enroute

Last night, I was needing help with a project so I called a good friend and former youth volunteer of mine named Mark.  Mark is someone who I respect greatly because of his passion to serve God.  Mark was a great partner in ministry as he lead our mission trips as a volunteer.  Mark drag races on weekends and is very gifted with any kind of project that involves creativity and your hands.

I needed to resurface my daughter’s Macauleigh power car that we have in Radium.  It is a Jeff Gordon “24″ car that can reach speeds of 6 mph.  She is the talk of the town as she drives around Radium in it - more importantly for her parents it allows us to go on long walks in the mountains without hearing our daughter saying she is tired.

We were resurfacing the tires in Mark’s “drag racing” garage and we had one of our special conversations again.  Mark is preparing at 47 years old (as a single guy) to go to the missions field and work at Chain of Love orphanage in Brazil.  Our conversation quickly went to the question of what defines success as a Christian organization (like Chain of Love) or a church.

A few weeks ago, Chris (www.anewkindofyouthministry.com) wrote about success and I would encourage you to read it but more importantly than just reading it, I would encourage you to wrestle through what does success look like for you.  Once you have that understanding, I would encourage you to share it with your team.  I believe that one of the issues with defining success in our churches is that there are possibly hundreds of different understandings on it.

So, what is success is for you and your ministry?

- Is success that we presented Christ in a clear, powerful and life-changing way to our students or that we saw a conversion happen?

- Is success that we modelled the qualities that a Christ follower’s life needs to be working on or that a student made the right choice?

- Is success that we students interacting with the story of God that is unfolding all around them or that a student has walked through our curriculum plan each week?

I hope that this summer you will spend some time wrestling through what are the marks of success are for your youth ministry.

- Matt