When I played high school football, I found myself profoundly unmoved by the halftime speeches of my sophomore and junior year football head coach. Oh, was he passionate and determined to transform our small school (small in more ways than one) into a football powerhouse by running a University of Nebraska-type power I-formation offense. That approach works very well when your players are big enough and strong enough to overwhelm opposing teams’ players. However, I was one of the bigger players on our team at 180-185 pounds, hardly big enough to blow a big defensive tackle off the line to open a hole for a halfback. Then, during the halftime breaks in the locker room when the head coach was screaming at the top of his lungs and spraying spittle all over the room in vain attempts to rally the squad, I found myself entirely unmoved by his antics. I was too much a realist. During one halftime in a game when I was playing opposite a guy (later a friend of mine) four inches taller and 100 pounds heavier, who manhandled me the entire game, the coach singled me out for special criticism by asking, “Waldrip. Why don’t you handle that guy?” I responded, “Because he’s better than me, Coach.” The truth in response to his attempt to manipulate me shut him up immediately. Needless to say, I was furious at the coach for his ridiculous attempt to manipulate me, though he would have described his effort as motivation.
The next year we were blessed with a different head coach, an easy-going guy who had played professional football and had the crazy idea that high school football should be fun. And, boy, did we have fun. He installed an offense more suited to a team of smaller players that relied on stealth and misdirection, while taking advantage of our speed. The result? We won most of our games and thoroughly enjoyed that last season. Oh, by the way. That senior year football head coach never tried any of the halftime speech manipulative nonsense with his team. That approach never worked for me, and I suspect it didn’t work very well with anyone else on the team. However, when he taught his team how to play the game within the limits of our skills and abilities, and when he and his staff had an infectiously good time during practice, the results were obvious. We won most of our games and had a terrific time playing.
As I muse about young people leaving their churches never to return and young Gospel ministers leaving their movement for another, I wonder if the same kind of dynamic is at work as I experienced when playing high school football. Not that there is a one-to-one comparison between the spiritual aspect of church life and the ego-driven mania of high school sports in a small town, but that some similarities exist in the group dynamics of volunteer organizations that are led by passionate and goal-oriented leaders. Here I should inform you that my two high school football head coaches were similarly driven to win, similarly compelled to excel, and similarly in love with their chosen sport. However, one was far more successful in achieving the goal of actually winning games. In like manner, Gospel ministers can be equally passionate and goal-oriented leaders, driven to win, compelled to excel, and in love with the Gospel ministry, while enjoying radically different measures of success.
Let me address this matter of measuring success. For the past century, success among the ranks of independent fundamental Baptist preachers has typically but erroneously been measured by numerical growth. That approach to measuring success is quite tragic and counterproductive because nowhere in the New Testament is there any indication of the size of any congregation other than the first one, the Church in Jerusalem. We know the Jerusalem congregation was astonishingly large, while the sizes of other congregations referred to in the New Testament are never referred to in quantitative terms. Measuring success regarding numbers instead of the Biblical criteria of faithfulness has resulted in many modern-day Gospel ministers evaluating their personal success in the ministries they have given their lives to using criteria not found in God’s Word. Before the twentieth century, Gospel ministers sought with wonderful single-mindedness to be faithful to their calling, with such faithfulness not being in any way measured by the size of the congregation they served. Success was, therefore, a qualitative matter rather than a quantitative matter. First Corinthians 4.1-2 is important with respect to real success in ministry.
The question for my musing at this point has to do with achieving goals that are not outlined in Scripture. If concern for personal spiritual faithfulness of the type mentioned by the Apostle Paul is abandoned in favor of numerically measurable goals such as attendance figures, numbers of souls claimed as being won, numbers of baptisms, quantity of money raised, and so forth, what guarantee does the Gospel minister have that God will bless his efforts to meet such goals and objectives clearly not set forth in Scripture. Let me make this practical and down to earth. If numerical measures of success were pleasing to God, could Adoniram Judson be considered a successful Gospel minister, or even spiritual? The same goes for David Brainerd. Then there was Jonathan Edwards, who was fired from his pastorate and who spent the next seven years serving as a relatively isolated missionary whose numbers did not show appreciable growth before accepting an appointment as president of Princeton, after which he quickly succumbed to smallpox. Would anyone describe Edwards as a failure? Since God’s Word remains unchanged, and the criteria for evaluating success remains unchanged, two questions need to be asked: How dare we conclude someone who has served in a numerically small ministry is unsuccessful? How dare we conclude someone who has served in a numerically expansive ministry is successful?
Now let’s bring this consideration home to our young people and our young Gospel ministers. If a youth director or a pastor is driven to succeed, with his success (in his mind) measured by the numerical growth of his ministry, to ensure his understanding of success he will naturally resort to methods that are contrary to Biblical principles. This departure is guaranteed because God will only bless what He wants, what He calls for, and the goals He has established rather than blessing merely numerical objectives. Driven to succeed numerically, that misguided spiritual leader will invariably resort to manipulation to offset the absence of blessing from the Holy Spirit (Who is grieved and quenched by his concern for meeting unspiritual and unbiblical goals). And is this not the case in so many youth ministries, and the experience of so many young Gospel ministers? To be manipulated by a spiritual leader into praying an empty prayer, making a decision that is unfelt, or engaging in a pretend spiritual activity without any desire leaves the one who has been so manipulated feeling empty, unfulfilled, and used.
Granted, a considerable number of young people and even young Gospel ministers can be convinced by the persuasive and personally powerful, the leader with personal magnetism who stands before all on a spiritual ivory tower. In this world of salesmanship and coercion, many misguided such so-spiritual leaders can produce large numbers of attenders, professors, and baptisms despite the complete absence of indication in God’s Word that such numbers are a measure of anything other than what is counted. However, not all are convinced are they? And not even all who are convinced remain convinced. This is in part why they leave. They have not been built up in the most holy faith. They have been manipulated for the purpose of building another’s ministry, instead of being nurtured and cultivated for the purpose of seeing them truly converted and graciously grown. No real planting was done. No real watering was done. A great deal of manipulating was done. And they went along with it until they found a way out.
When ministry is oriented toward the right goal, which is to glorify God rather than bolster a preacher’s standing and ego, using spiritual faithfulness rather than manipulation, a different result is typically produced. Real Christians are produced, not automatons. Spiritual gifts and joy are discovered and evidenced in individual’s lives. And they stay. This is my conclusion from my musings.
