New Baby!

Just a quick note:

Baby Erik Benjamin was born 6/14. He was 18.5 inches long and weighed 7 lbs 12 oz. Despite a surprise C-section (he had managed to work himself into breech/transverse position) mommy and baby are doing fine.

Success

In reading for one of my classes ("Principles of Biblical Leadership") I came across what I think is a great, biblical definition of success in ministry. In Shepherding the Church, Joseph M. Stowell writes:

Success in Scripture is a matter of living out our lives according to God's expectations and standards in undaunted routine faithfulness. (p. 90)

He goes on to list three components of this success:

What - The reflection of God's character and likeness through us
How - Commitment to goodness, faithfulness, and servanthood.
Where - Ultimate focus is on eternity, not on how impressive our accomplishments look in this world.

I think this definition of success does a good job of reflecting what God has called us to do and the broad example of people in the Bible who did what was pleasing in God's eyes (e.g. Hebrews 11). (as opposed to "cherry picking" only the scriptural examples from the book of Acts that show great numerical success)

Unfortunately, the professor of this class appears to have a very different notion of "success" in ministry. In his first lecture he told us "some people are not able to have a church of 2,200 people because they are just not willing to do what it takes to be that kind of leader. They just won't ever experience that level of success." This prof often claims that numbers are not the only measure of success, but what comes out of his mouth the rest of the time says just the opposite...and I've gotten up on this soapbox before so I'm going to stop now before I go on another multiple page rant.

At least the book I quoted from is excellent. I would highly recommend it for anyone going into the pastorate.