For the last several years, I’ve attended a monthly gathering of pastors in my area. It’s interesting to hear (and overhear) the questions we commonly ask each other. Those questions often focus on Sunday worship attendance, budget, or remodeling and construction projects. From those conversations it appears that pragmatic church success metrics (bodies, budgets, and buildings) are alive and well.
Of course, I’m not suggesting that those measures are inherently bad or unimportant. People matter. Money matters. Space matters. But those aren’t the ultimate or primary measures of a church’s success. Neither should they serve as foundations for joy in the ministry.
In my decade of pastoring, I’ve undergone a shift in the sources of my joy. Perhaps I’ve had the naiveté of youth beaten out of me by the realities of pastoral labor. Have I grown jaded? I don’t think so. In fact, far from growing cynical, I think I’ve grown more joyful.
As a young pastor, I didn’t necessarily root my ministerial happiness in bodies, budgets, and buildings, but I often tethered it to externally verifiable criteria. I drank from the cisterns of productivity. I hoped for happiness in achievement. I was always looking for the elusive joy
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