what is christian success?

Success – who doesn’t want it?

In leaders, the desire to succeed seems to be nothing less than hard-wired. Of course, some success brings with it unwanted complications – increasing busyness, for example – but by and large, the choice between succeeding and failing is not one that leaders have to think hard about.  St Paul, for example, saw setback after setback but was indomitable in his quest to put Christian roots down throughout the Mediterranean world: “I press on,” he once said, “to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me” (Philippians 3.12).  Part of Paul’s drive to succeed in his mission was his personality.  But a more significant aspect of his resolve was his faith in God’s ability to bring life from the dead.  He learned this from thinking through the basic dynamic of Jesus’ own life:  For Jesus, success was resurrection by God from his death.

Such a view of success is not easily translatable into a formula for Christian leadership in America today.  Type into Google some combination of the words “Christian” and “success,” and dozens of pages of platitudes, drivel and kitsch appear before your eyes.  Bible verses, random “uplifting” quotations and promises of admiration and material wealth are all put together in packages that have little or nothing to do with the historic roots of Christian faith in Jesus’ death and resurrection.

The early Christian martyrs, though, knew well that they would have to die to succeed as Christian leaders.  Their chief witness was their faithful perseverance in the face of certain demise.  They also knew that in the eyes of the world, such success would look much more like failure.  And that is the first lesson of Christian success:  It can, on first glance or to the world, look like failure.

My first church in North Carolina, while still a seminary student, was one filled with arguments, pettiness.  The fights in the parking lot were infamous.  On one occasion, we even had to call the sheriff to mitigate.  It was tough, and by the end of my time there, I was glad to leave.  I knew, in a matter of years, that church would be closing.

A few years later, while visiting seminary to participate in a panel, I ran into a young man who told me he was now serving that church.  My heart went out to him.  Such a dear young man!

“They still remember you out there”, he said.

“Yeah, I remember them too,” I said, glumly.

“Remarkable bunch of people,” he said.

“Remarkable,” I responded.

“Their ministry to the community has been a wonder.  That little church is now supporting, in one way or another, more than a dozen troubled families around the church.  The free day care is going great.  Not too many interracial congregations like that in North Carolina.”

I could hardly believe what he was telling me.  “What happened?” I asked.

“I don’t know”, he responded, “but one Sunday, things just came together.  It wasn’t anything particular.  It’s just that, when the service was done, and we were on our way out, we knew that Jesus  loved us and had a plan for us.  Things pretty much took off after that.”

But I knew.  I knew what happened.  Resurrection.  That’s what happened. 

That church, which by ever measure I’d used as their pastor, had been a failure.  But by the time God in Christ was done with them, someone had shown up, kicked open the door, and offered them peace.  And the Holy Spirit, in the spirit of mission and forgiveness that is the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, transformed them into something that the world’s measures of “success” just can’t talk about.

Our lives are not our hard work, our effort, or our planning.  Our lives are not frantic activity in the pursuit of “success”.  Our lives are gift.  That’s what we Christians call “resurrection”.