depends on your church attendance, you will never be happy. We think if we could only get to 200 then we would be happy. We hit 200 very quickly. All I thought that day was now I have to hit 300. We have hit 300 and I finally realized that if I don’t find my happiness in who I am in Christ, then attendance will never be enough.
My problem is it has always been that it was people with non-growing churches who said those things. Recently it was someone who God had used to build a church who said it. That changed my outlook. I mean of course a person whose church is struggling is going to say those things.
Do everything in your power to allow God to use you to build a church. Read, study other churches, learn from other pastors but at the end of the day rest knowing that God loves you no matter what happens. I don’t know if RSC will ever hit 400 (I have a pretty good idea we will) but if it closed down this Sunday, I could look myself in the mirror and know that I could not have given it anymore.
I have given it my best and guys, that is all God expects.