How do you recognize a successful church? There are many ways that people would go about measuring how well a church is doing. These might include:
- Size of the congregation
- Size of the budget
- Talented pastoral staff
- The church building(s)
- Number of programs
- How well known it is
There probably are other things that people would look for.
However, biblically a church is measured by its faithfulness. Technically, a small church could be more successful than a big church if it is more faithful with what God has given it.
I am not suggesting that all small churches are better than all large churches. My only point is that a successful church is not measured by the normal standards.
Paul describes the church as the Body of Christ in 1 Corinthians 12. A church where all the members are working together to fulfill the mission of the head, that is Christ, is successful.
This is compared, not with other churches, but with what God has given us to fulfill that mission. God will not ask us why we didn’t do as much as the church down the road, but what we did with what God gave us.
We will always be tempted to fall back to those things that are easy to measure. But in the end our eye should always be on the goal of faithfulness.
