What do you think success is?

 “What do you think success is? asked the boy. “To love,” said the mole.”*

Wow! What a simple, yet profoundly different way to evaluate my life than the standard criteria I have been conditioned/trained to use! These all have something to do with what I am accomplishing or have accomplished. Am I successful because I completed a graduate degree at a well-respected institution? Am I successful because I worked as a pastor in my faith community for more than 35 years? Am I successful because I earned enough money to own a house and invested enough money to support me in my later years? Am I successful because I have been married for 43 years, have two grown sons and six grandchildren? Etc. 

Nothing I’ve accomplished or will accomplish will amount to the proverbial “hill of beans” if I do not strive to live a life with as much love for others as I am capable of demonstrating. The only “success” criterion that matters is love. 

Even if you’ve read these passages a thousand times, I want to encourage every person who claims the name “Christian” to read them “again, for the first time.”

• One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, “Which commandment is the first of all?” Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:28–31)

• I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34–35)

• But strive for the greater gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way. If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.  And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. (1 Corinthians 12:31–13:3)

• Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet”; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law. (Romans 13:8–10)

• Little children let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God; and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him. And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. All who obey his commandments abide in him, and he abides in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit that he has given us. (1 John 3:18–24)

Can I be so bold as to call upon all church leaders (evangelists, pastors, teachers, ministers, etc.) to accept and embrace wholeheartedly that “love” is the only criterion that is indispensable when evaluating the success of your ministry? 

Please give up your tallying of ministry numbers (attendance, contribution, members, conversions, etc.) as your criteria of success. Your church can have all these in increasing measure and yet if your community is not known, internally and externally, for its genuine love for one another and its fellow humans, it is only a “noisy gong and a clanging cymbal.” Don’t let your ministry training or your denomination’s hierarchy pressure you to focus on increasing your numbers, but let the Spirit lead you and strengthen you to increase your love (Philippians 1:9; 1 Thessalonians 3:12; 4:9–10; etc.). Then, and only then, will your ministry numbers mean anything at all. 

* Mackesy, Charlie. The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse. London: Ebury Press, 2019.