Deconstructing the Success Syndrome with Faithfulness and Fruitfulness

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Deconstructing the Success Syndrome with
Faithfulness and Fruitfulness

• The race is not always to swift, nor the battle
  to the strong, nor satisfaction to the wise, nor
  riches to the smart, nor grace to the learned.
  Sooner or later bad luck hits us all. --Eccl.
  911, TM
• God Do not despise the day of small things.
• --Zechariah 410
• Do everything in love. --Paul, 1 Cor.1614

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• Glittering ImagesSusan Howatch
• We are all tempted to hide behind our glittering
  image
• Its much easier not to acknowledge our broken
  selves and only allow others to see our imagined
  selfthe self that has no problems, doubts or
  fears.

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• In sanctification God is restoring us to our true
  self in Christ (mind, body and spirit) so that
  our true self, the one created in the image of
  the trinity and renewed by the Holy Spirit, can
  fully shine forth. This is what being a fully
  alive human being is all about.

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• What are the ways my glittering image manifests
  itself? What are some reasons why my glittering
  image exists?
• Do I sometimes pretend to be other than what I
  am? Do I only allow others to see my best side?
  
• Is my life and ministry mostly about impressing
  others or is it primarily about loving God and
  serving hurting, sinful human beings with the
  love of Jesus leaving the results to God?

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• What is it to succeed in life as a mother,
  father, brother, sister, son or daughter?
• What is it to succeed as a pastor or missionary
  or DS or at your work?
• How do we know when weve succeeded? How do we
  know when weve done enough?

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• Father, I glorified you on earth by completing
  down to the last detail what you assigned me to
  do. --John 174, TM
• Is success a word we should use to evaluate our
  lives? Or, are there better, more biblical
  words we can use instead, such as faithfulness or
  fruitfulness?

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• There are too many peoplereally good, faithful,
  loving peoplepeople who love Jesus and love
  others--who feel like their lives are failures,
  who feel like their lives have not accomplished
  very muchbecause they do not think their lives
  have produced enough visible results.

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• Fusing our identity as a pastor and person is
  very dangerous. Being a pastor is a role we
  play. We pick it up and lay it down. Its what
  we do, but its not who we are. But our
  personhood is who we are before Godit is our
  relationship and worth before God.
• "It has not been a good year for our church. We
  have lost 27 members. Three joined, and they were
  only children."

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• There are times when success means keeping a
  person alive psychologically, and out of an
  institution, or physically, by keeping them from
  committing suicide. Success in the small church
  may sometimes mean simply survival, even though
  the deeper desire is to help the congregation
  maintain a vital witness in its community.
  --Thomas Elson
• Success is often much more modest than the
  culture of bigger is better says it is.

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• Be faithful where God has placed you (grow where
  you are planted).
• Its very difficult to quantify faithfulness.
  What counts as success in Gods eyes does not
  always make it onto our denominational scorecard.
  

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• God's question on the last day will not be, How
  much were you noticed? or even How much did you
  do? Rather, his question will be, Were you
  faithful in fulfilling your calling where I
  placed you?" --Peter J. Blackburn, Using What We
  Have

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• Fruitfulness

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• Fruitfulness pictures for us an organic cycle of
  planting, watering, nurturing and harvesting.
• Fruitfulness also respects
• differing local conditions of
• soil, sunlight, and weather.

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• As with seeds so it is in ministry local
  conditions matter. The people we minister to,
  the issues they face, their gifting for ministry
  and our gifting for ministry affect local
  harvests and the fruitfulness of our particular
  ministries.

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• The technology of the supernatural says, If
  you just pray enough, with the right amount of
  fervency or repentance, if you come up with an
  argument that God cant refuse--in other words,
  if we find just the right formulaour church will
  grow, success will result. (Eugene Peterson,
  Five Smooth Stones, 78)

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• Wesleyans believe in the cooperative nature of
  grace.
• Wesleys God does not act unilaterally like the
  extreme Calvinist understanding of God.
• The extreme Calvinist does not need human beings.

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• The Pelagian does not need God. The Pelagian
  says, If its to be, its up to me.
• A healthy Wesleyan-Arminian theology affirms that
  it is both God and human beings working together
  in a divine-human synergistic relationship.
• Human beings plant, water and nurture, but only
  God makes things grow (1 Corinthians 36).

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• What are the ways my glittering image manifests
  itself? What are some reasons why my glittering
  image exists?
• Do I sometimes pretend to be other than what I
  am? Do I only allow others to see my best side?
  
• Is my life and ministry mostly about impressing
  others or is it primarily about loving God and
  serving hurting, sinful human beings with the
  love of Jesus leaving the results to God?
• How have you been faithful to God, yourself and
  those you love in spite of overwhelming and
  painful obstacles?
• God's question on the last day will not be, 'How
  much were you noticed?' or even 'How much did you
  do?' Rather, his question will be, 'Were you
  faithful in fulfilling your calling where I
  placed you?'